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Written by Karen D. Swim
Has social media created a culture drunk with power? We pluck our members from relative obscurity and elevate them to the ranks of celebrities. As quickly as we create them we can destroy them with the click of a mouse. Our blogs are a platform, irritate, or anger us and our mighty keyboard will take you down and invite our community to scourge you in the streets.
Some would say that social media is the great equalizer allowing small companies to compete with big box brands and giving on the street reporters the same right of access as Joe or Jane Journalist. We scoff at the dividing lines that once separated Madison Avenue from Everyman for there is a new order and we are burning the symbols of tradition at the stake.
Yet, at what price is this equality? Can the masses handle the power?
We accuse the old guard of being entrenched in outdated ways. However, lately I am beginning to see the battle from another perspective. The old guard suffered the hard knocks and had to play by the rules Journalists could not go on air and call someone an idiot on the strength of personal experience or opinion. Facts had to support suppositions before they could be voiced. Citizen journalists are not beholden to an editor, network, or legal department. There is an up and downside to this disparity.
We live in an age where we can print, photograph, video, record and publish in mere minutes. We have the freedom to exchange ideas and resources across the globe. Yet freedom is never free of consequence. Freedoms are traded, exchanged, and often won at the expense of something lost. Every country has an ugly chapter in their history that demonstrates the dangers of extending freedom to some and not all.
We can use our freedom to trash a brand until it buckles from the weight of the scorned and acquiesces to our will. We can freely question the decisions of those among our ranks and ignite a debate that would have wearied Patton.
And why not? Nothing enhances visibility and drives traffic like a good old fashioned cat fight. Yet, what about the casualties we don’t see? What about the brands that fear our rules of engagement? What about the individuals that are splattered with the blood of our words as they sit on the sidelines? Are we creating unnecessary barriers between “us” the sage early adopters and “them?” Are we trampling upon the freedoms of the uninitiated to explore our streets of gold unhindered?
Freedom is beautiful but more so when exercised with responsibility. We have the freedom to talk during a movie but to do so detracts from the freedom of fellow movie goers. The opportunity to actively participate in the shaping of culture is heady stuff indeed. As we exercise that power let us also exercise caution. Let us not commit the sins of generations past but truly forge a new order that embraces and includes not isolates. Let this be the order that does not engage in a gluttonous feast of power as we taunt those without a seat at the table.
In this new day let us air our differences with respect or not at all. Let us exercise the freedom not to engage in battle, especially at the expense of another. Let humanity be our guiding force and our hearts the beacon that guides our choices. In this season of joy and celebration, perhaps the best gift we can offer is kindness and respect.
Do you have any ideas on how we can improve the way we interact using social media? Are there changes you’d like to see? Please feel free to add your own thoughts on this or any subject in the comments. Your participation is warmly welcomed.
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For me, the internet and social media are a great way for me to participate in conversations that I would otherwise be left out of face-to-face.
Just this morning, I was able to thank Dish Network for working with me to solve the captioning issues with my TV.
It is a scary world on the ‘net because anyone can say anything anywhere at any time. I like to think that the internet is actually a great way to have your character shine through and good reputations will always prevail.
Karen, this is such a valuable conversation. However, those of us that have this awareness have a responsibility to practice it. For instance, when I have a good experience with a company or with someone, I blog about it or tweet about it. I tend not to directly talk about the bad experience by mentioning names, etc. I just mention experiences that were negative for me and why it was so.
Responsibility + Freedom = Effective Leadership.
Applying restraint and not abusing your freedom is what makes you have character that draws others and allows you to influence them.
It is so important that we understand our impact on others. A recent study found that happiness spreads to three degrees of separation. So when we spread good news, it does more than just promote that business or person. What we are actually doing is bringing more happiness in the community which in turn has a financial benefit.
So important to understand how powerful each of us are!
