Social media changes the way we exchange information. Today, we tend to speak socially online, today, we share information in a conversational manor, we comment, tweet, blog and podcast. Often from the right conservative voice, we hear comments about how iReport-style and similar grassroots efforts re-shape the journalism in a negative manor by introducing amateurs to the equation. I question this assumption, and ask how does that affect our communication aesthetics and degrade our culture?
On one hand one may assume that when there are too many people talking at the same time, the message begins to loose its power. Mixing noise with the conversation is not a good thing. I would agree to that when we listen to a well edited program or read a well edited paper, we understand the message correctly. One-to-many aesthetics take place. Social media obliterates this notion.
On the other hand we have a dirty information vs. clean reporting. How credible is the resource, how honest is the reporting. Aesthetics of mass media broadcasting kick in. Is this then becomes a yellow press vs. white press, and now adding amateur factor to the content. Social media breaks this aesthetic again and produces a message out of the noise. Chinese earthquake breaks through the great chinese firewall on twitter and sheds the light on truth through amateur viewfinder.
Is it really a pro vs. an amateur then? Or maybe… just maybe, this is just a learning curve for the society within its technological advent and professionalism begin to unchain the energy of the commons from the roots of the grassroots effort, in the middle of the office of his majesty the Editor in Chief.
What I am trying to say her is that in the process of social media democracy, in the noise of information coming from everywhere and very loud, we need to learn to tune ourselves to recognize the patterns of truth, as it reveals to us through the digital media outlets. We need to learn to distinguish and interpret a dialogue of many to many.
Skills of the editor and crafts of a journalist may become handy in this case only from a postmodernist perspective. The postmodernist aesthetics in this case represent the new art form of communication. Postmodernism, by definition, rejects theory and ideology; instead, it draws attention to the principle. Medium is the massage, yes, I read it correctly, it is the MASSAGE.
Let me massage you a little bit. Theory is the observed science of nature and sociology; ideology is the way we are looking at things. Traditionally, we see things a certain way, we express the world through what we know, what is common, and how we relate to each other. We say “this is a cow,” or “this is glass of milk.” Modernism reconstructs that idea by portraying a form through alternative reality. For example, “This is how I see a cow,” or “this is how I see a glass of milk.” Postmodernism deconstructs that reality to its bare minimum. Ok… confusing! In theory, it is a principle – a fundamental assumption, a visual expression, a new understanding of the world, without involving a subject, instead, concentrating on the subject matter, the theme, the state of mind.
The art of communication is similar to the actual art. When art began its existence, it was as important to the people in an everyday life. When art became ‘Fine’ (sculpture, painting, music, and poetry). The same thing in art of communication, it was something that belonged to the elite. Only a few could afford it, so just as the art of communication, the actual art became detached from the everyday life, from crafts and useful things, it implied something beautiful that took a “skill, superiority, elegance and perfection.” Fine art was separated from crafts and mass culture. So did the news. I often turn the local news off, because I can not stand the elitist perspectives of the Portland’s affiliates of news corps only reporting their versions of what happens in Vancouver for example. They only report what sells to them. Visual arts for centuries belonged to the ruling class. News today still belong to the elitest. But not for long.
Towards the end of 19th century, with the help of technological advent, art slowly soaked through to the masses. Social media in at the end of the 20th century slowly soaked through the internet into an average households. Technology advent once again is able to bring the art and the art of communication to the masses. Soon, masses wanted to create art and news themselves, so the mass culture was born. Social media aesthetics however are still shaping up.
In the 20st century, mass culture lacked immediate feedback from the mass audience. So did the media. Today we have instant and often overwhelming stream of everything into our brains, that used to the top-down approach. It was a top-heavy formula, it reflected the social construct of the 20th century. Capitalism, Socialism were top-heavy vertical models with the idea of trickle down effect. THEY NEVER WORKED! Today’s aesthetics of the social media promote the motivation from the bottom-up, the grassroots effort, the iReport, which represents the human struggle and broadcasts it to the society. The 21st century web 2.0 and social media networks, the feedback of masses becomes almost instant, in turn shaping and forming the mass culture, making it possible for artists and communicators connect with their audience and receive a feedback. The aesthetics of social media is the reverse flow to bottom-up approach.
Something is changing. The judgement of what constitutes quality for a long time and even today was controlled by the patriarchal art history, but today, that is different. The true art of communication lays within the apparent orthodoxy of postmodernism – the search of the new identity, re-mediation and remix, the rhetoric of the immersion and ability to translate the medium as the message, the aesthetics of the 21st century’s social media movement.
As I was watching Clay Shirky: How social media can make history, I began thinking how these new forms are challenging traditional narrative forms. One to many is a traditional way of communication. Many to Many is the new pattern that is a result of a digital technology innovation. As we digitize our books, our tv programs, our thoughts and studies, the internet becomes a resource of information, a centralized location, where that information can be found. As media becomes more social, media landscape differentiates more dramatically from the traditional methods of communication.
Textuality vs. Iconography, or maybe this is the evolution of our brain.