Relearning Who We Are

“HOOTIE? HOO!” Anyone who watches Bravo’s hit reality show “Top Chef” knows what and who I’m talking about. This reality show throws talented chefs together into a kitchen to whip up delicious meals under both ridiculous ingredient and time restraints. Basically, if you like food and a healthy dose of survivor-like competition, tune in. Carla Hall, one of the breakout contestants on the show has garnered a somewhat cult-like following because of her bubbly, warm-hearted personality, and a to-die-for chicken potpie recipe that I’m sure tastes just as good as it looks on the television screen. If you take a look at the video above, you can put a face to the name and get a sense of who it is I’m talking about. Carla’s that contestant on a reality competition show that is talented, not malicious, and a little bit kooky; basically everybody loves her.

            This season, contestant’s spouses and family members made guest appearances, and Top Chef viewers and Carla-fans (like myself) finally got to meet her husband. Carla and the man who inspired the “Hootie Hoo” chant, that has become her signature slogan, seemed like a perfect fit and so in love. When it was revealed that they met on www.match.com I was shocked. Carla on a dating site? How is that possible? How could people as normal and real like Carla and her husband have met online? People like that meet in real life!

There is something that irks me about online relationships and people who have met from an online dating website. I always question the validity of the relationship, how genuine it is, if it’s real. I wonder if people who have met online can ever truly say their relationship is genuine because I suppose that I am not yet used to the idea that relationships can form from social media tools like dating websites, Facebook, and even Twitter. As silly as it sounds, it didn’t truly occur to me that online dating sites do actually result, many times, in real, long-lasting, and loving relationships until Carla revealed how she and her husband had met.

Now I mention Carla Hall and her online relationship because in Cognitive Surplus, author Clay Shirky discusses changing times and new media tools that have emerged, creating new spaces through which people can pursue their interests and passions. Older media forms like television, print newspapers, radio, and early Internet websites created “consumers” who passively ingested information created and shaped by certain people, or gatekeepers. Nowadays however, new media tools allow for participation. Throughout the semester we have learned how these new tools allow consumers to turn into participants, or the “former audience.” No longer are we fed information, but we can question it, discuss it with others, and even produce it ourselves. New media tools have and are resulting in great changes in business-profit models and corporate structure, the journalism and news industry, and the way political or interest/hobby groups form and communicate with one another.

Shirky talks about how these great changes really force us to relearn what the world can mean. This requires a restructuring of what we’re used to, and the process is already quickly underway. That means we have to restructure businesses so that more transparency and better customer-relations can fuel more growth. We learned in The Cluetrain Manifesto that CEOs can no longer sit in their offices satisfied with their work, they must monitor and listen to their customer’s needs if they hope to withstand message boards and social networking sites that can quickly and easily give a company a bad rep. Professional journalists and news networks must now compete with mobile camera and smart phones, blogs, and the “citizen journalists” who can report a story faster and more easily than ever before. Political candidates have to tap into and use these tools in order to get more votes than their competition, and most importantly to our class in particular, group-formation and means of communication when working on social change initiatives can now involve people across the country and around the world much quicker and easier, which brings the potential to great change at the forefront.

So we are facing a great change both in what media can mean, and in that sense, how society and the world is structured. It means that previous gatekeepers must restructure how they function, because previous consumers are now capturing their role as participants. Everyone is “relearning” his or her role in society and what had been deemed normal for years. As I watched Carla Hall, a seemingly normal (actually great) individual reveal that her marriage was the result of a relationship formed from an online dating site, I had to relearn what relationships and how they form meant. 1 in 4 relationships now start online and that number is steadily growing. Old-fashioned dating rules are out the window thanks to these new media tools, and while these new relationships seem to be less “real” than others, who can really gauge what “real” is? The old view of online as a separate space is now over. Nowadays, our social media tools aren’t an alternative to real life, they are part of it. Shirky says that in particular, they are “increasingly coordinating tools for events in the physical world” (pg. 37). So while online dating may seem weird and somewhat fake, these relationships are very real, and mine and many others’s hesitation in believing so is because we have not yet “relearned.”

