To what extent does social digital media give us a sense of belonging - a 'collective identity'?

Social digital media enables us to create virtual profiles which represents who are are as a person. We are able to express our opinions and reveal our activities to many people who are also able to share their input through commenting on statuses. Using facebook as an example, people are able to have a sense of belonging by joining groups that they are interested in.

Social digital media goes against the marxist theory as everyone is able to create their own identity through uploading pictures of videos and being able to express their own opinions - meaning they are not all the same. 

Henry Jenkins' theory supports the idea of social media giving us a sense of belonging. This is because his theory mentions that activities such as upading profiles, uploading pictures and writing on eachothers virtual 'walls' is a way for people to experiment with their identities, and 'can be a space for exploring one's gender identification and sexuality'. Therefore, creating your identity and finding others who also share your interests will give you a sense of belonging.

 Another theory which helps to justify why social digital media gives us a sense of belonging is Merleau Ponty, who says that anything in which we use our bodies to create new things builds our identity. This c ould be related to Mark Zuckerberg creating facebook. He had a vision that people could connect over one large network of profiles. He created facebook which was him expressing his identity and many people instantly took an interest in the website which gave him a sense of belonging.

However, social digital media has downsides aswell. It can also be used for destructive purposes - something which was proven during the London 2011 riots, where many people used social digital media such as twitter and facebook to co-ordinate attacks. This helped to create a collective identity for the young rioters who teamed up against society. Social digital media can also be seen from Micel Foucalt's theory as  being 'obtrusive'. This is because when many people can create collective identities such as groups on facebook, some of them are going to clash and disputes will emerge. 

In conclusion social digital media gives us a sense of belonging as we are able to create our own profiles and find other people who share our interests, we can join groups that we want to associate ourselves with and can share our input through commenting. It can be used for both positive and negative purposes but nonetheless they create collective identities.