Social Cache.
A Nemo blog. Dealing with uncommon cents.

In a recent post entitled ‘The Biggest Irony on the Internet,’ Ethan Bauley attempts to draw a line between Social Media on one side and Mass, or Traditional Media on the other. His argument is simply put; if there is a true arena that we insist on calling Social Media then clearly there is its opposite – Mass Media, Traditional Media etc, or Old School Media as I like to call it.

I liked the idea of defining the parameters but not the Google-bait moniker he had come up with to describe it – Industrial Media. [Industrial Media makes me think of heavy industries such as ship building or ordinance factories although it is true that mechanical devices are required to deliver most of old media...] I left a lengthy comment on his post. Here’s an extract – the animal references are a result of another fine post that Ethan referred to on a similar subject entitled ‘Dogs and Birds Can Make Social Media, You Can Too‘ by Bryan Landers.

…..so, when we consider Twitter or FaceBook as “social media” we miss the point. They are just tools that users think have a ’soul’ but there is no there, there, to coin a phrase. We are not connected at all – no dog pee, no ant colony eusocial structure, no bee hives – just blather, photos and updates at the base level.

Social Media vs Industrial Media seems a weak argument to me and just serves to muddy the waters more. Drop the term Social Media altogether and then we can just go back to broadcast, traditional or mass media on the industry side – it’s worked for long enough why change it now? As for what we are all up to online on social sites I would say that arguably we are not connecting the dots – we are sending technological semaphore signals that are being misunderstood, misread or mangled in an attempt to find the results we are expecting. Unfortunately those results will always leave us wanting. Throw a party, go to a concert, commune with your inner animal to remind yourself what socializing really means….or just follow a dog around its neighborhood and see how many times it stops to pee.

Here’s Ethan’s reply – “Ultimately, trying to define “social media” or “industrial media” isn’t really the game I hope to play, and I should be more transparent about that. In fact I think that pursuing a definition as an outcome of this discussion is tantamount to trying to “decide” whether or not In A Silent Way is “jazz.”

My goal instead is to share a little insight about what I’ve learned from books like TWoN, get some feedback on my thoughts, and help others and myself make better business decisions through an understanding of information economics (production, distribution, and consumption). Reading and thinking about comments like yours, I’m feeling pretty good about that goal.

In general, I find it a lot easier and more fun to design businesses and marketing plans while pursuing a systematic study of the economic differences between dog pee, Usenet, cable TV, et al. To that end, you might love Brian Haven’s piece from last week, All Media Is Social, which is kind of the happy medium between Benkler and your comment.”

Ethan is right, I do like Brian Haven’s post ‘All Media Is Social.’ He at least considers Nature.

When we wrongly consider technology as a ‘new’ medium that simply and efficiently transformed culture, business and society, we forget our own human ancestry. We leave out Nature. In our hearts we want to belong, to share; we fear dying alone and as we age we become thanatophobic – we fear dying. Individuality is an illusion. [By that I don't mean an individual's style, taste, fashion etc, things that set us apart aesthetically from others, I mean we are forever bound to being social animals.]

Here’s an extract from an essay of mine called ‘On Social Media, Blogs and Advertising:

“most people that take a position on social networking and advertising come at it from a technological point of view, as in “technology has created the means for everyone to be connected and to stay in touch.” I disagree with that statement because it removes nature from the game. It is entirely natural for humans to want to interact as often as possible as we are all social animals. Cities are no more artificial (technological) than the hives of bees. Therefore the Internet is as natural as a spider’s web. People who believe that technology is driving our interactions are missing the point – we ourselves are technological devices, invented by ancient bacterial communities as a means of genetic survival.”

As for marketers who wish to advertise on social networking sites, they must first consider our everyday lives before they consider our online ‘personas,’ – the ones we all make up as we fill out our profiles on social network sites. We are far more complicated than those shadowy online personalities suggest. Marketers wishing to reach the millions of people in social network sites face the same conundrum that pollsters face during a general election – if a Republican candidate for office were to ask a registered Republican which way she will vote he will get the answer she thinks he wants to hear – “for you of course.” But behind the secrecy of the ballot box curtains she will vote the way her heart tells her. In my online profile I may lie about my age, my sex and my race, my income level, my home town, my likes and my dislikes and more.

But, am I really lying? Maybe I am just reinventing myself for the digital age – giving people the information they think they want which can easily be shared with other people who also think they want it. Good luck marketing to me.

Tags: Bryan Landers, Ethan Bauley, Industrial Media, Nemo, social media

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 10:58 pm and is filed under Social Networking, Thinking, Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.