By Dan O'Connor on December 18, 2008
Leo and I were talking about large-scale ways of thinking about what we do. “Social media,” quoth he, “is the modernism of media.”
“But surely,” said I (for it was me), “social media is postmodern?”
“No,” said Leo, “Social media is a form of modernism. I’m talking as an architect here. By modernism I mean the democratisation, the levelling, that has happened in every other artform except, until now, media.”
“Ah,” I mused, “I’m thinking as a historian. I see modernism as the move from “revealed” truth to “discovered” truth, as in the Reformation or the Scientific Revolution.”
“So what’s postmodernism in historical terms?”
“It’s the move from the modernism of “discovered” truth to “created” truth. The truth is made not found. Truth is created through a process of mediation. I think that’s why social media is postmodern. Wikis are the obvious example.”
And then Iain made us do some real work…
Posted in Social Networks, Stories |
Dan is responsible for translating social media research into the analytic and conceptual frameworks which underpin the team’s product and service development. He is particularly interested in how social media has changed the ways in which people exchange information within networks, and the impact that these changes have had on traditionally top-down information systems, such as those prevalent within the health, education and NGO sectors, where he leads RMM’s activities.
Dan’s focus upon health and education stems from his background in academia: He has a PhD in History and, as well as being Head of Research at RMM, he is a member of faculty at the Berman Institute of Bioethics at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA. He has published and lectured widely on the ethics of social media use within healthcare systems, and is involved in the application of social media in medical education at Johns Hopkins hospital.
Dan likes cooking, martinis, and irony. Frequently at the same time.
Whilst i’m inclined to agree with you, Dan, I think Leo’s thought is not without its considerable merit.
Consider the following…
Social media is the very much Modernist when you consider an enterprise like microblogging wherein one is required to boil down what you want to say to 140 characters. As Clement Greenberg (art critic and formemost exponent of Modernism) says “The essence of Modernism lies, as I see it, in the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself, not in order to subvert it but in order to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence” – in lay terms; strip away all the fluff to get to the heart of the medium – what is it about the medium that makes it unique from others? In painting, for example, Greenberg saw this as “Flatness and the delimination of flatness”.
…I’m now trying to retrofit this logic to other social media platforms… hmmm…. I’ll get back to you.
In overall construct however I tend to agree that social media is Post Modern, even if in some instances it manifests as Modern in its enterprise.
Oh, P.S. this is me thinking with my philosophers hat on – I majored in aesthetics…
Of course, the other thing about postmodern truth is that you can’t quite be sure that it is true, owing to its created nature.
Right. Where’s my copy of ‘Houses of History’? I think I might understand postmodernism now.
Hi Ryan…
when I think about social media I think about social media marketing (this is my premise).
I believe that social media is nothing new, actually is the oldest way to do marketing… but it is a way that companies forgot when they decided to barricade behind KPI.
D.
my apologies… I put the wrong name! Sorry!
[...] Christmas Dan contended that social media is post-modern. A lengthy debate ensued in the office between he, I and Leo [...]