One of Shirky’s points that resonated most to me while I read was, “…the use of social technology is much less determined by the tool itself; when we use a network, the most important asset we get is access to one another” (pg. 14). New media is all about social change that is coming along with it. It is forcing us to communicate with each other in different ways, gives access to many more people, and has forced great changes to the gatekeepers in society and their role in controlling flows of information. I guess it took a reality show star to teach me to rethink how a relationship can form, whether online or in person, but this relearning is inevitable and I’m excited to see what’s next. 

The #HashtagRevolution

We have discussed in class and read about these gatekeepers of information in society. They control the media and therefore can control the information we have access to. They can shape and frame events to tell a certain story, whether it is true or not. Most importantly, they have that control and power to affect the way we view each other and ourselves. In The Gutenberg Revolution by John Man, we learn about the historical context and events leading up to the invention of the printing press and how much it affected society. The printing press allowed for the rapid spread of information to occur over 550 years ago, which led to an entire breakdown of gatekeepers and the influx of new thinkers on the scene. The printing press provided the access, and the people took hold of it-and ran.

            From history classes and COMM 100 last semester I felt that I got a good grasp on the impact the printing press truly had on the people, and reading it now, I understand that it is simply not a historical book. Sure, I can read it and learn about a certain slot of time, but it’s important to read the book, learn the history, and apply it to today, to our projects, and to our own lives.  

            It seems that throughout history, there are always these inventions, wars, agreements and other events that lead to great societal changes. Often though, while in the midst of a great change spurred by a certain occurrence, it takes years to truly understand the impact. It seems that while it’s happening we can’t really grasp our fingers around it. I’m sure Gutenberg thought his printing press was pretty nifty when he made it, but who would have thought we would be talking about it today? I’m curious because in classes like this one, where we study the impact of these new social media tools, we’re on the brink of what seems to be the next great change. If the printing press broke down gates, these new tools can break down stonewalls that were built solidly into the ground. What gatekeepers will be left to breakdown? Will we have a breakdown of government? Will we be able to police ourselves?

            Not to get too dramatic or anything, I want to look into a certain phenomenon that seems that be taking over, in large part due to Twitter. Nowadays I see and hear it everywhere. I see phrases, with no spaces in between the words, and yet somehow they make sense grammatically because of the hash tag symbol placed right before it. #Icouldbasicallywritethisentiresentenceanditwouldmakeitokay. That one was a bit too long, but you get the idea. On the Twitter sidebar trending topics you will usually see a hashtagged phrase on the list. It can be as simple as #itiswhatitis, #help, and #sidechickgifts. When you click on them, and read what people all over the world are saying, you get opened up to new ideas, things that make you laugh, and even assistance after a frantic “#help my itunes got deleted” tweet is published. Yes, that did happen. My whole itunes library was wiped out with no explanation, and when I tweeted about it with that hash tag, I was able to fix my problem and not get depressed over having to rebuild an entire music library. Things like that never could have happened before the hash tag, and twitter for that matter existed. It’s a little thing that is having a huge impact. We’re getting information quicker, we’re learning new things, and it’s for free.

One of my friends from high school before creating a Twitter, was honestly living under a rock when it came to current events and happenings of the world around her. Whether she was disinterested or not, her lack of awareness was really starting to get on my nerves. How could someone just not know ANYTHING about what is going on? Twitter changed her. I laugh saying that now, but as I write about her, I realize how important a new technology can be to people. Nowadays, she knows what’s going on in the world and seems like a regular person. Without Twitter’s approachable and easy-to-use interface with access to tons of information, I don’t think she ever would have caught on. Television, newspapers, and online publication by themselves weren’t doing it- she needed a tool to do so. Gutenberg’s printing press made a huge impact, and now we’re really learning about the impact social media tools like Twitter are having.

