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UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 14 MAY, 2017
SOCIAL MEDIA MATTERS
“I am very much the beneficiary
of the sense of
belonging that one gets when one is from a very
specific small place,” said Maxine Williams, Global
Director of Diversity at Facebook. “This concept of
community is something we have had the benefit
of. We know who we are. There are less variables
involved.”
WilliamswasthefeaturespeakerataDistinguished
Open Lecture on Social Media and the Creation of
Global Communities. The well-attended address
was presented on April 10, 2017 at the Teaching and
Learning Complex of The UWI, St. Augustine, as an
initiative of The Office of Institutional Advancement
and Internationalisation.
Speaking in a register that deftly blended
formality and informality as well as Standard English
and Creole, Williams immediately created a sense of
connectedness with her audience and her childhood
home, Trinidad.
She shared a personal narrative of having the
sense that there was something “beyond” when
you looked out past Wrightson Road (beyond the
waters of our shores), something that made you
wonder about it, but something that ultimately you
are entitled to. We have a sense of adhering to these
national boundaries that we never set up. Indeed, as
a former Rhodes Scholar who has practised law in
the UK, been a broadcast journalist and presenter,
and has worked on development and human rights
issues internationally, Williams has never hesitated to
challenge that.
“I developed a sense that everything else was
mine too,” she said.
“The sense of community, for me, it was here and
it was there (too).”
It is understood that Facebook is all about
building communities that enable connections,
among them supportive connections, not limited
by traditional boundaries of geography, financial
constraints or technological divides. Indeed, in some
of the cases that Williams shared, knowledge was no
longer aspirational yet elusive, but a mere click away.
There were students using Facebook to form
global study groups even where natural disasters or
lack of wireless access would typically impede their
academic progress. There was one case of a woman
in the mountains of Columbia learning to compost
by being connected to an agricultural entrepreneur
in China through Facebook. In 2014, when there
was an outbreak of Zika in Latin America, Facebook
provided aggregated data about public conversations
around Zika that ultimately enabled UNICEF to
strategically reach out to the public. There is a
Facebook service called Safety Check which can be
AGlobal We
The Facebook sense of belonging
B Y D A R A W I L K I N S O N B O B B
Dara Wilkinson Bobb is a part-time Lecturer in The Writing Centre at the Faculty of Humanities and Education at The UWI, St. Augustine.
accessed if there is a crisis somewhere in the world
so that those affected can let their friends and family
know, through Facebook, that they are safe.
Williams said Facebook seeks to think globally
and act locally. The global communities created
provide a place and a space – a sense of belonging.
Indeed, said Williams, someone may be suffering and
feeling alone, and where scale is an issue there may
be no one around to support, but certainly there are
others around the world.
She noted that for every ten people connected
to the internet, one is trying to rise out of poverty,
and 140 million new jobs could be generated just
by enabling such an internet connection. As such,
Facebook is promoting a project called internet.
org including Free Basics to provide connectivity in
traditionally under-serviced areas.
Williams said with Facebook there are no barriers
to entry and it is free. Indeed, she said, having a tool
like this would be particularly useful, for we recognize
that there are things which are beyond us, but which
ultimately connect us.
Maxine Williams: “I developed a sense that everything else
was mine too.”
Bloggers busy at it during the lecture.
