The Return Of The Community

I read this blog post by Thomas Scovell on SocialMediaNZ this morning, and it really got me thinking. Rather than the clichéd “social media is like totally the best thing ever” article that I’m normally faced with, it looked at it form a different angle and was really quite refreshing. After reading it I immediately clicked into the comment field and began chronicling my thoughts only to realize, upon looking up from the keyboard, that my comment was far too long and was repeatedly causing the form to time out.

So rather than trim it down and I thought I’d convert it into a rebuttal-blog-post instead. What I’m getting at is that before you read this I highly recommend you read Thomas’s post.

This section bellow is the one section from the post that really stuck with me and got me thinking.

Remixable and conversational new media; like zines, hip-hop, hypermedia and then the Internet have burst the spell/bubble. They are a re-awakening of our essential humanness, an interest in community, conversation and direct connection with those who produce what we consume (food, services, media…).

This is the essence of social media. Which is not a specific tool – but more like a set of wedges that we can jam in the cogs of the printing press and move from audience to participant – in terms of again participating in creating our culture(s), interacting with one-another and business.

First off I disagree and think social media can be a specific tool, especially for the individual. It all comes down to how it's used; some people use Blogs and Twitter as a means of "broadcasting" their opinions, and participating in the media - a channel/tool they utilize for self-expression. Others use facebook, bebo, myspace and twitter solely as channel of communication between them and their friends. And others use it as a one way channel for receiving information; subscriptions to blogs and twitter and facebook streams can all be fine tuned into delivering specifically tailored news and information directly to the individual’s pocket.

With that being said, I think Thomas nails it when he states that the way social media differs from other channels and tools, is that it resurrects the concept of a community. This is a concept that suffered a deadly blow at the hands of the printing press – and later television - as individuals no longer had to communicate with their friends and neighbors to get information and news. They could now purchase a newspaper and read up on all that was interesting, and news worthy from the comfort of their homes. The days of converging in the town square for a town meeting, and gossiping at the local pub or convenience store were on the decline.

As is the nature of all technologies and tools however they eventually get pushed to their limits and usher in a reverse effect (read this: McLuhan's Laws of Media).

This detraction from the community did exactly as Tomas stated above. It resulted in a scenario where the voices of the many were being overshadowed by the voices of the powerful. And everyday people began to long for a channel in which they could participate and express their opinions. Social media has stepped into this void by bringing back that sense of community and providing everyone with an equal voice. “Tools” like twitter and facebook essentially function as great big group conversations, or communities. Everyone can converse and listen to everyone else’s conversations. News and information is rife with opinion and comes from the mouths –or keyboards- of trusted friends and family. Businesses have gone from being faceless entities, to friendly community stores who not only provide goods and services, but also join in the conversation. The days of the community are definitely returning.

As Thomas says later in his post however the danger – I tend to think its an inevitability - of this is that once social media is pushed to it’s limit and everyone turns into “mini-mass-media beings, or micro-broadcasters” then we will become so overwhelmed with the opinions of individuals that we will once again long for a unified authority and source of news.

But at the end of the day that appears to be a long way away. And at the current rate that the technological landscape is changing who knows what that day will look like.

(Thomas’s post is the 1st in a series, definitely worth following)