            Looking back earlier into the semester as the riots in Egypt carried on, we saw how Facebook and Twitter mobilized thousands to march and protest against a government they felt was not serving the people. These Egyptian protesters were not satisfied by what these gatekeepers were feeding them, and with the help of these new technologies, revolution happened. It almost seems that everyone is now in this giant network that is open, informative, and approachable. Will this completely change hierarchical structures of power everywhere?

            It seems simple, the # symbol. Who knows what the creators of Twitter thought would happen with that tool. Did they think governments could be overthrown? Probably not, but it happened. Gutenberg created something and although he may have had an idea of what he wanted the printing press to do, he could not have guessed how impactful it would really be.  People throughout history have been thrown into events, wars, agreements, and with emerging technologies, reactions and actions change. Gatekeepers can no longer just expect people to eat up whatever is served on the platter. Nowadays people are seeing what’s served, heading back into the kitchen if something isn’t to their liking, and getting what they want. Who knows what else will happen with the # symbol, but #icantwaittosee.

Who Here Hates Vevo?

I remember watching music videos on YouTube and it not being a hassle. I would type in the search box what I wanted, clicked the first result and BAM my music video. YouTube was and is great in that sense. You get instant and quick video content, can search for new things, discover different interests you may have, and communicate with others. Nowadays though, I find music video viewing via YouTube to be a far cry from what it used to be. Before I can even watch the video I want, I get hit with advertisements lasting between 10-30 seconds, with or without the option to skip. Some company called “Vevo” also hosts videos and its logo and ads takes over the sidebars and background to promote other musical artists and songs. I know, I know, I sound like I’m complaining, but in all honesty, can’t a person just once when accessing some sort of media not be hit with a blatant ad for sneakers, Gatorade, or cleaning supplies? However, this isn’t my only concern with the rise of advertisements on YouTube. It’s not even so much that that extra 30 seconds I have to wait to watch an HD music video is not worth it, but it’s the commercialization of what used to be a free and open video-sharing website that concerns me.

According to their Wikipedia page Vevo is a music video and entertainment website owned by SONY, Universal Music Group and Abu Dahbi Media Company. The Vevo service launched in 2009 and YouTube provided the hosting, with Google and Vevo sharing the advertising and revenue. The premise of the whole website is that it’s supposed to be a hulu for music videos, with the goal being to attract more high-end advertisers. The Vevo music channel has more views than any other channel on YouTube at  3.5 billion and therefore its traffic is heavily sought after by advertisers. Over my YouTube viewing years, I have noticed more and more music videos being hosted by Vevo. Even when I try to escape the lunacy of short ads before any video view by clicking on an alternate link, BAM, there goes Vevo again. When will it ever stop?

In Taking on the System: Rules For Change in a Digital Era by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, we run into some similar themes we have discussed thus far in class. We have learned about the changes businesses need to make to be more successful in this day and age. We have learned how blogs have allowed for the growth of citizen-journalism causing changes in the news industry.  We have also learned how social networking and other media tools have allowed for great social upheavals and changes. Zuniga describes his frustration with the government in the post 9/11-era in which government officials were being unclear about foreign threats and dangers, and how we spiraled into a war that today, is commonly referred to as a mistake. He was,” unsatisfied being a passive consumer.” He wanted to do his part to improve the world, but didn’t know how. That’s where blogging came in for him and other political-saavy folk who had an alternative opinion from what was being presented by the current media system. Their use of social networking and new media tools created change and today, although still a fresh concept, is now being more readily used by people and now, as we have learned from The Cluetrain Manifesto, corporations.

