ideas and resources for the responsibility advocate

In the early 1400s, Johannes Gutenberg invented a mechanical movable-type printing process that enabled the first mass production of books.  Within decades, the technology had spread across Europe, and the growing availability and affordability of the printed word revolutionized society.  The flow of information and ideas fuelled the Reformation and the French Revolution, broke down strongholds of power, whether political or religious, and contributed to the democratization not only of societies but of knowledge itself.

Over time, we’ve witnessed the emergence of mass media, designed and used to broadcast information from and by a small group to a large one.  This communications audience is, essentially, a mass society of undifferentiated individuals.  It receives information.

However, social media turns a receptive mass society into a creative public.  Information doesn’t just flow from a small group to a large one, and information creation isn’t just the purview of the powerful elite anymore.  The trickling democratization of knowledge that began with the Gutenberg press, social media is making a flood.

Now, humans have always been social creatures.  It’s not social networking that’s new.  Rather, it’s the development of new technologies at a time of rapid globalization and increasing awareness of humanity’s impact on the Earth that have converged to create the perfect storm of new social media. Read the whole post here