My PhD research project aims to reassess the work of communication scholar Herbert Marshall Mcluhan (1911-1980) in the light of todays media revolution. During my last three years at the European Journalism Centre (EJC) I was astonished to see many of his predictions becoming central realities in todays new media ecosystem. It buffeled me how Mcluhan's thoughts expressed more then 30 years ago still captures the central characteristics of an ongoing shift in todays values. Not just in economy and business but in politics, technology and society. Reflected in metaphors such as "Social Media", "Web2.0", "Cloud Computing", "Mobile Web", "Realtime Web", "Long Tail", "Creative Commons", "Mashup", "Facebook", "Realy Simple Syndication RSS" a much wider vortex of energy shaping the mindset of 21st century western culture seems to be at work than current theories can explain. Supported by sound scientific metaphers like "Knowledge Society", "Information Highway", "Network Society", "The Cult of the Amature", "ReMix Culture", "Creative Commons", "Knowledge Worker", "Innovation", "Change Management", "Infonomics", "Data is the new oil", "The Wealth of Networks", "Attention Economy" the forces shaping western culture seem to impress themselves upon 21st century digital boys and girls on facebook and elsewhere. To give but one example of the shifts in values underlaying the statistics of popular social network sites I focus on identity.
Uwe Hasebrink, Chairman of the German part of the EU Kids Online Network and director of the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research in Hamburg said that young people have really embraced social networking sites, which has become an important part in social development and establishing their identities.
Since the internet became 'social' there is much talk about privacy and identity. What invaded over night millions of not only young people people who's sense of identity became watery. Research into media consumtion and habits reveal a dissolution between private and public identity, work and home, not just since facebook is around. Institutions too are faced with new media and are under constraints regarding their choices. Working at Maastricht University School of Business and Economics as webmaster I am shocked how a simple website alters how people see themselves. This ongoing shift definately reached its climax with the introduction of the mobile internet and devices like the iphone in combination with 'social' customer relationship management platforms. Web2.0 gurus like to talk about "The wisdom of the crowd", "The Networked society", "Here comes everybody" and "The cult of the amature", "The swallow" all relating technological imperatives to social phenomena. The shift that turned former passive consumers into active producers is responsible for this shift in selfperception. In a world where the majority saw on TV the spectacle orchestrated by a minority private identity was tacitly placed into the realm of the individual. And from their amplified in the multitudes of channels into the public realm. And this is our twitter, facebook, blogs.... . All that is now imploding on us and causes us to respond by flooding this new space - the internet. Or however you want to call it. A "New Cultural Economy" is unfolding upon the babies of the babyboom generation with increasing speedup of innovation accross all sectors of society. Driven by young entreprneurs accros the globe filling up to discover new markets and tapping into novel enterprises a global media galaxy is shrinking devices to the a level when kids get the feeling of beeing bigger than them: the 'Big Media'. Or the old one if they would only know that there was a time when we had no TV, even no radio or newspaper.