Zuniga breaks down one of the most successful and recent uses of social networking for change: the Obama presidential campaign. Campaign managers and strategists used social networking to reach new audiences, rally support beyond that of traditional media, and more importantly, outfox the competition. Zuniga describes how the comfortable and established are more invested in holding their positions of privilege than in risking new ways of writing, thinking, innovating, exploring, and governing.  He goes on and explores how these new tools have and will allow people to literally take on the system. So now, these new ways of writing, thinking, innovating, and exploring can take place. So what happens now? We have made changes, changes are in progress, but now it seems that all the “bad guys” are onto our strategy. What do we do now when the tools we used to make changes can now be put into the wrong hands and create bad changes? If Vevo continues hosting more and more content on YouTube, it could become the only place on the web that can legally play or allow other sites to embed their content.  So basically, the concept of a free and open video-sharing website would essentially be gone. It would become just like the regular tube.

This all harks back to a theme we have lightly touched upon so far in class; the idea that while these tools can be used for good, they can also be used for bad. Companies, government officials, candidates, and other groups can and will catch on, they will learn about these tools and create, like the music industry has with Vevo, a way to get profit in the end. They have a chance of winning and making a change just like the rest of us. YouTube has allowed for great talents and musical artists to be discovered, but it has also allowed the Rebecca Black’s to slip through the cracks. Bigots like Alexandra Wallace can rant on about Asians at the library. So we have to be careful because now that we all know how to “take on the system”, what’s stopping the system from reorganizing and reverting back to how things used to be? Couldn’t they then make things worse than before? Zuniga  does a great job of outlining how to take on the system in 2008, but now, I’m just worried about years to come- what’s next?

An Explanation for My Mother's Crazy Moments

            I was around ten years old and I remember watching my fourteen year-old sister gather a pile of leaves on the ground in our front yard. I stood out on the porch and asked her what she was doing and she just gave me this confused and bothered look that instinctively told me to stop asking questions. Secretly wanting to join in, I continued to watch as she finished off the pile. All of a sudden, my urge to partake in this little activity dropped. She jumped up and down in place three times, and all of a sudden she took off, running around to the back of the house. Before I could even yell out “what are you doing” she was back around from the other side. She even kept going, and she circled the house a total of three times. Hmm, now what was going on? My sister refused to talk about it, my dad had no idea what it could be, but when I asked my mother, her face lit up, “Oh! Good for her!”

            “What was she doing?” I asked.

            “Well, when you’re older, when you are becoming a woman **wink wink** you’re going to do the same thing. You have to, it’s good luck!” WHAT? I knew right there that I would not be participating in that rite of passage into puberty. No thanks.

There are others too. My mother loved telling me these little proverbs and tricks growing up that today I find hilarious. There are certain proverbs, or codes of moral behavior, that have stuck with me throughout the years. There is the classic “golden rule” principal which I turn to often, the lessons learned in Aesop fables, and that “don’t shit where you eat” rule that many people often forget to follow. While the lessons in these proverbs have stuck with me all my 22 years (my birthday is tomorrow), I grew up with a personal set of proverbs and moral codes passed down from my mother who have, for the most part, failed to alter my behavior. Some did stick with me, but others haven’t really changed or helped steer my decisions, rather they just provide a great deal of comic relief. In fact, I called my mom up just now as I write this paper to drum up some old lessons she would always try to get me to follow and we still find them all hilarious.

Now I’m not saying my mother did not instill in me good morals and values (I would like to think I possess good measures of both) because she definitely did, but some of her ideas just seem so ridiculous. Haircuts should be done before 6 pm; same with fingernails. New Years outfits should always have something polka-dotted, whether it be socks, a scarf, or a shirt, because the abundance of spots means good financial prospects in the coming year. That rule in particular ruffled a lot of feathers in my house, especially as I began to dress myself. Who wants to wear polka-dots anyway? One of my favorites (besides the Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret-esque ritual above) involves leaving a glass of water on your nightstand with a metal spoon resting in it. Apparently, if someone wants to harm you while you are sleeping, this glass of water will persuade him or her otherwise. You get the idea. My mother was superstitious to boot, and most of her ideas just seemed funny to me, they didn’t impact me enough to change my behavior.

