Throughout history, most large
social changes where met with resistance. If we look at the Civil Rights
Movement in the United States, there was social unrest. People wanted to be
treated like people and those who had the power where afraid to give it up. The
same can be said for the advent of cultures. In the early history of the
Christian church, Christians were just another Jewish sect but, as it became
apparent they were not going anywhere, they were met with resistance from the
Sanhedrin, the established Jewish leadership of the day. It is fair to say that
a similar change is occurring within the communications society. Communications
has come a long way since drawings on cave walls were used to tell stories.
When Gutenberg combined technology with communications, it opened up a whole
new level to communications. Communication began to have mass and, with this
mass, came a new culture. Like any culture, though, certain people, the early adapters of the day, grabbed power within this new culture and became
established powers. Eventually, communication became even more widespread with
the radio and television and a few more people or organizations were allowed
into the culture that mass media and mass communications had constructed.
Finally, the Internet was invented.
After a few years, some companies
realized the potential for social media networking. This did something to the
communications culture that had never been done before. It opened it up to
everybody. It completely changed the culture. This is important because, like
those early Christians and those who were fighting for civil rights, this
movement has been met with resistance. There are several reports that discuss
the lack of adoption of social network sites by organizations and businesses.
Even when these sites are adopted by organizations and businesses it appears
that they adopt an older model of communication while using social media. By
that I mean that they use these social networks to simply promote a particular
object or idea. This may have worked with traditional forms of mass media but
as the Internet has been made available to almost everyone the interesting
effect of that is that the Internet and social media has broken into homogeneous groups. The reason that this is important and the reason that businesses and organizations
should perhaps not look down on social media as an outlet is that, if they
allow the different sites work in the manner in which they were intended, they
may find it easier to accomplish their goals. It is true that the goals would
not be accomplished in the manner to which they are accustomed and therein lies
the problem.
It is difficult to convince those
who are uncomfortable with something that they can and should use that very
thing to accomplish their goals. Communicators are no different. In his TED
talk, Alexis Ohanian makes the point that a group named Greenpeace was trying
to save humpback whales. They wanted to name a whale that they planned on
tracking and had come up with all sorts of meaningful names to give the whale.
The Internet, however, decided on the less meaningful (to Greenpeace anyways)
name of Mr. Splashy Pants. With the immense popularity of Mr. Splashy Pants
came the needed pressure to help guard humpback whales. This is an important
lesson in that a group that truly wants to use the Internet and social sites to
affect change in the world should let those sites and the people that frequent
them be themselves. Even if those people who use social media do not act the
way that the organization thinks they should act or think the way they think
they should think, things will still get done and goals can still be met.
An example of this happened fairly
recently on YouTube. YouTube, like most social media sites, are specialized to
allow for people to join those homogeneous groups that they seek. One of the
channels on YouTube is called Geek and Sundry. On this channel is a show called
Table Top that is hosted by Wil Wheaton (any Trekkie nerds reading this can
give a squeal of delight). Table Top creators Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day are
big into “nerd” culture and so many of the followers of this channel or those
who may be labeled nerd or geek. They decided to create what they called
International Table Top Day. The point of this day was to get as many people in
as many places as they could to play board games throughout the day. This
became a huge event. They had board game days all over the world. There were
events in all 50 states and on all 7 continents (yes, even in Antarctica). The hash-tag #tabletop trended on Twitter all day and by the end of the day there
had been a large number of people reached.
I bring this up because Wil Wheaton
shares on YouTube the reason that board games are so important to him. The
reason that board games are important to him is because that is how he gets
close to his friends and family. The most notable of his family are his two
adopted sons. Now, if a group whose sole purpose was to build family unity had
gotten on board with this such as the group Focus on the Family, which is a
faith based, conservative group that focus on the health of the nuclear family,
their message could have been spread world-wide. This is not to say that Focus
on the Family is not effective but their website, http://www.focusonthefamily.com/,
shows that they use a traditional form of communication. Yes, they have a
Facebook group and a Twitter account but these accounts are just an extension
of their traditional communication. If
they had partnered with the Geek and Sundry and Table Top they could have
extended their influence or at least their message to a group of people who
otherwise would not have known about them. Also, if Wil Wheaton’s experience
with board games is shared by those played on that day and families were
brought closer together, then Focus on the Family’s ultimate goal would have
been accomplished.
I do not say this to degrade Focus
on the Family but to point out that it is time that organizations allow the
Internet to work the way it was intended. It has its own way of communicating
and this makes traditional communicators nervous. But if these organizations
are smart they will allow these social sites to work with them; not for them or
against them. That is an important distinction and one that most traditional
communicators are not necessarily comfortable with.
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