The 2011 high school leaving exam includes social media among the Italian essay topics, alongside traditional literature, history, and short essays. Have Facebook, Twitter, and other networks become the new platforms where the concept of fame is played out?
First day of the “” examshigh school diploma 2011: much anticipation and frantic searching for the exam prompts online. Just under 30 minutes after the ministerial envelopes were opened, thepromptswere also published on the web and what immediately struck observers was the inclusion ofsocial mediain the exam topics.
Specifically, theprompt on Andy Warholinvites students to reflect on the weight that the concept of celebrity has today, both in television and onsocial networks. Here is the full text, as proposed to the high school graduates: “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. The candidate should analyze the value assigned to fame in today’s society and reflect on the concept of fame proposed by the television industry (reality and talent shows) or spread by social media (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook)“.
The reality told on social networks is now increasingly the pivot of a sociality in which very young people seem to be totally immersed. Social media, given the preference granted to this prompt, are no longer seen as a “passing fad” but as a daily tool for sharing and managing one’s online personality.
Not only that: the weight social media – andTwitterin particular – have had in reporting crises in otherwise silent countries, is obvious to everyone.
Is this also celebrity? Probably it is a new celebrity, “responsibilized” by historical events reported in real time before being covered by newspapers and history books.
Of course, social media are not always used for such noble and demanding purposes: mostly – especiallyFacebook e Youtube– hide a world of “entertainment” sometimes at all costs.
Thus, becoming the idol of Andy Warhol’s famous 15 minutes becomes a challenge to boredom or dreariness: many misadventures are documented on social media, as news reports tell.
And speaking of news, how can we ignore the fact that now, at any current event, before turning to the interested people for interviews and filming, people search for theirFacebook profileand browse through photos and status updates?
Even investigators, in cases of crime news, take a look at the social media of the people involved, albeit with all due caution.
“I tweet, therefore I am”: it seems that being on social media is existing tout court?
Despite the hypotheses about the 2011 high school diploma exam prompts circulating in recent days that would have favored the theme of water and Fukushima as likely topics, ironically, the protagonists were under everyone’s eyes: thesocial media, precisely those virtual places through which rumors and hypotheses were circulating.
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