Chip and Dan Heath explore this idea in Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. This instruction manual of sorts teaches readers what makes certain ideas, whether they are advertisements, marketing campaigns, political campaigns, or even social movements successful enough to change consumer, voter, and citizen behavior. The Heath brothers outline six fundamental attributes of “sticky” ideas, which are understood to be true and change behavior often permanently. They tell us that in order for ideas to be understood, remembered, and have a lasting impact, they must be:

1.     Simple

2.     Unexpected

3.     Concrete

4.     Credible

5.     Evoke Emotions

6.     Be able to be told as a story.

My mother always scolded me if I ever put my elbow on the dinner table and rested my head in my hand. She would say, “it’s a sign that you are not appreciative of what is in front of you.” She would then go back to her childhood, and shared with me stories about how growing up in the Philippines with less means taught her to learn to appreciate the little things people take for granted like the availability of good housing, clothing, education, and in this case, food. “Be thankful,” she would say, and right away my elbow was gone. Today, I still do not lazily rest my chin in my hand because that idea has stuck with me. While the other rituals, stories, and lessons my mother tried to get across to me growing up may not have worked to the degree of which she intended, this one did. My mother had a sticky idea, and it’s one that hasn’t just taught me how to have good table manners, it has truly taught me to be thankful of everything I have, and reaching further, to understand that no matter what, life is the most precious gift. Made to Stick  was a truly enjoyable read for me because it really hit home. It provided an explanation for why I laughed at certain rituals my mother would try to teach me, and why others, like the dinner-table scenario above worked. The simplicity of it, the unexpectedness, the concreteness, the credibility, the emotions, and finally the stories behind the idea were all there when she first swatted my elbow away. The other ideas didn’t have it, but this particularly sticky one changed my behavior permanently, and that I am thankful for.

Oh Malcolm Gladwell.....

Gladwell has done it to me again. He has made my head spin and go a little crazy with a similar barrage of facts, experiments, and scenarios that I read in Blink a few years ago. This time however, as much as I found myself surprised, excited, and a little dumbfounded by what he was saying, I was really trying to put The Tipping Point within the context of this class, and it helped stifle some of the head spin. That, along with the readings we have done so far I think sufficiently prepared me for Gladwell’s statements and writing style. Gladwell is really good at what he does. He presents us with real stories, dissects them, and comes up with a conclusion and theory as to why events unfolded as they did, all in a very clever and new way. He is able to take everyday events and occurrences, like yawning, and apply some grand theory that actually works. If you were wondering, I did yawn right when he said I would, and I noticed people around me yawning as well. Hence, the head spin. Regardless, I found Gladwell’s The Tipping Point to be a great instruction manual on how to create social movements, how to create real change, and he presents ideas that actually do work and that we can hopefully use in our upcoming social change projects.

Last year, I took a course titled: Law & Order: The Politics of Crime and Punishment, with my favorite professor, Brian Pinaire (I mentioned him during our first day). We studied the “Broken Windows” theory that Gladwell mentions in The Tipping Point, at the very beginning of the semester, and its impact on crime reduction in New York City. We used the theory throughout the class to evaluate stories of crime and what could really have been done to prevent certain events from unfolding. Since then, I’ve been using the broken windows theory quite a bit in my own life. There’s that stereotype that girls are cleaner than boys, but it definitely does not ring true in my off-campus house I have here at Lehigh that I share with 4 of my friends. I won’t mention any names, but a certain someone likes to leave empty or heavily used containers or jars of food in the refrigerator. Let me just say that opening a jar of pickles for your sandwich and finding nothing but the juice is one of the worst feelings, ever. It kept happening too. Not just with pickles, but also with Orange juice, a box of Triscuits, and the Tostitos. One day, I had an Oreo craving and when I reached into the container for one, they were gone. ALL OF THEM GONE.  Why keep the package there when it was empty? Why? I got angry but I never really said anything because I did not want to point fingers.

