Social Media and Human Development

Ali Zargari

In September 2019 The Division of Art History and Contemporary Culture at NSCAD University offered the first enrolment of the educational program Master of Arts in Art Education (MEAD). The program is unique within Atlantic Canada as well as North Eastern States of The US. The program, also, provides a very significant educational opportunity for students who are the members of different visible minorities.

I am a Gay person. I became honored by living in Canada under the status of refugee for LGBTQ2 individuals from the countries, like Iran, in which homosexuality is a crime. It was a great news for me, as a Gay refugee, to have an admission in the first coherent of MAED program at NSCAD University. The program had a very significant impact on Canada’s social development including diversity and inclusion within a Canadian Art school.

The beginning of academic year 2019-2020 was an appropriate time to inform Canadians about the new program of NSCAD University through social media. I started to create some GIF files with 3D motion graphics. All the 3D motion graphics contained the acronym NSCAD which stands for Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Then, I started to post them on Twitter with the hashtag of #ArtEducation #NSCAD #VirtuGital. It is necessary to note that VirtuGital is the title of the digital creation club that I ratified at the student unions of NSCAD University (SUNSCAD). Please see some images of my tweets with 3D motion GIFs. Some of my tweets were seen and shared over 500 times by Canadian Twitter accounts. Totally during fall semester 2019, over 15000 times those tweets were seen or shared. It was a perfect act of news publishing on Twitter.

As it is seen in the image below this tweet was seen over 500 times. On the right side, it is visible that during October 2019, my tweets were seen over 9000 times.

The role of social media in social and cultural development is very considerable. Although my actions are seemed to be ordinary actions of sharing some posts in social media, they have a very significant impact on Human Development; people are informed about social actions; it demonstrates how Human Development can be reset through social media. It, also, demonstrates that visual Arts constructively function in informing people and education people.