Social Media Isn’t Conversation, It’s Publication
March 15th, 2010 |
The idea that social media allows us to engage in online conversations is getting people into all kinds of trouble, because what we’re doing when we click “Tweet” on Twitter or “Share” on Facebook isn’t conversation — it’s publication.
Imagine you’re chatting with a real friend in a real cafe. The following might be true of your conversation:
- It is just between the two of you, and not meant for others. If you’re not cautious, a couple of people might overhear.
- There’s no permanent record of your conversation.
- Your body language, eye movement and facial expressions can convey extra dimensions of meaning.
- Except under a few special circumstances, there are no regulations requiring prior approval of the words you speak, and no potential for legal liability after you speak.
None of this applies to the so-called online conversation:
- Anything you publish online could potentially be visible to millions of people. Twitter, for example, still has a thing called “the public timeline” where all tweets are reproduced and can be found by search engines and services that aggregate tweets. If you haven’t set your Facebook privacy settings properly, your status updates will be visible to everyone. (It’s unclear what everyone means. It could mean everyone on the web, which would mean 1.7 billion people, or everyone on Facebook, in which case it would only be 500 million people.) Anyone who is monitoring your social network activities (trust me, someone is doing this) only needs to take a screen shot to have a permanent record of something long after you’ve tried to cover your online footsteps.
- If you publish a tweet via Twitter, even if you delete it, some search engines maintain cache, a kind of memory, and will retain the information contained in the tweet. The same is true of information on other networks that you think you deleted. It could live on for years. There are sites like TwapperKeeper that archive tweets.
- There is no nuance or context at all for messages online, apart from the occasional smiley face or LOL.
- What you “say” online is increasingly subject to the regulations and laws that pertain to published, not spoken, words. If you worked at Nokia and told your friend in the cafe that a certain competitive mobile phone sucked, you would not be in legal jeopardy. If you did the same thing online, you might be construed as a representative of Nokia, and the FTC might not approve of your competitive practice.
I was chatting with Nadia Matos of CTV Southwestern Ontario, and I mentioned one of my favorite Marshall McLuhan quotations, “Publication is self-invasion of privacy.” We threw this idea around a little and together came up with the idea that online communications are a form of publication, not conversation, and a failure to understand this distinction can be troublesome.
Problems arise when we behave in so-called online conversations as if we are in real conversations. We say things without considering whether we want them permanently recorded in an online archive available to nearly 2 billion people. We tweet an offhand remark to a friend, in a simulation of a one-to-one conversation, which happens to be visible to 500 million people. Our most casual remarks are recorded for future employers, business competitors, customers, clients, potential litigants, political adversaries and others.
That’s because we’re publishing, not conversing. No need to worry about the surreptitious encroachment of Big Brother in this world. You may already have invited him in the front door.
| Sphere This |
What it boils down to is that traditional media have all but collapsed as a transmission belt to a company’s constituencies. Companies must now tell their own stories without aid of third party editors, printing presses, broadcasting towers, etc. This communication must be grounded in plausible truth and engaging enough to attract and hold desired audiences. In short, everybody is in show business today.
Now, how many people are good at story telling, presentation, and building convincing fact-based arguments? Very few. And that’s why they formerly gravitated to organizations that recognized and paid for these skills–magazines, analyst firms, newspapers, broadcasters, etc. A lot of them are being laid off and wondering about their futures, but as will be covered soon, the more flexible among them will rebound to deploy their skills in new environments.
Now for a couple of predictions. Commercial organizations are going to have difficulty wrapping their heads around the idea that successfully communicating their messages is going to require a certain amount of internalized journalistic skepticism (in the best, Cartesian sense of the word), playfulness, and willingness to enter into an arena where it is inevitable that they will suffer cuts and nicks–and remain cheerfully nonchalant about this kind of thrust and parry. Control freak executives who see corp comm as a winner take all blood sport aren’t going to lark–er, like–this one bit.
New media expertise is also going to going to require two distinct skill sets. 1) Content generation–story telling, journalism from the inside, etc. 2) Technical knowledge of how to work the rapidly changing social media pinball machine. I.e. how to transmit messages through the blogosphere, twittersphere, linkedinisphere, facebookisphere and other manifestations of new media sphere and loathing.
Although we live in a time of dizzying change, a new equilibrium is coming into view. Things will never be what they were 5, 10 years ago, but it won’t be long until expectations and techniques for getting messages across in the self-help world of new media become well understood and internalized as a business management function.
