The dislocated dream of social media - technology, society and does it really all come together?

Having sojourned in my last post, in the Easter-break inspired summer-frocks and sun-hats frippery of opining about pottering online, am now re-donning the hard-hat of theory and evidence to address the big questions on all matters social media.  In this case, addressing my long-standing bug-bear of technological determinism and social media.  To be clear, I think social media is A-mazing in terms of what it offers us and for many, the positive difference it's made to our lives and communities.

But (yes, there has to be one) there are many who wax lyrical about the almost utopian effect of social media on society.  Virtually positioning it as an unquestioned and potent agent of change, empowerment, flowering of democracy, overthrowing of tyranny and capable of creating a perfect place where the sun always shines and chocolate is non-fattening.  T'aint always, necessarily so.  Therein gentle reader, lie the structural issues of education, infrastructure, economic development, power and plain ole fashioned adapting to the new offerings.  That then, is the the subject of this post's rant, er, reflections.


Recently, I had cause (OK, as part of my uni course) to read Clay Shirky's breakthrough book, Here Comes Everybody - How change happens when people come together.  In it, Shirky talks about the enabling impact of the internet to help people form loose collaborations and bring about a new era of group action.  Fundamentally he says that 'revolution doesn't happen when society adopts new technologies - it happens when society adopts new behaviours' (2008, p. 160). 

Which rather has reminders of the rise of the industrial revolution, when much of the technology already existed, but it got organised into something workable and profitable.   However, like the industrial revolution, I can't help but wonder if there's winners and losers ahead in this ICT revolution.  Who owned all the mills and factories?  Those who could afford them basically. I wonder if a similar pattern is emerging with online media, in that the big players, are those who have the financial resources and are pretty much simply turning out to be more, very powerful, multi-national companies.  And as for getting access and airtime - still a big issue of having the clout and reach to enable distribution to your audiences.  For PR practice, it's a evolving question of knowing how to respond to all this.

That said, there's lots to sit up and take notice of in the book.   Earlier this month Shirky spoke at the Guardian newspapers Guardian Open Weekend and if you watch the full hour of his interview he's very interesting (seems it's not available for download, hence the link).  I've generously watched it all for you and report that if you get to the 39 minute mark, Shirky is asked about a view expressed by Nick Denton at this year's South by South-West forum about the internet not delivering as much as were were led to believe.  Shirky says that he doesn't rethink his core position, but reckons that what's stopping us from implementing these 'conversational spaces' is that essentially we're still figuring out how to use this medium and reconcile the three elements of quality, scale and cost.

As Shirky says, a great benefit of social media is that it enables local communities to communicate better - organise a petition, get a blog going, start-up a local internet news-site, film an inteview with your local counsellor and put it online.  And the technology does indeed bring down the cost of doing these things.  But as a recent report from Nesta has found, Here and Now - UK hyperlocal media today, a crucial issue for hyperlocal media, is 'funding, discoverability, sustainability and visibility' (p. 6).  We're yet to see how this will unfold.  The technology and energy, is here to stay and I'd like to think that we'll see a lot of important positives, which I hope endure.  However, a small local community website, is going to  have its work cut out for it, in competing with the big media beasts for airtime and accessibility.  That said, local, social media will become a part of public communications, for example, if you're dealing with a local community on say a development issue.  However, it'll take some smarts to engage with it well and for that matter, respectfully.  And trying to pretend it doesn't exist or matter, will do you no favours at all.

Another issue to make one go, mmmh, with a furrowed brow is that of digital participation - who's online, who isn't and why?  The Oxford Internet Survey, in its 2011 report, reports that there are a number of inter-related reasons why people aren't online.  These reasons include cost, access, interest and skills.  I would wonder at the influence of confidence, cultural capital (thank you Bourdieu) and level of and ease of access to a good education.  For the UK, Ofcom reports in its Communications Market Report 2011, that broadband take-up across the UK is 74%, with a stubborn statistic in Scotland of take-up flatlining at 61%.  Ofcom's research also shows that lower broadband take-up is seen particularly amongst lower-income homes, DE socio-economic groups and older consumers across the UK.  For public communications practice, I think this shows that some care is required in any strategic communications plan.  Who is your core audience - does it include the groups outlined by the Ofcom report?  If so, there's a fair chunk of people who just won't receive your online message.

On the back of this are insights worth noting from Brian Solis.  He's a fervant advocate for linking social science with technology, particularly in his latest piece, Social media is about social science not technology.  His view is that, public relations needs to think more about the people it's trying to 'social media' with.  Solis suggests that sometimes, seems PR folk are so enamoured of their new toys, they tend instead to social media 'at' their audiences.  This is instead of the basic PR function of building relationships and listening.  Expanding on this is a conversation between Brian Solis and John Battelle in the video below.  Both gentlemen talk about how the lightning speed of social media developments are taking us to a place of a 'keyword driven' society as Solis observes, where context and meaning is getting lost.  That and the blurring of our various online identities and the need to regain control of that.  For PR practice they both reflect on the importance of using social media to develop those relationships with consumers and 'curate' a brand.

Lastly, the big daddy of these issues is the availability of ICT and social media in the developing world.  According to the International Telecommunications Union, of 1.8 billion households worldwide, one third have Internet access, compared with one one fifth five years ago.  In developing countries, 25% of homes have a computer and 20% have Internet access, compared  to 20% and 13%, respectively, 3 years ago.  Now this is progress, but note how it's still only about 20% of the population in the developing world with online access?

I recall, when as a mere slip of an undergraduate, learning about the New World Information Order and the New World Information and Communications Order.  Essentially, it was about how the media engages with the developing world, portrays developing world issues and the existence or otherwise of the nuts and bolts of media technologies.  Switch forward to the present and we have the UN's Group on the Information Society, which implements the resolutions of the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society.  Much of UNGIS's work is aimed at raising the level of ICT development and education in the developing world and linking it with poverty reduction strategies.  So these issues have not gone away and they clearly matter.

Ultimately then, yes social media is a great addition to our lives.  But it's not the great cure-all and its promise, a little dislocated.  Basically, that's up to us and how we want to use these technologies and the society we want to create, that allows for this remarkable potential to benefit all.