Iyabo Asani
http://www.AuthenticChangeCoach.com
hehehe and that may be the greatest wisdom, to know our own faults and be aware of their um consequences. 🙂
Hehehe, my Mom is just aware that she’s NOT always a wise woman. 😉
At least when it comes to whether her “wisdom” should, on occasion, be (self-) censored.
ROFL! Chris, oh my gosh I had not thought of that but you’re right! Newsgroups got downright ugly! LOL! Yikes! I was never flamed and I was too terrified to flame anyone else. lol! Yea, your’e definitely a survivor! 🙂 I agree though there is so much good out there and more to come!
Makasha, boundaries are completely erased it seems! I also really enjoy social media and love introducing new people to it but you are right we have to be careful that in our own zealous use we do not alienate others. I don’t have a MySpace page, that one kind of scares me! lol!
Rhiannon, your policy is a good one but not one that everyone adheres to when separated by a computer screen.
Hi Jack, I am so glad you stopped in and those are great comments. I am glad that line troubled you, not because I wanted to irritate you 🙂 but precisely because it communicates the depth of what I feel about this power that is being wielded by new media enthusiasts. You are absolutely right that we can question the collective choices about taste (and as you mentioned our elevation of Paris and Britney to news worthy status certainly begs the question) and the answer will be it is an individual decision. What is different with social media is the ability to create a group around your individual preferences and leverage that into collective opinion.
Larry, your comment was stuck in moderation so I did not mean to pass over you. You make some interesting points about developing an SM reputation. You also touched on what is essentially the difference between traditional media and SM – accountability. In SM there is no accountability. As you noted individuals have the power to publish, approve, reject. But all great frontiers soon develop rules or run the risk of chaos destroying civilization. The ghost publication is one in which I am well familiar and it’s funny we state that SM is all about authenticity and transparency but so often the words are not those of the “author” and reputations are invented personas. Wow, Larry you raise such great points!
@Brad , a perfect point that we should all remember, people can quickly tune out if insulted. The flip side of that of course is what happens when you neither insulted nor misled but are at the eye of a firestorm?
@Kelly, your mother was a wise woman. We “should” but often don’t. Sticking our foot in our mouths should be enough motivation to take a beat and breathe before we type, but no sir, we’d rather let it rip and take our licks later. 🙂 Add mob psychology and sometimes little things get way overblown….
which leads to Joanna’s point – Joanna, I watched this debate unfold and had the same reaction, “what’s the big deal?” I thought that maybe I was too stupid to see the deeper meaning. Was I missing something? Yes, sometimes this medium is indeed baffling!
Ulla, you are always welcomed to add sentences, paragraphs and thoughts of any length!. 🙂 I love your hopeless optimism and by golly I typically fall on the sunny side of the street too. I would love to see more outreach and education. The power to reach, react, and inform is in my humble opinion a wonderful but powerful advantage. After reading about people like Glenda and our own dear Karen Putz I am more jazzed than ever at how social media allows us to communicate with everyone. My caution is that we treat this power with the respect it deserves and not use it for evil.
Sometimes I am glad I got so many knocks and scrapes in the early days of the internet with newsgroup flame wars and forum trolls, because it has never been so scary to dip into social media. The knives are out and people are not afraid to use them. But like Joanna says, there are positive influences out there so there is hope for us all 🙂
Karen,
“Can the masses handle the power?” Interesting question. Please forgive me for throwing in some sentences regarding the question.
1. I doubt whether masses already use Social Media. At least not here in Germany, where blogging is still a rather exotic way of passing the time.
2. I think that there is a lot to be done in the field of education. I don’t know whether “masses” can be taught to deal with social media properly, but a lot of people should learn how to use it, whether in schools, or in further education. And when I say learn, I don’t mean the technical aspect of it alone.
3. When word processing went WYSYWYG, a lot of people played around with design and fonts – with sometimes terrible results. (some of them are still playing around, I admit) But I have the feeling, that most people now are dealing with the freedom of design and fonts properly – why shouldn’t they with the freedom of social media? Maybe I am a hopeless optimist…
I hope this comment is not too long.
