Internet Personalities, Viral Realities, Issues, and Implications for Empowerment

Abstract

As the Internet changed in emphasis from innovation to establishment, those network realities most relevant to analysis have changed. Present Internet appears confronting dilemmas about promoting socially effective transactions and social control. Some of the original logic of the utility of large networks has become difficult to follow as Internet appears to have pursued a belief in social orderliness. Internet personalities have emerged and substantially populated the network. Internet realities are presented as possibly understandable with an appreciation that the raison d'etre of networks has always been improved transactions. Bringing buyer and seller together to get precisely what is sought, at agreeable terms, is what networks are intended to accomplish. Transactions involved can be about commodities, ideas, or social realities including politics. Theoretical ideas from transactional analysis and artificial intelligence were presented to more productively discuss networks. The ability of reposts to create viral reality is analyzed. Several uses of “virtual” are differentiated. How viral and virtual reality phenomena are prevalent online influencing present Internet realities is considered. The success Internet personalities have experienced in recent years is analyzed. The Swedish personality with 95 million YouTube subscribers from the gaming niche is described. How a former Tennessee prep wrestler developed a large Instagram following from the fitness and fashion niche and empowered a professional wrestling personality to enter local politics is presented. Six policy goals, their stakeholders, and strategies from historical Internet development are reviewed. A research design intended to better define the paper’s research question and to improve relevant concepts is presented. Two image narratives were created. Theoretical sampling procedures were influenced by the paper’s analysis of networks, transactional analysis, artificial intelligence, viral reality, virtual reality, and Internet personalities. This data allowed interpretativism to develop some conclusions about changing Internet and politics and empowerment. Analyzing image data as to a statal-popular dimension and a spontaneous-planned dimension with cognitive mapping was explicated. From analysis of the two image narratives, conclusions about Internet and politics were reached. Virtual politics were discussed as influenced by both those who interest in transactions and those who emphasize social control as Internet’s purpose. Internet personalities were found to be supportive of Internet for transactions. Online politics appear to be much more likely to respond positively to candidates who negotiate transactions with the electorate. Viral reality was presented as influenced by both the transactions and social control Internet perspectives. Transactional analysis was presented as excellent for analysis of networks as manipulative.