Earlier this week at MTV's Video Music Awards, Kayne West got the crowds attention when he stole the stage from Taylor Swift and declared her award win undeserved. In another era, the story would have ended there; with just an upset crowd or, at most, word of the social faux pas slowly trickling to those most devoted music followers. But in our era, the era of social media and unprecedented connectivity, the story had just begun.
Within minutes of Kanye's outburst, new media exploded. Twitters, Facebooks, and Myspaces were all littered with talk of the outburst. From the casual MTV viewers, to high-profile celebrities, to legitimate news reporters, everyone had an opinion. Even President Obama's off the record comment that Kanye West was a "jackass" was leaked to the world by a CNBC reporter the following day on twitter. Wikipedia users were in an all-out editing war, constantly changing his biographical information in the wake of the controversy. One such edit allegedly included, "Kayne West is a loser who's mad at the world he's black." The story was a topic topic on news streams. It seemed every digital media had a stake in the story.
This poses some interesting questions about the role New Media plays in our society. There's been a lot of talk in this Web 2.0 world of new media's capacity for Public Relations and marketing. But this recent new media explosion shows that clearly there's a double-edged sword. Where new media can be an excellent tool for spreading good press, it seems we must also consider what role it plays when the news is more negative. We are left to wonder, particularly in this digital world, is any press really good press?
Photo by the Associated Press.
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