Ulla
For the most part, I’ve enjoyed being a part of social media. However, I tend not to like the spam and other irresponsible tactics others use to get their brands out there.
In communications, its important to know your market. Many so called marketers and publicists using social media are not properly trained on marketing tactics so their campaigns do more damage than good – this ultimately alienates potential customers.
Also, social media users tend not to respect boundaries. I cannot think of how many times I am asked out on myspace when my profile shows that I am a “married, Christian writer and mother.” Occaisionally, I am met with vulgar and mean language when I fail to reply or even turn the advances away.
Interesting post . I agree that all this new freedom also brings new responsabilities. One thing I always bear in mind is to never write anything that I would not also say directly to the person.
This line “Can the masses handle the power?” troubles me.
It strikes me as something you’d hear out of Feudal Europe, but I guess that’s becoming more par for the course when we begin to question the value of democracy.
And certainly, there’s the question of taste.
Do the masses reflect any level of sophistication and taste, and is that even important any more?
Compare that to power and one has to ask can ANYONE handle power?
In a world of Britney Spears and Paris Hiltons and Robert Downey Juniors, and don’t get me even beginning with the abuses of power within government itself, I think there requires from a civilized society powerful checks and balances and regulations to all those who wield one form of septre or another.
Karen, I get a bit baffled by the social media world at times. I couldn’t really fathom why there was so much kerfuffle over the Chris Brogan story at the weekend. Talk about a storm in a teacup.
Then late yesterday I read Glenda’s post (the one I shared on my blog today) and thought *this* is what matters, how social media can make a (positive) difference to our world.
Karen,
My mother used to say, referring to her own tendency to put her foot in her mouth, “It goes right past my lips without checking in at the brain.”
To me, that’s the difference between old and new media. We are free to let fly past the keyboard without running it past the brain–ours or anyone else’s.
Scary freedom, and not entirely a good thing. The only real solution, since it is so free, is to individually take care to run every word past the brain.
Just like we should in “real” life.
Regards,
Kelly
Karen your point about “Freedom is beautiful but more so when exercised with responsibility” is true. In the social media (SM) space, it would be good to see more individual aggregation along with external reviews to self-police this concept. (e.g. LinkedIn’s recommendation idea applied to SM contribution)
Being able to track user comments and history provides an indication of how a person uses SM. Rather than being discrete occurrences a users SM history creates a reputation. This has been happening with commenting profiles and the development of various trackback widgets. These tools are used primarily by those that believe in playing by the “rules.” They develop a reputation for positive purposes.
However, the individual holds the majority of the power since there is little repercussion. How about the individual or company’s choosing to use ghost publications to advance their agenda or malign others?
Hi Karen, here’s my two cents on a $10,000 topic. Respect for others is very important, as is fact checking for informational posts. Power is a funny thing – it comes and goes. It will only last as long as people tune in, and they won’t if they’re insulted or misled.
@Cath, I completely agree that there are so many positive benefits to the collective voices of social media. Look at some of the wonderful fundraising efforts that have been fueled by social media. As you noted, sometimes the power to use our voice for real change is drowned by the noise. I commit to paying more attention and supporting your efforts to raise awareness about the sex industry. By the way Andrew, Good Honest Dolllar has a very good post up today about the sex trade.
@Friar, *sigh* you are so right, and adds to my reason for never wanting pizza! lol!
“Can the masses handle the power?”
I doubt it.
You put more than 4 people in a room together, and they can’t even agree an what type of PIZZA to order!
Hi Karen – I was thinking that during the Motrin thing. I guess many of his contributed more because we had the power to get the word around, as opposed to feeling strongly about the Motrin ad.
If a company has really wronged us, or someone else – I think it’s fair play to use social media. But I would also like to see it used for more important things.
I’ve tried using it to pass on really important messages, including raising awareness of the exploitation in the sex industry. And folk usually don’t take a lot of notice. It would be nice if folk got interested in passing info on the serious stuff, as well as the trivial.