This happened for a semester, and finally, I decided to take preventative broken windows-esque steps to eliminate this problem. Rather than throw away the containers right away, I left them out on the kitchen table for everyone to see. No one cleared it away, and what began to happen was a big pile of garbage began to mount, just after a few days. Eventually, someone cleared the pile away, and since then, the pickle incident, as I like to call it, has not happened since. I took a small step, as Gladwell points out as being an important step in social change.

Gladwell’s main premise in The Tipping Point is that change happens, trends happen, behaviors change, and products catch on like viruses do in a group of people. He identifies three distinctive patterns that account for why certain items of clothing become stylish, why crime rates in dangerous cities like New York suddenly drop, and explains how it just takes one moment, one tipping point to really fuel a great change.

1.     The contagious behavior starts within small groups.

2.     Little changes have big effects.

3.     Change doesn’t happen gradually, all it takes is 1 dramatic movement.

Comparing trends to that nasty virus I got last semester? Genius. Once again, Gladwell got me.  This helped explain a lot to me frankly. Uggs? To my own disdain, I’m wearing them right now and Gladwell’s theory really honed in on this one. In fact, you could apply Gladwell’s tipping point to almost all trends, and it rings true. It’s all in the title after all. We have been wrestling with the idea of “little things making a big difference” when discussing the true impact of “Save Darfur” orother humanitarian campaigns via Facebook and other social media tools. Gladwell said that these online movements truly weren’t making a difference, and in his typical style, dissected a Facebook page enough to prove his point. Now, I’m just dumbfounded again, because it’s interesting to note that in his own book, Gladwell says little things make big differences, so doesn’t he seem to contradict his recent statements about the impact of social movements via social media?

Anyhow, it will be exciting to see how our social change projects play out. I mean, we have all the elements that Gladwell points out as being essential to creating these big changes, so can we do it? Will we do it? Maybe it isn’t Gladwell’s intention for Tipping Point to be an instruction manual for J325, but I am glad we have all read it. Maybe we did not get it yet from the readings we have done previously in class, but it seems that social change is happening now at a faster rate because of these new media tools. Nowadays it’s all about the new and innovative ways we can reach people and spread a message, idea, product, or behavior. We can no longer depend on previously established business practices, we need to incorporate all people into the messages we broadcast and spread, and more and more people are now getting involved. Tipping Point gives us a good way to now take those ideas and really make a road map for how we want our projects, or bigger more “important” movements to play out. We know from this reading that bigger isn’t necessarily better, it’s about quality not quantity and that once we have a hook, we have a real chance of causing an epidemic-for the better.

Shirky Discusses Organization without Organizations in Here Comes Everybody

 

I’ll admit that I’m not perfect and that often times I take for granted all the good things I have in life. As I write this paper in the library I am finding it annoying that the kid next to me is eating a really smelly salad and taking forever to finish it. I complained about the snow a bunch of times, oh and the ice. That stuff sucks! I think everyone can safely say that they have at some point or another (or maybe within the last hour) complained about something trivial and unimportant. 

I mean really though, are any of those complaints that I mentioned above that troublesome? At Lehigh, surrounded by intelligent peers and professors, I often forget how lucky I have it. Being at a top university, at any college no less, is a privilege in itself. My classmates and I are in an elevated place where we have opportunities to discuss issues of importance and have them be heard. Unfortunately for most Americans, they do not ever get this chance. Besides the fact that only a small percentage of Americans attend college, there are still large disparities that exist between economic groups. Educational opportunities are lacking for poor students, and the mere scarcity of resources at any given time makes it difficult to get by. 

People who don’t have money to blow have plenty to complain about that make my struggles seem absolutely ridiculous. Here I am, upset that I have to walk up to Coppee Hall after a snowstorm, and yet there are people who struggle to get food on their tables every night. They deal with overcrowded public schools, an often times corrupt or ineffective police force, lack of healthcare coverage, and not finding a job. 

