Reader’s Response Draft 1

Levi (2012) categorises various areas whereby social media is not widely used in his article, “Where ISN’T social media ubiquitous?”. He categorises these locations into a few main areas: areas where their “native language” is not supported by the more developed social media (such as Facebook and Twitter) and areas where internet is not widely made available. However, he asserts his point that the problem with “native language” is aided by the presence of second languages that are spoken in some areas. Also, “native languages” are omitted at times, due to political complications they bring.

The political complications here refers to recognition of language in contested regions. A “native language” that is recognised by an organisation might be interpreted as a form of political support. In contested regions, this might raise a few questions on whether the stand of a big international firm is appropriate in a regional conflict or if it is appropriate for large corporations to identify themselves politically. I personally feel that these corporations should not. Corporations should maintain a secular and neutral approach when faced with political issues.

Big corporations that identify politically has had their fair share of protests. One of such instance is companies that recognises Israel as a state. The conflict between Israel and Palestine has been ongoing for decades. When Amazon.com was revealed to have been involved in funding the Israeli military, it caused an uproar and mass boycott of the online store for its involvement int the conflict (Armbrsuter 2002). Although Amazon.com denied and claimed that it was due to false advertising, it has caused them to suffer losses and damaged reputation. People generally identify themselves with their political stand and opposing views are often rejected by individual groups. This would lead to an unhealthy bank balance for the corporations and would not be justified for such a corporation to be doing so, having built their reputation and size of the company. By denying, Amazon.com clearly feels that it was unhealthy to be associated to the political stand. Therefore, economically, it is not appropriate for big corporations to have such political association.

349 words

References:

Armbruster, S. (2002, November 15). Amazon denies backing Israel. Retrieved February 9, 2015, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2473005.stm

Levi, D. (2012, July 24). Where ISN’T social media ubiquitous? [Web log post].Retrieved from http://www.etondigital.com/where-isnt-social-media-ubiquitous/