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The humanisation of media? Socialmedia and the reformation ofcommunicationRobert G. Picarda

a Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University ofOxford, Oxford, UKPublished online: 01 May 2015.

To cite this article: Robert G. Picard (2015) The humanisation of media? Social media andthe reformation of communication, Communication Research and Practice, 1:1, 32-41, DOI:10.1080/22041451.2015.1042421

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The humanisation of media? Social media and the reformation ofcommunication

Robert G. Picard*

Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

This article explores the extent to which social media are overcoming the limitations ofmass communication and restoring the humanising elements of interpersonal commu-nication to modern communication. It examines how the technology of social mediaalters the ability to communicate, the nature of what is communicated, and the extentto which social media lives up to its promise as a humanising and democratising factor.It argues that technological structures and processes of social media incorporateartificiality and lack genuine authenticity and asserts that the power arrangementsand the magnitude of messages carried by social media reduce its abilities to providequality public communications, promote elite control, and leave us vulnerable tohysteria and moral panic. Social media at best represent a slight improvement to publiccommunication over the legacy media of the past. At worst, they are replicating legacymedia as a means of social control.

Keywords: social media; interpersonal communication; technology; political econ-omy; culture; media effects

Human beings are communal animals with innate desires to be with and interact withothers of our species. We establish and maintain familial, tribal, and community bonds.We express our thoughts, our feelings, and our aspirations. We share our observations andinterpretations of the world about us. We communicate in many ways – speech, gestures,art, music, performance, text, and photography. If we are unable to use one form ofcommunication to effectively connect, we find another, because communication withothers is fundamental to who and what we are as humans.

The development of communication capabilities became a natural element that pro-moted collective life and created capacities that made humans one of the most socialspecies. Our abilities to cooperate, preserve, and pass on knowledge, ideas, and concernsfar surpass those of other species and have given us distinct advantages in self-domestica-tion and development (Bowles & Gintis, 2013; Relethford, 2012; Wilson, 1991).

For millennia, we gathered around fires and told the stories of our ancestors and othersabout us. We chanted, sang, and danced together. We fished, hunted, and farmed, passingon our knowledge of those skills to others. We sewed hides and cloth and gossiped aboutothers. We ate together and talked of developments in our lives and how we shouldrespond to them. Facile and informal communication with family, friends, and others inthe community was the norm.

Even today, oral communication of culture and knowledge continues to be practiced intribal settings, private life, and organisations (Ong, 2002; Vansina, 1985). The capabilities

*Email: robert.picard@politics.ox.ac.uk

Communication Research and Practice, 2015Vol. 1, No. 1, 32–41, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/22041451.2015.1042421

© 2015 Australian and New Zealand Communication Association

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of oral communication are limited, however, because temporal and spatial factors con-strain interpersonal communication. It was those constraints, combined with populationscale and changes in technology, which began taking the traditional mechanisms ofcommunication of culture and knowledge away from us.

Desires to overcome constraints of time and space led to the use technologies toexpress who and what we are. We began drawing on the walls of caves, carvingtotems, and putting characters onto stones, tablets, and parchment (Moran, 2010; Poe,2010). Each of these means expanded our ability to communicate, but the verymediating of communication added artificiality and separated the communicationfrom those communicating, as well as those being communicated to. It thus dehuma-nised our communication and altered our relationships with others.

As population increased, we became more isolated from those around us. Webegan living in individual dwellings, with greater distances between us, and takingpart in fewer informal communal gatherings. This changed the ways in which wecommunicated and passed on information and knowledge. It altered the ways that wemade sense of the world about us and how we made collective decisions. In response,institutions emerged and developed to serve those purposes. Large tribal gatherings,councils, religious establishments, schools, and apparatuses of nation states all becameparts of our lives. And with them came formal communication processes and needs fortechnologies to communicate more widely to increasingly larger groups of people.

Enter mass media.The solution for communicating more widely arose with the emergence of print, then

recordings, and then broadcasting (Kovarik, 2011; Moran, 2010; Poe, 2010). By theirnature, these developments introduced structures and formality into communication thatlimited who could speak and be heard. Not everyone could participate because commu-nication was unidirectional. Some were denied the ability to use the systems, or berepresented in them, because of elite control. Others were left out because they lackedliteracy, reception and playback equipment, and electricity necessary to receive thecommunications required (Picard, 2010).

The creation and use of media technologies thus required social and individualwealth and capabilities that created mechanisms for elite influence and control. Theknowledge and innovation needed for media development and use was fuelled bystable states, capital availability, a mix of state and commercial interests, and publiceducation. The political economy of media created uneven global patterns of mediadevelopment, access, and use that continue to this day (Garnham, 1990; Jin &Winseck, 2012; Mosco & Wasko, 1988; Picard, 2010).

Although mass media offered new and effective ways to communicate across spaceand time, the emergence of text and printing, photography, and broadcasting all intro-duced alienating forms of communications that continued separating those expressinginformation and ideas from those who received them. Mass media made interactionimpossible between those expressing and those attending to the expression. It stoleindividual voices from the majority of people and gave voice to only a select few.

The operation of mass media required the creation of institutions with structures andprocesses. It created conditions through which individuals could be directed, manipulated,and exploited by those with a voice. It became a means of elite empowerment. It enslaved.It objectified humans, transforming them into audiences that could be commoditised andtraded in markets.

Media removed capabilities for public discussion of public issues, producedcommunicative passivity, stultified though with popular entertainment, and became

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a mechanism for social influence and control. All of these factors created artificialityand alienation, distance and separation, estrangement and detachment, and isolationand loneliness. Communication became brutalizing, debasing, and dehumanising.Media use reduced social engagement (Lazarsfeld & Merton, 1948) and alienatedand pacified the public (Postman, 1985; Robinson, 1976). Its formats andpresentational styles facilitated this alienation (Cappella & Jamieson, 1996;Newton, 1999).

Mass media made the dehumanisation inherent in all mediated communication worsebecause of its ubiquity, its commercialisation, and its growth to encompass large portionsof communication behaviour and time.

The promise of social media

The emergence of the Internet and the development of social media are often perceivedand portrayed as fundamentally altering communication, restoring voice to the public, andintroducing elements that re-humanise communication.

Social media have been lauded for their abilities to support exchange of ideas andinformation and to create and facilitate communities. They have reintroduced multi-directional communication. They have restored informality to communications. Theyallow us to discuss and debate, to share information from storehouses of knowledge,and to exchange ordinary and banal information.

Observers have embraced social media and eloquently touted its benefits andpotential:

Social media is addictive precisely because it gives us something which the real worldlacks: it gives us immediacy, direction, a sense of clarity and value as an individual(Amerland, 2012).

Social media spark a revelation that we, the people, have a voice, and through the demo-cratization of content and ideas we can once again unite around common passions, inspiremovements, and ignite change (Solis & Kutcher, 2011).

Tweets about the mundane aspects of your life contain something that is vitally important togaining followers and taking part in discussions: Authenticity (Lamont, 2013).

Teen ‘addiction’ to social media is a new extension of typical human engagement . . .Teensturn to, and are obsessed with whichever environment allows them to connect to friends.Most teens aren’t addicted to social media; if anything, they’re addicted to each other(Boyd, 2014).

By bringing together people who share interests, no matter their location or time zone, socialmedia has the potential to transform the workplace into an environment where learning is asnatural as it is powerful (Bingham, Conner, & Pick, 2010).

There is no doubt that social media have changed who can communicate andadded multi-directionality to communication. Social media have given voice to thosewanting changes in society, become a font of shared information, allowed us togossip and discuss television programmes, and given us videos of cats and peopledoing silly things. Social media are lauded, as well as bemoaned, as being the sumof the human experience. . .our highs, our lows, our accomplishments, and ourfoibles.

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Digital and social media functionalities are thus humanising communication by dis-placing some of the artificiality and alienation inherent in mass communication. This isforcing change on media companies and content providers of all types, altering the waysthey address and interact with their users and the types of content they provide. Thesechanges are disquieting to elites and dominant social groups because the alterations arestripping some of the control and influence that was previously afforded to them, andbecause social media are diffusing their abilities to assert ideas and values, to shapeculture, and to direct the course of society. The greater role of vox populi in publiccommunication has significant political, economic, social, and cultural implications tomass public life.

This raises the question of what we as communication scholars should make of thishumanisation, this re-endowment of media with more natural human characteristics andattributes.

The challenge of technology

To begin, we must understand the nature of technology and the idealized visions ofprogress associated with it.

No technologies are neutral and without social and cultural effects, because they werecreated for specific purposes and incorporate specific constraints. Although changes intechnology are typically portrayed as progress, with attendant connotations of desirabledevelopment and improvement, they do not always produce fully beneficial results.

That challenge is starkly illustrated by the work of Thomas Midgley Jr., an Americanengineer and chemist, who was one of the greatest technological innovators of thetwentieth century. He was awarded hundreds of patents, elected to the U.S. NationalAcademy of Sciences, and received numerous industry awards. He developed the leadadditive for gasoline (TEL) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The use of both were laterfound to have created huge environmental damage to ozone layer, increased high atmo-spheric lead levels, and produced untold health problems. They were banned internation-ally by the end of the twentieth century. Midgley contracted polio later in his life andturned to nobler work, inventing a device of ropes and pulleys to help disabled people liftthemselves from beds. Unfortunately, he became entangled in the ropes while using thedevice and strangled to death.

Technology must be viewed with some reservations.This is especially true of the contemporary technologies of communication, which

have been created for specific types of exploitation of social and commercial opportu-nities. Their structures produce and enforce power arrangements. Although social mediahave moved mass communication away from an industrial content production process,making it more people-centric than legacy mass communication, this should not beconstrued as removing them from the influences of power and elites (Hindman, 2009;McChesney, 2013; Picard, 2014).

Out of sheer naiveté and wishful thinking, many proponents of and commentators onsocial media – including many of our colleagues in communication and media studies –have portrayed the Internet and its services as an empowering force, a democratisinginstitution, and a space free from the constraints that hobbled legacy media. Theseobservers exhibit inadequate critical thought and analysis, venerate the technology, andtumble into the trap of technicism.

Discussion of communications advancements regularly takes on reverent tones.Deliberations on national social and economic development, education, and democratic

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participation are increasingly dominated by technological modes of thought and meta-phors. Many in the field of communications and media are happy to sit at the feet ofprophets of technology and turn the hardware and software of digital technology intosacred objects to be revered, worshipped, and embraced.

They ignore or forget that technology is a value-laden activity from inception to use. Itis a culturally based creation designed as a means to some end. It changes and transformsinteractions and transactions for the benefit of some. It transforms thinking. It becomessocial practice. It extracts value. It commoditises. It constrains actions. It can be co-optedto reinforce existing elites and power. It can diminish existing power arrangements, butthen create new elites and power. It is anything but benign and equalising (Braman, 2006;Gillespie, Boczkowski, & Foot, 2014; Kingston, 2013; McGinn, 1990; Picard, 2014;Postman, 1993).

Clearly, social media are technical artefacts worthy of deep consideration for theireffects on individuals and society. But we must study them with a critical perspective.

Structure, power, and influence

Even with the most cursory consideration, the increasing commercialisation of socialmedia and their growing use by business interests and political elites is readily apparent.Advertisements are appearing between messages from friends and colleagues, and com-panies are tracking our behaviour and analysing our comments to improve marketing.Companies are ‘engaging’ with consumers on social media for commercial benefits(Scott, 2013; Solis & Kutcher, 2011). Political elites are bypassing legacy media andpromoting their interests without the normative constraints of news organizations and areusing social media to improve their abilities to mobilise campaigners and voters (Agranoff& Tabin, 2011; Gainous & Wagner, 2013).

Although it is true that individuals and civil society organisations are able to use thisnew means of communications more often, and in more ways, than they were able to uselegacy mass media in the past, the structures and processes of the Internet and socialmedia are being greatly influenced by those who control the infrastructures and systemsnecessary for their operation. These new institutional arrangements are based on corporateinterests that determine the fundamental aspects of operations and practices, ultimatelychannelling and controlling content, and exploiting users for the benefit of others (Gehl,2014; Hindman, 2009).

Measured reflection leads us to understand that social media themselves are creatingpowerful structures and institutions that are shifting mechanisms of influence and controlfrom public to private spheres. This makes public oversight more challenging and reducesthe ability of the public to influence social media with democratically determined policy(Picard, 2014).

The digital ecosystem seems to have a more amorphous structure than the legacymedia ecosystem, because of the large number of participants and the use of hardware andtelecommunications systems operated by others. However, this appearance masks thereality that a very small number of enterprises control the functionality of the digitalsphere and that users are dependent upon them. The operation of the ecosystem is basedon consumption of hardware, software, and services from intermediary firms that controlgateways and provide essential facilitating services. This produces mechanisms for socialcontrol and influence by firms that now have more power than many nation states.

These firms are exploiting their central positions to extract value from the users of thenew communication networks and limiting communication just as did legacy media who

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organised their own monopolistic markets. The mechanisms for doing this come at aprice. Google, Facebook, YouTube and other social media platforms determine how youuse their services, direct the communications into certain forms, push content to you fromwhich they benefit, use the content of others without appropriate compensation, and forceus to give up personal information in exchange for using the services.

We are experiencing a reduction in privacy, changes in norms of communicativebehaviour, and unparalleled surveillance by commercial firms and governments alike.

Uses of social media are affecting general public norms and expectations of privacy.Thoughts, emotions, and personal behaviours previously shared only among close rela-tives and friends are voluntarily disclosed and widely disseminated. Where people go,what they eat, what they see and do, the state of their relationships, and sexual activitiesare voluntarily chronicled.

Social media are clearly altering social behavioural norms. Instead of supportingsocial virtues such as humility, civility, restraint, and kindness, the artificiality andalienation fostered by social media tend to encourage narcissistic communication, depre-cation of others, and celebration of misbehaviours.

Quiet conversations and personal communications have given way to a system inwhich those with whom we communicate, what we communicate, what we see and read,and what interests us are now publicly disclosed and available.

Interactions are recorded, and how often we communicate, what content we circulateand receive, and what topics interest us are logged. Similar tracking occurs when we useother digital communication systems as well.

This provides significant information about individuals that is harvested by companiesand governments. The scope and scale of information available is enormous. Althoughdigital companies criticise governmental uses of this data, they do not seem to recognizehow this view conflicts with their own uses.

A central part of this challenge is that digital companies seem to believe that they owntheir customers and that anything they do to them is acceptable. This is why no one in theFacebook organisation raised significant concern when it decided to take part in asurreptitious experiment on users to see whether altering their moods by means of thecontent they received changed their behaviours (Meyer, 2014). Exploiting users is at theheart of what they do.

Digital systems are creating new mechanisms for social control and influence

It should be no surprise that every major government in the world conducts surveillanceusing the Internet and social media. They are not likely to stop even though revelationsmay lead to some constraints on their activities. Why would they? Governments haveopened the post for centuries and have eavesdropped on telephone calls and tracked banktransfers for decades (Bamford, 1983; Knightly, 1980; Thomas, 2013). Although it isrecognized – even within security agencies – that carrying out these activities create moraldilemmas (Olson, 2006) and pose risks to democracy (Boghosian, 2013), governments –and the public through acquiescence in pursuit of a perception of security – find themuseful.

Security forces and their supporters tend to justify their actions by embracing Westernphilosophy, such as the Platonic view that state must prepare for war (Plato, 2008), theMachiavellian view that ordinary morality does not apply when the existence of the stateis threatened (Machiavelli, 2005, 2008), and the Lockean view that democratic decision-making gives way to the prerogative power of the executive when the state is threatened

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(Locke, 1988). Consequently, they accept gathering as much information as possible oneveryone to prepare for, and respond to, perceived threats.

The companies at the heart of social media are using their positions to gain advantages overtheir users and to find ways to sway user behaviour and susceptibility to influential messages.

Technologies that provide the abilities for some to use and control communication toexercise power over others will always be exploited.

Popularised communications

Giving the public a platform for greater communication creates benefits, but it also carriescosts and risks.

Social media focus attention on amusements and the inconsequential details ofindividuals’ lives. This is not itself decadent or appalling, but the sheer magnitude andtriviality of communications created through social media turn attention away fromother functions and information, lowering and debasing the quality of publiccommunications.

The mores of social media lend themselves to belligerent venting of anger andmalicious public shaming. Although it is psychologically healthy to release annoyanceand resentment, and public shaming can serve purposes of supporting social norms andmoral behaviour, all too often social media are used as a weapon to damage or destroyothers. Unfortunately, most of us allow this to occur without registering our disapproval orpointing out its unfairness.

Trolling and bullying online have become a norm and manifest themselves in far moreways than offline because of anonymity and the ability of the attacks to be spread to anindividual’s social circles more rapidly. This has led to psychological problems andsuicides, particularly among the young. Attempts to apply social norms or law to suchbehaviours are often countered by the highly libertarian and anarchistic philosophies ofmany in the online world.

The popularisation of communication also produces a multitude of voices that canleave us vulnerable to hysteria and moral panic. When this occurs there is little scope fordebate and deliberation. The perceptions of the crowd can easily turn masses into rabblewith demands for under-considered social or political action. Humans can react so rapidlywith initial impressions in the digital world that they don’t fully consider other voices thatmay have different or moderating views.

Social media thus create a conundrum involving the values of free individual expressionand desires for a noble social ethos, a nurturing culture, and the maintenance of social order.

Is this humanising?

This leads us to the questions of whether social media represent a reformation of mediaand are acting as a humanising force.

There is no doubt that social media provide more ways for individuals to express andshare observations, ideas, opinions, and content that pleases or stimulates. Social mediaalso afford opportunities to publicly assert and perform an identity and to supportrelationships and communities that previously were more difficult to construct and main-tain through interpersonal and mass communication.

We benefit from those who use social media to record and disseminate current events,photographs, evidence of abuses of power such as police brutality, and to provideinformation and documentation that contradicts or moderates elite interpretations of the

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world about us. At the very least, social media have reduced the power of legacy mediaand forced them to shake off their complacency.

Nevertheless, they still remain highly mediated communication, incorporating artifici-ality and lacking genuine authenticity. Social media at best represent only a slightimprovement on the legacy media of the past. At worst, they are replicating legacymedia as a means of social control.

Are social media humanising? They may be to the extent that they allow moreindividual voices to be heard, albeit with constraints, and permit multi-directional com-munication. However, there is no evidence that social media are moving us toward theideals of becoming enlightened, tolerant, rational, cultured, and civilised human beings.Neither is there convincing evidence that social media are making society any moreegalitarian by reducing the power or wealth of elites; rather, the evidence indicates thatthey are exacerbating it and have created new wealthy elites.

For the past century, each new medium introduced – motion pictures, radio, television,cable, and the Internet – has been extolled for its revolutionary capabilities to lift thehuman spirit, improve education, reduce conflict, and empower the public. Such worthyaspirations were trumpeted with the appearance of social media. Unfortunately, it appearsthat social media – like other media before them – are being co-opted by commercial andelite interests and that their use is overwhelmingly for amusement, escapism, commerce,and inconsequential chatter.

It’s a damn shame.

Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributorRobert G. Picard, PhD, is Director of Research for the Reuters Institute in the Department of Politicsand International Relations at University of Oxford, a research fellow at Green Templeton College(Oxford), a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and an adjunct professor at University of Canberra.A specialist in political economy of media, media economics, and policy, he is the author and editorof 30 books, including Value Creation and the Future of News Organizations, The Economics andFinancing of Media Companies, Media Clusters: Spatial Agglomeration and Content Capabilities,The Internet and the Mass Media, and Media Firms: Structure, Operations, and Performance. Hehas been editor of the Journal of Media Business Studies and the Journal of Media Economics.Picard received his PhD from the University of Missouri, Columbia, and has been a fellow at theShorenstein Center at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

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