• Waryle@jlai.lu
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    3 days ago

    That’s a totally made up definition from your part. Media is the plural of medium, which means “intermediary”. A social media is just the middleman that allows people to socialize. Lemmy is a social media, as well as a social network.

    • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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      3 days ago

      Every definition is “made up” 🙄

      What I explained is how these terms are commonly used on the fediverse.

      And anyways, if “social media” and “social network” is the same, why have two different terms for it?

      • Waryle@jlai.lu
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        11 hours ago

        totally made up definition from your part

        You forgot the “from your part” that is quite important. Language is a consensus, you just invented your own definition and pretend that it is the consensus.

        And anyways, if “social media” and “social network” is the same, why have two different terms for it?

        They’re not the same, it’s the square/rectangle thing. A social network is a kind of social media, all social medias are not social network. You could argue that Whatsapp is a social media but not a social network (but the frontier is getting blurry with groups and these kind of things).

        • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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          9 hours ago

          Wat? Sorry, but your definition is even further from anything that could be called a consensus. You could maybe argue that WhatsApp is a social network, but it definitly isn’t social media and it is completly outlandish to claim so. Where do you even get the “media” part in it? You know, compound words are still made up of individual words that have a meaning by themself. Kinda funny that you accuse me of “making up definitions” 🙄

          But sure there are some blurry edges between them. For example, Instagram is primarily used for social media, but the direct messages are more used like a social network.

          • Waryle@jlai.lu
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            8 hours ago

            Where do you even get the “media” part in it?

            I’ll quote myself because I already answered that: « Media is the plural of medium, which means “intermediary” ». That’s the textbook definition of the word media, and the consensus about what it means.

            Whatsapp is the middleman/platform, thus intermediary (= “medium/media”), between two people socializing. I don’t understand what you don’t understand.

            A social network is social media that allows to form groups or communities. Two people communicating is not a network, the whole point of a network is interconnection between members of a group.

            • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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              6 hours ago

              No, that is not what “media” means. That might be what the original word in Latin meant, but in English it is used to refer to things like newspapers, TV channels and so on, and “social media” is a direct reference to that.

              A social network is social media that allows to form groups or communities. Two people communicating is not a network, the whole point of a network is interconnection between members of a group.

              Indeed, and that is why I don’t really agree to classify WhatsApp as a social network, but it has groups, so it is closer to a social network than social media.

                • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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                  6 hours ago

                  You are funny. That article links directly to what media typically refers to, i.e. “mass media”.

                  Ask any typical person around you what they understand if you talk about “the media”, and they will confirm that this indeed refers to what I am talking about.

                  The “social” qualifier is a direct reference to how normal media is a one way street and how publishing is only open to a selected few and that is what sets “social media” apart from it.

      • GunnarGrop@lemmy.ml
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        3 days ago

        There are lot of synonyms, people just choose some words in different contexts based on how they sound. Why use the word “begin” when the word “start” exists?