Goodbye social media... welcome back mass-media
Summary: Social media has gone away and become 'social distribution of mass media...'
There have been quite a few studies lately on what people Tweet and post on Facebook, and the large number of links that people share. Invariably, the links that most people share belong to large media organizations -- what used to be called mass-media.
For example, Nate Silver recently analyzed links to news sources and found that of the top 30 news sources, nearly all were traditional large news sites such as AP or New York Times, only TMZ and Politico were new.
A recent Yahoo! Research report found just 20,000 elite Twitter users produce 50% of Tweets (Twitter has 150 m users). Sounds very mass-media like to me, I bet 10,000 of those users are journalists Tweeting about their stories.
[Study Shows How Social Media Amplifies Mass Media - SVW]
Yet we seem to have convinced ourselves that we are living in the age of "social media" where citizen journalists are producing tons of great content and upsetting the balance of power in the media world.
Where? I don't see it.
I see a world of mass media where a few large media brands still control most of the media output and thus the conversation around the topics that they choose.
Where is the social media?
For example, in my sector Techcrunch, GigaOM, VentureBeat, ReadWriteWeb, etc, are media organizations with publishers and editors and all the infrastructure of any traditional news publication. Long gone is the time when you could describe them as "blogs" -- they are no different than any other media company.
Where is the social media?
Very few people write blogs or produce any type of media these days, people seem to prefer clicking a "like" button, or retweeting someone else's content.
It would be more accurate to describe this as social distribution of media -- it most definitely is not social media.
Even Twitter founders such as Biz Stone say Twitter is more about consuming media via shared links rather than people creating original content in the form of Tweets.
And on Facebook I see a lot of mass media links in what my network shares and very little that could be described as social media.
People are behaving like an online newspaper delivery boy. That's not as compelling as the original promise of social media, and its implied challenge to the powerful owners of mass media. Weren't we, the people, back in charge through social media? Hadn't we done away with the "gate keepers" of mass media?
It certainly doesn't look that way.
So, shouldn't we retire the term social media?
It's a sad end to a promising start of what could have become a new era in media.
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Talkback
Thinks like that have been going on for years
So "social distribution" has been around forever - it's no different today, instead spending our time and effort to push someone else's youtube video out to the world for them, free of charge!
RE: Goodbye social media... welcome back mass-media
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Social Media during the Japan earthquake and aftermath
Kathleen Wiersch
@kathleenwiersch
You are looking at only part of it.
RE: Goodbye social media... welcome back mass-media
I agree with your comment about needing to adopt a new name for social media, but I certainly don't agree with your chosen name or other remarks. We're in the world of digital communications and that is how I personally prefer to refer to this new era of media.
Also, we're just starting to scratch the service of this new media era and how we consume media on multiple devices, specifically mobile. To be a troll on this era already is like giving up on your profession. I'm sure you had valid points, articles, and arguments, but this is not one of them.
Some of the "celeb twitter users" in the social media world (ie: Gary Vaynerchuk, Chris Brogan, Scott Stratten, etc) hustled and authentically engaged to build up their following and brand. Maybe if you used the tool as a means of productive brand building or genuine interest to help others, you might find it more useful than you do right now.
horribly confused UCG and social lately?
UGC is actually augmented in the social model, but more as commentary than original content. My guess is there is not nearly enough of it to fill the demands created by social technologies ability to surface it.
RE: Goodbye social media... welcome back mass-media
I think you're spot on, and I've written about this issue with a similar POV in Advertising Age and on my blog, Dim Bulb. Despite all of the snits you'll get here claiming that you don't grasp the Cosmic Importance of Social Media, you've nailed the fact as these:
- The corporate takeover of both the means and content of social communication has rendered it less social and communicative than declarative and repetitive
- Expert and sincerely motivated individuals have made good money promoting these behaviors as synonymous with social experience, which they're not
- These and their actions don't change the underlying promise of social experience, which is unmediated peer-to-peer communication (i.e. REAL social)
- Perhaps such communication emerges apart and aside from all the corporate behaviors of which we're so enamored?
- The experts won't "see" it because it would challenge their authority and income. As Gil Scott- Heron said, sort of, "The Revolution Won't Be Socialized."
- Yes, we need a new name for what will come next/other
Anyway, well said,
JSB
RE: Goodbye social media... welcome back mass-media
It's not that the promise of social media is dead nor even that it the term social media should be retired because it has been relegated to being little more than a "delivery boy" for mass media, but rather that mass media adapted to the new age of web 2.0. We knew that it would; mass media was not going to shrivel up and die. But neither has the promise of Social Media shriveled up and died at the hands of mass media. The two can and should co-exist in coopertition.
The individual still has more power at their fingertips than ever before in history. That genie is not going to be stuffed back in the bottle. Social media has and will be a powerful tool to keep the big guys - whether mass marketers, mass media or oppressive regimes and politicians - looking over their shoulder.
So, if by, "a sad end to a promising start," you mean we need to revitalize the promise of social media to continually challenge, balance and, even, support mass media (and the other powers that be), then yes, I agree.
MySpace is lost, maybe Facebook also
RE: Goodbye social media... welcome back mass-media
Myspace was great before it was sold and they attempted to turn it from a music web page based hangout to a gay social media type setup like facebook. Hopefully things like facebook and twitter go away quickly as they are the scurge of todays earth. I would never say anyone who used facebook elite at anypoint. a bit of needy, possible social outcast who can't function in the real world yes..possible stalkers and pedophiles yes....elite no. I do hope myspace is sold to someone who reverts it back to a great personal web site type site. I'd love them to return garageband.com back to its original format before it was ruined and turned into the stupid iLike crap. Social sites are just so stupid and dangerous the only good thing is it does let you keep the idiots in one place so the regular functional people know who to avoid due to stupidity.
social is not just about production
Bob Thompson<br>CustomerThink Founder/CEO
Global Voices - globalvoicesonline.org an exception worth mentioning
RE: Goodbye social media... welcome back mass-media
Avoid them all like the Plague...........
RE: Goodbye social media... welcome back mass-media
No kidding
Before Twitter, RSS feeds were more or less produced by mass media, who "specialized" in reporting news. Everyday people typically did not go through the trouble to set up a XML document to report on their daily lives.
Enter Twitter. Suddenly, people are reporting on what they had for breakfast or what shop they are currently the "mayor" of. Of course, this is a hobby, so they tweet maybe two or three times a day at best.
Enter Mass Media on Twitter, with the resources to employ full-time people to tweet all day long. It's no wonder that Mass Media is responsible for approximately 50% of the tweets that show up, daily.
The Mass Media isn't the gatekeeper of information, but they are certainly the most prolific providers of it.
RE: Goodbye social media... welcome back mass-media
RE: Goodbye social media... welcome back mass-media
Social Media Provising Vital Community Information
RE: Goodbye social media... welcome back mass-media
Where? I don?t see it."