Network Culture and Social Media at Global and Local Scale

Rapid expansion of digital technologies over the past fifty years has led to significant changes in every aspect of life. While television broadcasting and satellite transmission were supporting transformation of the world into a global village, worldwide proliferation of the Internet usage has increased the acceleration of communication and removed boundaries of time and space. Since the mid-1990s communication has gained new dimensions with the emergence of electronic communication networks. In 2000s there has been remarkable transformations through fast spreading of networks. With transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, the masses have begun to communicate through social sharing networks, and among individuals with the involvement of institutions and various sectors, multidirectional collective sharings have begun to form cultures worldwide. Frankfurt School criticism on mass culture was declared in 1945 emphasizing the relation to cultural hegemony. Today, it seems that new dimensions of mass communication brought by the internet and social media have reversed this criticism. While the criticism was aimed at the hegemony of power focused an those who directed the masses through the control of publishing and broadcasting, everyone is an artist, everyone is a producer and at the same time, everyone is a consu-mer, today. At this point social media has emerged as an alternative for traditional media and it has been a collective power worldwide, compo-sing a new language, new society and new way of communication.