{"id":36,"date":"2017-12-03T21:54:54","date_gmt":"2017-12-03T21:54:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.usnh.edu\/comm601\/chapter\/a-historical-perspective\/"},"modified":"2024-08-22T18:09:31","modified_gmt":"2024-08-22T18:09:31","slug":"a-historical-perspective","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.usnh.edu\/com680\/chapter\/a-historical-perspective\/","title":{"raw":"Chapter 1 \u2013 A Historical Perspective","rendered":"Chapter 1 \u2013 A Historical Perspective"},"content":{"raw":"

Overview<\/h2>\r\nThe history of social media (SM) is not confined to the technical innovations created in the last 15 years or so. In fact, one of this week's presenters, Tom Standage, claims that SM has been around for 2000 years!\r\n\r\nIn this chapter, you will find that throughout history, SM has proliferated in various forms and with various audience types: literate gentry, common folk, computer geeks, and others.\r\n\r\nWhile the focus of this course is on present-day trends and concepts of SM, it is important to understand that social interaction through media is not a new experience. The Internet Age is different from past systems because it has offered the lowest entry point for mass communication in human history, on a global scale<\/i>.\r\n\r\nSecond, there is a distinction between a social network<\/em> and social media<\/em> - they are not interchangeable terms. For example, early forms of online communication through a Bulletin Board Service<\/a> (BBS), message system, community group, or USENET group<\/a> were intended as systems for people to connect, interact, and share information. There was no method for monetizing this form of networked participation. MySpace was the first social network system to monetize the data generated by the content and engagement produced by members. Once subsequent social network systems developed business models around the content produced by its members, the term \"social media\" became a more accurate representation of the systems. Thus, when you hear the expression, \"When the service is free, the product is you<\/em>,\" it is referring to users' attention to media that can be sold to advertisers.\r\n\r\nIn the first presentation below, Kevin Kelly's \"How Technology Evolves\"<\/em>\u00a0begins by explaining how technological innovations evolve and assimilate into our culture. He goes so far as to say, \"Technology is who we are,\" and that today's interaction is part of a continuing trend of self-organization as an extension of our humanity.\r\n\r\nThen we will hear Tom Standage's presentation which describes SM as a concept that transcends our simple notion of contemporary SM system. Evidently, what we are familiar with today is not that much different than what people did 2,000 years ago.\r\n\r\nSo how did SM find its way to the Internet? Andrew Keen, in \"Digital Vertigo: \u00a0How Today's Online Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing, and Disorienting Us,<\/i><\/a>\" offers an intriguing theory. In the mid-1960s, west coast hippies \u2013 known for a community-driven culture \u2013 happened to converge in the Silicon Valley area in close proximity to the pioneers of computer technology companies.\r\n\r\nKeen states, .\".. the history of Silicon Valley must be understood in terms of its social values, moral judgments and economic ideas \u2013 in the context of what some sociologists would call its 'ideology'.\" (Keen, A., 2012, p. 97).\" An example of his thesis is found in the Community Memory Project (below) which originated in the San Francisco, CA area.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nThe Computer History Museum:<\/strong> \"community<\/a>The\u00a0Community Memory Project<\/a>: 1973<\/strong>, Berkeley and San Francisco, California. Excerpts from flyers:\r\n\r\n\"COMMUNITY MEMORY is the name we give to this experimental information service. It is an attempt to harness the power of the computer in the service of the community. We hope to do this by providing a sort of super bulletin board where people can post notices of all sorts and can find the notices posted by others rapidly.\"\r\n\r\n\u201c... a tool for collective thinking, planning, organizing, fantasizing, and decision-making.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"By being open and interactive, Community Memory seeks to present an alternative to broadcast media such as TV. The nightly national TV news \u2013 both commentary and commercials \u2013 gives people the \u2018word\u2019 from on high, telling us \u2018that\u2019s the way it is.\u2019 Community Memory is different. It makes room for the exchange of people-to-people information, recognizing and legitimizing the ability of people to decide for themselves what information they want.\"\r\n\r\nFrom the library resource:\u00a0\u201cThe Community Memory Project: An Introduction,\u201d 1982, Community Memory records, Lot X3090.2005, Box 12, Folder 20, Catalog 102734414, Computer.\r\n\r\nOther primary resources: \"Community Memory\" catalog search<\/a>.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nWe will also review how The Well<\/a>\u00a0emerged as the prototypical networked SM platform for our age, how it was envisioned by its creators, and how its members' lives were changed. This media is offered as primary testimony by The Well's developers who describe their philosophy and motives in creating the first virtual asynchronous (not realtime) online community.\r\n

Key Terms<\/h2>\r\nDisruptive<\/b>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0In the context of this course, we will define \"disruptive\" as the ability to displace or marginalize an existing tradition, process, or model<\/i>. The causes of disruption often involve technologies, but sometimes involve an innovation in process. The effect of a disruption is a change in the structure of social, political, economic, personal, or interpersonal traditions.\r\n\r\n
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What should you be focusing on?<\/h2>\r\nYour objectives in this module are:\r\n