Comment by Otto Nordpol — March 17, 2010 @ 8:56 am
You are absolutely right. I came from the “bolt.com” generation. I was already on social networks at 13! Then came freiendster, then xanga, then myspace… I’m sure you get the gist. I didn’t even have a computer, but all my friends did, and they “helped” me sign up. Then we went about causing as much chaos online as we did in real life (maybe more). I don’t think any of us realized what it really meant.
I had my epiphany once I got a “real” job and realized that all my coworkers, manager, bosses, etc were friends with me on facebook.
Can you say panic attack? I realized that my social thumbprint would never go away. At first, I tried deleting all my social profiles. Facebook never deletes. It was just sits there, unactivated.
Then I proceeded to censor myself, remove all incriminating photos, and mum was the word babe!
After some time of this, I decided. Who cares? I realized that I never wanted a job that would fire me, or not hire me based on what I said in the social bubble, just like I would never want a job that wouldn’t allow tattoos. Just like I would never be ashamed to admit what I’ve done or said to a court of my peers.
It is liken to wearing a mask at a protest. At first, I covered my face. Afraid of repercussions, either real or imagined. But now, I march in the open, because I have nothing to be afraid of.
Comment by Amber — March 17, 2010 @ 9:01 am
I agree that we’ve all become publishers and also that social media differs from face to face conversations but I think there is an evolution taking place that I find fascinating - we are having these “conversations” and they are being forever archived - will we learn to be more thoughtful as a result?
I was in a bar having a casual conversation with some strangers when one made a claim about the length of a basketball court that I thought was wrong. The other gentleman took out his iphone and got the exact dimensions. That’s the kind of interaction that is more often found online than in real life; or at least it used to be!
On the other hand when anonymous comments are permitted the online “conversations” often become farcical.
Whether in person or on-line we all should learn to listen better, think before we speak, be able to admit a mistake and not be too judgemental. And of course remember that there are always consequences.
One other thought vis a vis your discussion with the third graders - the fastest growing segment on Facebook is the 55+ mothers. I wonder how that will affect the postings of their high school and college age children or even how it will affect the future use of Facebook among the younger set.
Comment by Jim Coffis — March 17, 2010 @ 11:35 am
I agree, there isn’t much conversation going on.
I rarely see an online conversation that moves beyond one or two exchanges, or that doesn’t degenerate into name calling.
I wrote a post about it: The Myth Of Online Conversations: Lots Of Chatter But Not Much Discourse . . .
http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2009/04/the_myth_of_onl.php
Comment by Tom Foremski — March 17, 2010 @ 11:41 am
Great comments. Thank you. And I enjoyed your post, Tom. I particularly liked your sentiment “One comment to an article is not a conversation. 300 separate comments on an article is not a conversation.” I think commenting is the most overrated measure/indicator of conversation. Many online newspapers have commenting capability on every item, including commodities reports. I have never seen anyone comment on pork belly futures. It is a thin varnish of sociability layered on top of news that is useful to only a few and not worth of discussion by anyone.
Comment by Joel — March 17, 2010 @ 12:22 pm
Tom, Joel: I dig the jist of this post, but let’s not lose perspective here…
The point is not that “most conversations are not conversations” [relative value], it’s that *millions of conversations can and do happen* [absolute value].
That’s the magic of personal publishing (nee “social media”?
Obviously this very conversation is a case in point.
One step further: if people aren’t commenting on that pork belly article, it’s only because the URL doesn’t provide the proper context (that’s where a service like StockTwits adds value)
Thanks for the constructive thought patterns, much appreciated stimulus!
Ethan
(h/t @MarshallK for the link)
Comment by Ethan Bauley — March 17, 2010 @ 3:38 pm
The problem is in calling it “conversations.” Feedback, or response, is a better term.
Social media is not about conversations it’s about the fact that we have wired up the other end of the Internet. We could publish to anything with a computer screen, now, anything with a screen can publish back. That’s what social media represents - publish back - not conversations.
Comment by Tom Foremski — March 17, 2010 @ 7:34 pm
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Could something a teenager posts facebook come back to haunt them when they run for President or Prime Minister in future? I’ve always been interested to see how cached and archived data like that will be used in future political campaigns.
Comment by Stefan Girard — March 23, 2010 @ 5:02 pm
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