The Changing Face of Social Media
With few exceptions, most studies about the intersection of rural America and the internet concentrate exclusively on broadband accessibility. However, what is rarely addressed is the fact that – as usual – rural America is already getting by with what tools they have at their disposal. Why? Because their livelihoods are inextricably intertwined with their ability to get their opinions out onto the interwebz.
Take the recent case of the #YellowFail grassroots campaign. Michele Payn-Knoper over at CauseMatters did an excellent job in cataloging the furor unleashed by America’s farmers when Yellowtail Wine recently donated a hefty sum to the HSUS. In short, America’s farmers consider HSUS’ lobbying efforts to be harmful to America’s farmers, and they clearly have no qualms about protesting fellow farmers’ association with the animal rights’ group. And once they started the ball rolling online, there was no stopping them. In fact, Yellowtail eventually responded with outreach to the Animal Agriculture Alliance – working with them to repair the damage to their online reputation.
Did their outreach efforts work? It’s unclear at the moment, as there are still some bruised feelings surrounding the gaffe.
What I personally find interesting here is that this seems to signal a massive shift in online demographics and share of voice. As someone who has watched online communities evolve since the late ’80s, I can assure you that farmers never before held a significant share of voice online. Yet with significantly decreased cost of entry as of late (thank you twitter!), they have (pardon the pun) stormed the barn and made their presence known.
So what do you think? Are we seeing rural America come into its own when it comes to grassroots campaigns? If so, what do you think the impact will be?






Trend Graph: Once you input your search term(s), the first thing that comes up is the trend graph. This interactive line graph displays the latest percentage of tweets for your search topic in the past hour and up until 180 days. You can even isolate your own specific time frame by a simple click-and-drag.





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