Week 6: The Multiverse and the Internet???

Happy Father’s Day to all my readers who are dads! 

As week 6 comes to an end, I reflect once again on the powers that be with the internet. In my last blog, I commented on how each article I read focused on social media sites individually when we should be looking at it with a holistic perspective. Because after all, that’s what the internet is in its entirety. The image below does a fun job of showing the world wide web based on foot traffic. Image courtesy of the internet map, which you should definitely explore! 

Another thing I reflected on this week was the new Spider-Man movie trailer, which led me to think about the greater Marvel Multiverse. In this multiverse, each reality exists independently, with its own rules, character stories, and events. Yet all these universes are connected through a multiverse where ideas, people and even entire storylines can crossover from one reality to the next. 

Can you see my connection between these two topics?

Just as each universe within the Marvel Multiverse appears to exist independently, each social media platform often feels like its own isolated world. Reddit has its own culture, Facebook has its own norms, Instagram has its own rules, and so on and so on.  However, much like the Marvel Multiverse, these platforms are not truly isolated from one another. Information, ideas, trends, and people constantly travel between them.

Think about the last meme, viral video, or internet controversy you encountered. There is a good chance it did not originate on the platform where you saw it. Instead, it likely began its journey somewhere else before crossing into your corner of the internet. This is why I struggle to think about networked knowledge activities as something that occurs within individual platforms. The most meaningful knowledge construction often happens between them. People collect information from one platform, refine it on another, debate it somewhere else, and eventually share it with an entirely new audience. The result is a network of interconnected spaces that functions more like a multiverse than a collection of separate websites. I guess that’s the whole point of our upcoming assignment where we curate our own section of the internet, LOL! 

Anyways, thank you for tuning in to my Sunday night ramblings. If you’re a marvel fan, let me know your favorite universe or storyline, I’d love to learn more!