power to the people? w2o

The subject of my first posting for the Social Media Marketing & Communication class blog may not be the most positive or the most encouraging for the future of social media, but it is nevertheless at the heart of what it is all about. Perhaps the greatest advantage of social media is that it is now up to us as a common group to express ourselves on what is important to us, what we want to pay attention to and spend our time doing, in order to influence the powerful media magnates in a profound anti-institutional way. We can turn things on their head and challenge the powers that be.

Granted, the internet has opened up so many avenues to us all, from on-line encyclopedias, to on-line shopping and cybersocializing in all its forms. The yellow pages directories used to boast that everything was at our fingertips thanks to their volumes, but never have we had access to so much so easily. We can really let our fingers do the walking on the internet! People can surf, select, evaluate, comment and generally make decisions on purchases and politicians from just a few clicks that they have judiciously chosen or have been chosen for them by a search engine.

Several questions need to be addressed regarding the validity of the people's choices that will determine the future of this powerful tool called the internet, compared to the people's need for a more structured intellectual community to provide leadership on the internet and thereby impact society. Does the latter have a fighting chance in the morass of dumbed-down, if not base, expressions of the human spirit that we can see flooding the internet? Does the internet really change the dynamics of the People in relation to existing powers, in terms of their capability to change what they don't like? Another major concern is how people can sift through the completely false information that circulates on the web and not be taken in by these cyber wives tales. Cognitive specialists say the brain is evolving differently due to the influence of the click, click, click mentality and its multi-tasking companion.

First let’s take political power. Haven’t we always had the ability to change what we don’t like in a democracy? Does the internet change that? Was this truth simply an illusion or a missed opportunity to create the society we could all be proud of? The internet has the advantage of allowing us to access messages from the horse’s mouth, rather than rely on political analyses. It gives us opportunities to network and forge alliances that work towards our goals, whatever they may be. But I am afraid the People have become, or have always been, far too passive, myself included, in determining our own destiny and doing what is right for ourselves and others. The internet allows us to access a spectrum of opinions, but does it make us more receptive to opinions or make it easier to find comfort in ideas that support our own and ignore the rest? Can having too many choices make us a more segmented population? In the past, we had debates with friends whose opinions we valued ; today we seek out like-minded individuals.

The internet has changed the speed at which we expect things to happen and our level of patience with things that do not move quickly enough. We have reduced writing to a telegraphic style and some are incapable of going back to the basics. I do agree that language has an organic quality that should be allowed to breathe with the times and evolve. This has happened continuously over the centuries to give us a language that has been enriched by other languages, peoples, experiences and technologies. This is not a problem. But the diminished internet version of English is troubling. One of the basic rules of effective interpersonal communication is to wait for our emotions to calm before responding to another person’s comments. Too often, we respond off-the-cuff à la George Bush, to fellow cybernauts, without thinking things through intelligently, acting on pure emotion, supposed wit or just to crack a joke and amuse the gallery. How can we mentally process all the information around us in a logical, thorough way when we have bells and buzzers going off around us constantly: pop-ups, e-mail alerts and the like?

In spite of all the ingenuity of the human race and its accomplishments, there is a pervasive laziness that exists among us. American culture has always valued entertainment and is an impressive leader in the field. Will we use the internet for convenience, easy access and entertainment or instead to educate, inform, convert and serve the people in ways that will change lives for the better? Who do we turn to for direction? The corporate press that has converted to the internet? The same broadcast media that need to keep their advertisers happy? Radical intellectuals on either side? Or the man down the street plugging away at his computer - the guy you used to debate things with over coffee or a beer? Maybe the substance of our lives hasn’t changed that much over the past 15 years. Perhaps the difference is purely - virtual.