The Dean on «Social media and social movements» conference

Communication, Media and Design Department’s Dean Andrey Bystritskiy participated in second conference on the Internet and social media «Social media and social movements» in St. Petersburg, September, 18—19, 2014. He took the floor with speech concerning «The End of Media Revolution».

The conference was organized by The Laboratory for Internet Studies. The main focus was on how social movements have been transformed by user-generated online activities and what impact these transformed movements have had on broader social processes.

Here is the body of the Dean’s speech:

The end of media revolution

Not so long ago I had the opportunity to participate in the debate on the so-called media revolution, on the theme of imminent demise of traditional media. So I think that even if media revolution has ever existed, today it came to Brumaire for sure, not even to Thermidor.

New hierarchy of information dissemination was established in the new information and communications environment. Professional media which managed to integrate and digest all the latest communication achievements occupied the dominant position.

When everyone is too keen on something, you always want to step aside. Perhaps it is snobbery but it is not devoid of meaning – excessive exaltation is a sign of some internal dysfunction. Once Emil Cioran said that frank and full experience of happiness can not only enrage God, who exists or not, we are not firmly convinced, but it is also able to cause some internal disorder, to deprive a person of the internal contradictions and imperfections without which there is no knowledge.

The words above also refer to the notorious social media. Let's start with the fact that the definition of social media is quite relative, besides all the elements, which these media are made from, existed before. In essence, though my thesis is certainly arguable, it is made to emphasize that social media have quite significantly enriched human communication, but have not changed its content and not given it new essential qualities.

It was possible to compare social media with such subjects as the exoskeleton, which is now used in some armies of the world. Of course, exoskeleton reinforces the man, it allows him to lift concrete blocks or to jump about five metres in height, but it is quantitatively enhanced projection of the same person. Unlike exoskeleton, a car has changed our life far more qualitatively.

It turns out that social media simply animated the kitchen and gossip, which is interesting itself, but unwittingly suggests the inevitable emergence of new Luddites - those who deliberately minimize their presence on social networks, at least for security reasons. As during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands or Russia in the middle of the last century it was far more difficult to catch a social research interviewing leaflets with information of the BBC or the Soviet Information Bureau than today to figure out any hateful youngster or geezer busy with inflammatory hateful trolling. The illustration – Snowden’s and Assange’s cases.

 

And there is a question, is the creation of social media comparable with the invention of the wheel? Of the steam engine? For example, nuclear energy was important only in terms of military threat. Thus, it allows different countries, such as North Korea, to do different tricks. But in the economic life the nuclear energy has not played such a critical role. Isn’t social media a kind of nuclear power? It seems to be an exciting thing, a great brand, but - not really working. The same is about astronautics - magnificent, of course, but in fact humanity rejected it, behaving quite beastly on the Earth. Isaac Asimov wrote a novel «The End of Eternity». This novel is about the choice between running time and space flight. It is funny, that according to the author nuclear energy is an asset that can be used, or not. But there is even more important thing. It is Einstein's brilliant joke: «I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones».