Media Sosial: Antara Kebebasan Dan Eksploitasi

Communication technology has contributed to any social change, from printing press, to internet which include social media. The Internet presence plays an important role in social events such as Revolution in Egypt, Arabic Spring in Middle east. In Indonesia, social media creates social cohesion as seen in the conflict between Corruption Eradication Commission of Indonesia (KPK) versus National Police or case of "Gecko vs Crocodile", and "Coins for Prita ". This paper will discuss the social media phenomenon and explain who get the most benefit from it. The results shows that participants feel having the freedom to participate in public space, circulate media content, and establish friendships. Actually, what happens in social media is exploitation by the conglomerates to media users. Participating in social networking media such as uploading of video, audio or article is like the unpaid workers. Social networking media owners benefit from the ads. instead. Youtube benefits from advertisers, and facebook and other social media do too. Contrarily, users do not realize that their activities are part of the elite media economic interests. Furthermore, in cyberspace, there is panoptic surveillance: participants are being monitored by the media, although they do not perceive it