Social Media & the Protestant Reformation

By Andrew Ausanka-Crues -- The rise of social media has been a popular topic for pundits of all stripes to pontificate and speculate on. As in all new and unfamiliar communication advancements we see experts clamoring for attention with claims such as email's "reign is over" (link is from a 2009 article) to professional athletes asserting "social media is ruining the world."

The truth of the matter is the human experience has a rich and diverse set of experiences from which to draw upon when attempting to analyze the impact disruptive communication technologies have on societies. The Economist, one of my favorite magazines (or, as they prefer, newspaper) has an excellent article in their annual double issue entitled "How Luther Went Viral".

The delivery of news is changing from an oligarchy of content providers to a diverse, plentiful and fragmented group of producers -- namely you and I. For instance, while the NY Times still plays an outsized role in establishing the news narrative the public receives (local newspapers, TV stations and radio programs taking the Times led) it no longer has nearly the clout it once had.

From the article:

The media environment that Luther had shown himself so adept at managing had much in common with today’s online ecosystem of blogs, social networks and discussion threads. It was a decentralised system whose participants took care of distribution, deciding collectively which messages to amplify through sharing and recommendation. Modern media theorists refer to participants in such systems as a “networked public”, rather than an “audience”, since they do more than just consume information. Luther would pass the text of a new pamphlet to a friendly printer (no money changed hands) and then wait for it to ripple through the network of printing centres across Germany.

With increasing decentralized avenues for the public to receive information it is more important for communicators to understand not only where target audiences receive information -- they have to taylor content to ensure it is relevant and interesting.

BusinessWeek Worth $1?

A report out of the Financial Times indicates that McGraw-Hill will essentially be forced to give the venerable news weekly away for free due to BusinessWeek's $77.8 million loss in the first of 2009 and the realities of the print news distribution model.

Political Tone Deaf Award (Bailout Nation)

This week's political tone deaf award goes to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly who, when asked why 11 Democrats did not vote for the "economic stimulus package" when it was on the House floor last week, stated:

The speaker has said many times that the members are representative of their district. Many of the districts are more conservative, and they campaigned on fiscal responsibility, and we understand that.

When relaying remarks to media outlets a press spokesperson must not only deliver a comment that advances the narrative of the article -- they must provide a quote that will be seen by listeners, readers and/or viewers as authentic while enhancing the long-term brand perception of the organization within targeted audiences.

Daly completely fails in this regard. Although he is being authentic he is damaging the political brand of the Democratic House leadership by being honest on the reality that "liberals" or "progressives" are simply not fiscally responsible. While this quote is not going to change any swing voters minds in the 2010 election cycle it is important to ALWAYS stay on message to ensure the strength of the political brand long-term.

If the leadership of the Democratic Party wants to expand the scope of government involvement in the economy they better get a grip on their PR flacks.

A better statement from Daly would have been:

The speaker has said many times that the members are representative of their district. She respects the diverse views within the Democratic House caucus and will continue to work with the entire caucus to address the massive challenges that confront our nation.

I like this statement better for a number of reasons:

1. This statement does not damage the public's image of the Democratic Party or the rebranding campaign from the word "liberal" to "progressive."
2. Although she seems accepting of the votes against the "economic stimulus package," their is a subtle threat in the latter part of the statement that members shouldn't get too comfortable voting against her on legislation.
3. I included the line "diverse views within the Democratic Party" from a branding perspective... to contrast the ideological purity current being enforced within the GOP. It is important for swing voters (moderates and independents) to see the Democratic Party as open to diverse ideologies to find solutions to the problems of America.

The Politics of Fear

I have noticed that individuals pushing an issue agenda keep using fear to advance their narrative in the public's consensus. While there is evidence that fear and negative campaigning does indeed work to elect candidates into office, I do not think this is an effective method to increase public recognition of a political cause or empower a larger minority to demand change. Furthermore, I think ridiculous projections and/or talking points reduce one's ability to grow their coalition and damages the efforts by many who are working to actually achieve progress on the cause.

I'm going to take two examples to illustrate my rationale: radicals in the environmental movement (this post) and the U.S. right-wing campaign against socialism (future post TBD).

Knowing that an individual has said the following statements over the years do you really think that he is an effective messenger to increase the environmental movement's coalition?

• "the battle to feed all of humanity is over ... In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now" (1968);
  
• "India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980" and "I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks that India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971" (1968);
• "I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000" and "'Smog disasters' in 1973 might kill 200,000 people in New York and Los Angeles" (1969);
• "in ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish" (1970);
• "before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity . . . in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion" (1976);
• "by 1985 enough millions will have died to reduce the earth's population to some acceptable level, like 1.5 billion people" (1969);
• "by 1980 the United States would see its life expectancy drop to 42 because of pesticides, and by 1999 its population would drop to 22.6 million" (1969);
• "actually, the problem in the world is that there is much too many rich people..." (1990);
• "giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun" (1992); and
  
• "we've already had too much economic growth in the United States. Economic growth in rich countries like ours is the disease, not the cure" (1990)

The answer is clearly a resounding NO!!! I was catching up on some podcasts recently and listened to a Science Friday's from August entitled "Mass Extinction Event on the Horizon?" Host Ira Flatow was interviewing the man responsible for the previous statements... Paul Ehrlich.

Now I strongly consider myself an environmentalist. I believe public policy in regards to the environment must incorporate not only the needs of humans, it must take into consider the interests of plants and animals as we do in fact SHARE this planet with them.

However, it blows my mind why anybody takes Ehrlich seriously or would give him a platform to spew his nonsense... unless they are against growing the global coalition to take public policy measures to combat climate change and pollution caused from human activities. Ehrlich had the audacity to claim:

• "the United States is going to be 439 million people by 2050. That's roughly 300 million people more than anybody has ever given a reason for having alive in the United States at one time";
• "I think people need to be scared (of future environmental devastation)... Fear ought to be a big incentive now if we care anything about our children or grandchildren world" (Paul, fear doesn't work if you have 0 credibility);
  
• "we don't even have a population policy! In the United States we argue about immigration policy without having a population policy. It's kind of like designing an airplane that can load 100 people a minute and when you say how many should it fly and you say well don't worry about that just design a plane that will load 100 people a minute." (Seriously? First off, government doesn't belong in the bedroom!!! Beyond that, Paul has consistently ignored evidence showing that as economic material well-being goes up, birthrates go down & the role technology can and will play to produce goods consumers want far more efficiently.)

This nonsense and tactical advise does not and will not convince anybody who is not a part of the growing environmental coalition to join -- it only reduces the credibility of the movement as a whole and damages the credibility and validity of the environmental brand. For the sake of the planet, please stop giving Ehrlich anymore media opportunities to tarnish the hard fought gains the environmental movement has made with the American and global public.