SOCIOLOGICAL AND ETHICAL ASPECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEW DIMENSION IN SOCIALIZATION AND COMMUNICATION OF AN INDIVIDUAL IN AN INFORMATION SOCIETY

Text topic: Digital Media Technologies

Text author: Мира Видаковић

Large expansion of information technologies (IT), especially the Internet, has led to a general social interaction and exchange, from which arises the Information Society as a very real but yet unexplored dimension. For all these new issues arising from this progress in human relations and communication, a question of moral behavior in this new virtual world also arises - the question from which cyber-ethics is born. Genesis of virtual community is sociologically explained by the fact that normal social life of a person is divided into three environments or spaces: the space where we live, space where we work, and the space for socializing with other members of society. Virtual community is by many considered to be ‘a place for socializing’, as it does not pose barriers that exist in everyday human communication. It does not specify age, gender, political or religious affiliation nor does it take family characteristics into account. This paper analyzes this “third space” where people gather for the purpose of socializing which has become very cramped in the contemporary society.