Previously, only people in power or the rich could garner enough attention and support to make social changes. Today however, it seems that more and more people from all walks of life can get a message out to the public. Thanks to these new social media tools we have been discussing in class, more and more people are getting thrown into and involved in this conversation and are getting the opportunity to get their voices heard about something they care about. 

If reading The Cluetrain Manifesto and We the Media didn’t get it through our heads, Here Come’s Everybody by Clay Shirky hammers in the idea that changes in media are causing great shifts in society. New technologies and media tools are altering corporate business structures, the original and gate-keeping news networks, and now, as Shirky point out, the ways in which we gather together for great changes in society. The very ways in which we communicate to each other about simple everyday occurrences to outright revolutionary goals mobilizing action have changed and become more open and inclusive. 

Shirky delves deep into the inner workings of group action and the way that individuals in a group define society, not individuals themselves. His ideas of group action apply to organizations, schools, and businesses. He explains how new social tools are breaking down the hierarchical structure that was once necessary for these institutions to function. We learned in Cluetrain how businesses have had to alter their structure, and in We the Media we learned how journalism and the news is changing and losing its gate-keeping abilities. Shirky lets us in on how we change the way we work together because of these new tools, and how those changes can make a huge difference.

So what comes next? We have seen that in Egypt, the president has had to not only publicly respond to the protests and violence, but that he has agreed to not run for again for presidency, and has had to appoint a new vice president and other officials to manage the unrest throughout the country. That seems like a pretty big deal to me. A few years ago we saw Barack Obama use social media to his advantage and win. We see more and more citizen journalism trumping professional work, and these citizen journalists are rich, they are poor, they are your next-door neighbors. 

New tools allow large groups to collaborate, by taking advantage of nonfinancial motivations and by allowing for differing levels of contribution. This means that everyone can now participate. I can talk about something. You can say something. Those who previously were silenced due to financial constraints can say something. My complaints can finally be ignored when more important things are out in the open. Social change can now begin with all types of people. The previous books we read focused on business or journalism, but Here Comes Everybody really zeros in on the people. It zeros in on us, and what we are capable of doing with enough motivation and enough of the right tools to spur changes. 

The majority of us in class last week disagreed with Malcolm Gladwell’s dismissal of new media tools like Twitter. What many skeptics, like Gladwell, fail to let go of, is a seemingly unhealthy distrust of group action and low expectations of people in general. Maybe it’s my optimism that seems to be flooding my mind here, but I would like to think that at the core, humans are good and moral. I think social change, great social change at that, can happen. Thanks to these new tools like Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook, as Shirky points out, we can raise money for charities, make people more aware of problems around the globe, and get people talking! It’s all happening at a faster rate too, and everywhere we turn are groups forming together to raise awareness and make a change. To disregard these fundamental ideas that Shirky raises in Here Comes Everybody is to not be aware of oneself and the capabilities to change things for the better.

Dan Gilmor lets us in on "We the Media"

On April 16, 2007, my senior year of high school, I watched the news in shock, horror, and fear as I learned about the shootings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the subsequent deaths of 32 students and faculty, including the suicide of the shooter himself, Seung, Hui Cho, a student. Seeing a news report about a college-campus shooting while I was ready to head to college myself added an even darker element to the entire tragedy. I flipped through all the major news networks and channels hoping to get some form of variation, some breaking news leak about the shooter, or the status of the victims. While news stations began showing interviews of Virginia Tech students, hospital workers, and other witnesses, what seemed to be lacking from the reports was a real understanding of what had happened. How did a student manage to shoot over 174 rounds across many areas of campus? How did he do it? Who was shot? More importantly, did anyone witness it?

