The Like-ification of journalism

Bert Archer has a point here as he decries the outrage over Rolling Stone magazine's Dzokhar Tsarnaev cover, which, in an earlier era, might have been lauded as audacious, not criticized as offensive.

But I think the problem is more specific than a general decline in media literacy. People's expectations of how a story should make them feel--of their range of possible reactions--has narrowed dramatically.

I blame Facebook and its Like button.

Social media is a great way to pass stories around--and a great way for publishers to build audience. But the main circulatory system is Facebook's Like. People tend to Like things they agree with, that they think are interesting, attractive or aspirational. But a well-written story about villain or social evil--or especially stories that are morally ambiguous, that leave the reader uncertain about who is right and who is wrong and how they feel about it--doesn't fit into the structure of Like. People don't know what to do with their reaction.

If a reader appreciates, say, the writing but not the subject of a profile, if they savour the way the issues are explored, but not the conclusions offered by the writer, if they admire the subject but not the tone in which the subject was covered, will their Facebook friends understand the nuance? Probably not. So they don't Like. The story stands outside acceptable conversation circles.

Smart web publications know this. A great social media story has a single clear idea that generates a purely positive (or sometimes purely negative) reaction: Isn't this great! Or, with the addition of a comment, Isn't this awful? (You can Like the petition link.)

There are times when I think context (say, do nearby residents have problems with the otherwise admirable project? Will the prototype super-project ever be manufactured or be affordable?) is deliberately suppressed by some online publishers in order to fast-track the stories into celebratory social media. Ambivalence is the enemy.

That's how a story gets read nowadays--it get Liked.

But publish a cover featuring a handsome, "ordinary looking" young man who is an alleged bomber--a cover which doesn't use graphics or text to guide judgement--is to ask readers to react in a way that Facebook does not allow.... Isn't this great! No. Isn't this awful! .... Maybe?

To use a home improvement metaphor: The Dzokhar Tsarnaev cover story was a Philips screw, not a nail. But Facebook gives users only a hammer.

Of course, they get frustrated.

In Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan wrote about how technologies not only extend our capacity, they also amputate part of us. Automobiles allow us to travel long distances effortlessly, at a cost of restricting our bodily movements during the trip. Social media allows us to massively increase our ability to get a message out into the world, but it is amputating our range of possible emotional reactions.

Panic in the Facebook corral

I always find it strange when Facebook users are referred to as customers (see here, here and here). Amidst all the bells and whistles of Web 2.0's interactiveness--not to be confused with collaboration--it's like people have forgotten one of the main rules of the media business. As Noam Chomsky reminded us years ago: the product of a newspaper company is not a newspaper, it's an audience which it then sells to advertisers. A newspaper generates its audience by providing a mix of news, features, analysis, comic strips and recipes that will bring in the largest number of readers. It takes that number, goes to advertisers and sells it.

The business of social media is exactly the same. Yes, Facebook and other social networking websites are more interactive, they are more flexible and they are more customizeable than newspapers. They have the appeareance of collaboration. But they're built on the old-media business model: user satisfaction only matters up to the point that people abandon ship. You just have to make them satisfied enough to keep your numbers up. And, since social networking systems know more about their users than newspapers know about their readers, it also becomes a question of the right kind of numbers--the right kind of people doing the right kind of things. To make a profit, the system needs to be tinkered with to achieve that balance; user enjoyment is a tool, not an end result that needs to be sought.

I like social networking sites; they let me communicate in a way that's fun and in a way I couldn't without them. But I don't and wouldn't pay for them. I accept they have limits and strategies that won't suit me--I accept it because they're free. At a certain point, their obligation to make a buck through partners and advertising might make their limits and other machinations untenable for me. Just as a newspaper might pull a favourite comicstrip, if Facebook were to invade my privacy a bit too much or take away too much control over my information flow or make the thing too ugly, I might give it up, cancel my subscription so to speak. Unlike a chicken in a factory farm--and the chicken does see some benefits in regular meal times--I can leave when I want.

Tweet-to-whoo

One of the strange things about communication technology as a field of consumer trends is how tightly woven together commerce and culture are. In, say, music and fashion, early adapters search and discover new trends when they're in the rough--an unsigned band or an unheard-of designer. If the early adapters were right, the band will get a record deal, the designer will set up a fashion house and eventually get copied by the likes of H&M. By that time the early adapters will have jumped ship, with counter cultural types rolling their eyes at the commercialization (watering down, corporatization, consolidation, suburbanization, cheapening) of the trend.

But with communication technology, the marketing and the trend are often the same thing--using Twitter to tell your friends about a product or to further your business interests comes as early in the trend as telling them about your hangover. Commercial applications and "style statements" are meant to go hand-in-hand. The early adapter is not counter cultural; they're just first in line at the cashier.