I recently met with the marketing department of a local organization. They asked to speak with me about social media, and how they could incorporate it into their “branding.” I know nothing about branding (or marketing) but I love to talk about social media, and I wanted to support my community, so I agreed.
The meeting attendants included: two marketing executives, their 21 year old intern, and me. We sat down at a table in a coffee shop. The three of them looked at me expectantly with blank yellow note pads and poised pens.
We began with the two (middle aged) marketing executives asking about the isolation caused by social media, and wondering if we should be “weeping” over the demise of our culture. Specifically, one of the executives described a “sad” situation, in which a group of students were waiting for the bus, engrossed with their phones and oblivious to each other.
I gently calmed their dystopian fears and explained the fallacy of digital dualism. The 21 year old intern immediately relaxed and chimed in. “We are being social” she said in reference to the bus stop phone incident.
The second marketing executive was unconvinced. She referenced a recent family trip, where her two teenage sons were on their iphones, missing the historic landmarks that the family had traveled to see. This time, I did not need to say a thing. The intern informed us all that looking at their phones in no way means that they missed the historic landmarks. “We are used to a lot of things going on around us at the same time, it’s how we do things” she said. The executives looked at me questioningly. I backed up the intern, explaining that the re-articulation of an experience is part of the experience for many youth today (although this is debatable).
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As you might imagine, the remainder of the meeting followed this trend. The executives asked questions, the intern answered the questions, they all looked at me for confirmation, I affirmed the intern’s statements and cited the CMC research to make it more official.
This interaction makes two things salient: 1) the decline of the expert 2) the need for theory in social media scholarship.
Generally, the Internet grants us access to knowledge and information that was previously exclusive. We get medical information on WebMD;
learn to do our own plumbing with a YouTube video; and get news from alternative sources—including blogs and our “friends” Facebook statuses. Moreover, recent research shows that we trust advice from peers more than we trust advice from experts. As such, the “expert” is in social decline. Nowhere is the more evident than in our very own field: social media research.
In social media research, we often study digital natives, a group now entering colleges and/or the work force. They know the findings of our meticulously gathered and presented research. Our descriptive studies have little to tell them. Their expertise is equivalent, if not superior, to ours.
This brings me to my second point, that social media scholars must not only incorporate, but maintain a strong focus, on theory. Our work has little value if we cannot use it to say something about identity, community, economy, or culture. This is not to say that there is no place for descriptive analysis. On the contrary, we cannot theorize about that which we do not understand empirically. However, descriptive analysis, at this point, should be preliminary and intermittent, rather than predominant and pervasive as is the current case. Without theory, we do no more than replicate and legitimate the extant knowledge of digital natives—and we already know the direction that legitimate knowledge is taking. Without theory, make ourselves obsolete.
At the end of the meeting, the marketing executives asked me for some general advice. “Listen to your intern” I said. “She’s an expert.”
Comments 10
nathanjurgenson — July 29, 2011
wonderful post, jenny! you've really hit on why we are theorizing the web the way we are here.
christina dennaoui — July 29, 2011
Is it so much a decline of expertise as it as changing notion of what is to be an expert? I worked in PR and currently work as a brand strategist for an online marketing firm and am often surrounded by 'social media experts.' Often times I am referred to as an expert which troubles me a bit, as I think it's a bit misleading to call yourself an expert over something (i.e., social media) that's changing every day. I try to think critically and thoughtfully about digital culture but I am not sure that qualifies me as an expert. If anything, the SM (social media) industry suffers from a deluge of experts without any universal standards of what authenticates said expertise (Education? Age? Work experience?). In my professional life, SM expertise is relative and performative. Perhaps that's for another post.
But yes, I do think you're right about a greater need for theory in the field of SM. Although scholars like danah boyd and Gabriella Coleman do a nice job of drawing on theory in their work and making it accessible to a larger, non-academic audience. And needless to say, so does this blog. Thanks for this post and thanks to the editors of this blog.
christina dennaoui — July 29, 2011
Sadly, I think there's a large divide between SM experts in the industry and research and scholars who study SM. Part of it seems to be that industry experts are siloed into research coming out of business and marketing programs not the social sciences or humanities. I think the inverse may be true for researchers and scholars of SM: siloed into academic research with minimal contact with industry folks.
Xavier Matos — July 31, 2011
I both agree and disagree with points regarding the family vacation where the children are busy on their iPhones. I strongly agree that "the re-articulation of an experience is part of the experience," and have enjoyed re-living many adventures the following morning. However when faced with a national landmark or a beautiful sunrise, my generation all too often remains oblivious of the rare, physical experience in favor of the common, safe, digital one. Social Media allows us to be conservative and safe with our chosen experiences because we always have our tried and true friends at our fingertips.
As a sociology minor and a digital native, I've wrestled with what I've felt social media has been doing to the social interactions of my friends and myself, and I think the older generation has a point regarding our degrading ability to appreciate what is physically present, in favor of what is digitally so. In short, I do somewhat mourn the inabilities of my generation to unplug themselves.
Jenny Davis — July 31, 2011
Xavier, excellent points.
You actually speak directly to an interesting debate unfolding on Nathan's very recent Claude Glass post (http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/07/25/life-becomes-picturesque-facebook-and-the-claude-glass/).
You should chime in over there as well. His post is also a great illustration of the ways in which our mediated living is not a "new technology" thing.
I do see what you're saying, and I certainly wouldn't want to be too utopianist, but I think that the general sentiment is one of fear and worry, and so I often find myself taking the defensive position. In particular, I think it is important to correct the popular notion that digitally mediated interaction is somehow less "real."
Let me ask you, why is being "plugged in" something to mourn?
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