As I tuned in, I began seeing video footage of the Virginia Tech campus, police running around frantically, and the sound of multiple gunshots. The video quality was poor and shaky, but it was better than any other footage networks had been showing previously. This was what I wanted to see: raw, natural, and true-to-life eyewitness video. Every channel began streaming the video on repeat and I realized then that what was streaming all over every news network was not film from a paid, professional videographer or journalist, but a normal, everyday Virginia Tech citizen who happened to have a video-recording feature on his cell phone. That’s a new idea. The new technology, the phone, gave this normal, everyday person the ability to record a video clip that gave all viewers an opportunity to really experience what Virginia Tech faced that tragic morning.  

In We the Media Daniel Gilmor explains this phenomenon through his study of a grassroots form of journalism, he calls: citizen journalism.  At the Virginia Tech tragedy, the student who captured the video became a journalist. Had he planned to do so? No. Did he agree to get paid to film the chaos that morning? No, however I do wonder if he received some sort of recognition or prize afterwards. This was just a person who previously may have only watched news about breaking stories and events, now he was making the news himself. Video-capable phones had been a recent feature and now it was becoming more and more clear how important these new add-ons had become. That video was on every news station! He and the news networks could not have planned for that.

New technologies and most importantly web 2.0, the read-write web, has opened up the doors to everyday people being journalists themselves. For years, news stations served as information gatekeepers. They determined what was newsworthy, their biases may have influenced those decisions, and what we saw was somewhat of a filtered down and framed version of world events. However, as Gilmor points out, “the rules for newsmakers, not just journalists, have changed, thanks to everyone’s ability to make the news.” Cell phones have become much more sophisticated and packed with features; enough to the point where calling them “phones” is truly not a proper term. Smartphones like a Blackberry, an iPhone, or an Android are media devices because so many things can be done with them. Not only can you now call a friend if you witness a “newsworthy” event, but you can send them photos, video, and audio recordings that make the experience all the more powerful. Everyone is becoming a photographer. We are spreading information and therefore determining what is newsworthy. Nowadays, you turn on the news and oftentimes certain segments will be devoted entirely to viewer submissions. Therefore citizens and news networks are now deeming these photos and video clips as newsworthy, even if they are poor quality. These are the new media that are at the forefront of these social changes that make everyday citizens a part of the news we consume.

It’s not just journalism that is changing however. Gilmor references our book from last week, The Cluetrain Manifesto and how the read-write web also impacts businesses. Like the authors of Cluetrain he explains how the advent of citizen journalism allows for much greater transparency of company activities, even on actions company executives may have wanted to keep secret from the public. Gilmor says that the web is a very important development, “It has allowed more and more activists to shine a light on material that powerful institutions would prefer to hide” (p 52).  We already discussed in class how blogs and forums allow people to make their own business decisions independent of what company marketers want you to believe. We know that businesses have had to alter their strategies to account for a whole new way of viewing products. We also know that the Cluetrain authors alluded to much more than businesses being altered.

I began writing this paper in the library, and was interrupted by the sound of walkie talkies buzzing behind me.  I had been gchatting with my friend when I heard the familiar jingle of keys and heavy boots, turned around, and two Lehigh Policemen were heading towards an office in the back part of the library. I watched them as they opened the door, spoke to the head librarian and took notes. I wondered what was going on. Was there a security breach? Had something been stolen? Was someone in the wrong place at the wrong time? I reported back to my friend what was going on, and I reached for my phone to take a picture but before I could get a good shot, the policeman looked at me funny. Not wanting to piss off a cop, I went back to writing this essay. I realize how pervasive this idea of citizen journalism really is. Here I was in the library, my purpose being there to complete an assignment, when I witnessed some sort of event reported it to a friend, and was close to providing photographic evidence of the event. We are all becoming part of the media and we don’t even notice it.

Gilmor stresses the importance of us, the people, and how thanks to new technology, we are the media. We are determining what is newsworthy. We are finding the video, audio, and photographs quicker than any other professional journalist, and news networks have had to respond to us. No longer can we passively watch the news, we can go out, show people what we see, and then others can also have a clearer version of the world. We are the “new media” and as a result great social changes are and will be happening.