Social Media Design and Infowar
Our attention span has decreased significantly in the age of media. Marshall McLuhan one of the eminent specialists on media talked about how the medium is the message.
To deconstruct that we must take a tour of communication in general. So in communication studies, we learn about the message and the medium, and the target audience early on.
So let's say you are the target audience and I am trying to use the internet and the platform Medium as the medium to reach you and make you read my message.
What McLuhan says is that as mediums shift from one thing to another and become more engrossing in our lives it will cause shifts in our society.
It did when the newspaper came into being and it came again when it was the radio and television.
McLuhan famously said in an interview that it was the telegram that caused the World War I. And he is not far off.
The media for the mass, or mass media, for the longest time it was just governments trying to keep the peasants entertained by courtly affairs, sometimes to inform them that the tax has been raised.
Today in the age of media shifting towards media, once again we are coming to that same point. This is an age of social manipulation with a hint of choice.
Big corporations like Facebook has your information and selling it to the highest bidder.
The highest bidder for your information happens to be big corporations, oligarchs and governments.
We already know the consequences of it from the election of Trump, manipulation through BREXIT, the election campaigns done by Cambridge Analytica.
But lesser know but quite as important is the shift that we see in India. Mass manipulation by Modi and his BJP party who has also been involved in the infowar. The documentary The Great Hack shows us how we -very hackable beings are being toyed with.
Social Media plays a crucial role in creating public opinion. It is the most pervasive form of media ever created and though the messages are different the messages seem to echo one thing that works above all.
Hate is the easiest thing to spread, while good news goes on feet the bad news of Fema is spread on wings. If we dismantle all the messages on social media by political parties.
We would see things that cause us panic, Pakistan or Muslims trying to jeapordise india’s independence or destroy its one true religion. Or immigrants overruning UK or the USA taking jobs from the natives.
While these are all lies if you look closely at it you'll see why it is pitying people against each other in order to create a popular discourse fed by media.
The infowar is against each other in the battlefield but in the ground its against its own citizens.
Now let me take you back to the medium being the message. As you see social media is also evolving. TikTok for example use the techniques facebook created and makes it for video. It is even more engrossing and in all likelihood we will see it shift the political discourse.
Since we have established that we are hackable, I will give you the solution. The solution is simple. education. We need to educate ourselves about media and politics. Now more than ever.
While political manipulation can destroy society, political participation can create the most enlightening future. Imagine a world where through the use of social media people were taught about climate change and what they can do to make it better. Movements like vegeterianism and sexual openness can reach new rights. Issue like mental health can come in front of the thing we talk about. We can create a better world.
I am all in for that world.
