One of the things that I have always done here at WinExtra is write posts that are more of a growing thought process. There have been times were what I believe may have seem to have been set in stone – irrevocable and unchangeable. The fact is that nothing could be farther from the truth because for me everything is a learning experience and part of that experience is putting thoughts and ideas out there that may seem to be contrary to popular belief.
Even though I might get slapped around for not using proper sentence structure or even questionable English it is always my hope that by expressing contrary thoughts two things will happen. The first and most important is that it causes people to look at why they agree or disagree with what I am saying and be able to back up their beliefs with solid thoughts rather than half baked buzzwords that are the hot ticket items of the moment.
The second reason is because sometimes through intelligent conversation my point of view can be proven to be either misguided or even wrong. Now one of my strongest held feelings is centered around how I think this whole thing being called social media is nothing more than a new buzzword that has absolutely no meat to it. I have written many times how I believe that social media is nothing more than an empty catch phrase that people like to flash around in blog posts to give the illusion that this Web 2.0 thing has the power to change our society.
Then this morning I came across two posts about the same event but from totally different perspectives that made me take some time to think about this social media idea in a new light. The event being discussed was the terrible flooding that is being experienced in Iowa and the first post that caught me eye was via Blogging Pro and the story about how the American Red Cross had set up a blog on Wordpress.com to keep the world informed about what was going on.
I will admit I actually didn’t come back to this post until later after I read another more personal post by Greg Hollingsworth who was guest blogging on Steven Spalding’s How To Split An Atom blog. As I read Greg’s account of what was happening in Iowa and how the people experiencing some of the worst flooding in the state’s history were more open to talking with Greg; and Dan Patterson who was taking pictures, than they were with old media news agencies I began to wonder if this storytelling was the real social media rather than the misrepresentation of it being a social movement that we were being fed.
Throughout our time on this world we have always relied in one fashion or another on the tradition of storytelling as a way to record our history. From the days of cave paintings to shamans telling tribal stories around the fire we have recorded our history and the events that make up that history. So as I read the above mentioned posts I began to wonder if in fact this whole social media thing was really nothing more than our way of recording our oral history.
In our past the painting on the cave wall or the stories passed from storyteller to storyteller wasn’t the means 
by which they sought to change their society but only to document it as it changed. Is our social media really any different? I still believe that the so-called social media movement in of itself will never bring about social change. I do believe though that its [social media] job is to document what gradual social changes are happening.
It is also the medium by which we can record what in our society needs changing. At that point though it is up to the people with the power – political power, financial power or pure personality power – to effect those changes. The medium can’t bring changes about in of itself but it can record the ways it has been done which then we can use as guideposts for future changes.
Conversation Tags: social media, oral history
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For example, are we marginalizing senior citizens who used to write thoughtful letters to the editor in the papers we all used to read?
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Fantastic perspective Steven, and thanks for the nod.
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http://redcrossmidwestflooding.wordpress.com/
Great post! For those of us who are grammatically challenged (I'm only speaking of myself), this is probably the closest I'll get to a book deal. I hope I leave something my kids and grandkids think is worth reading!
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However, I wonder if the picture isn't too large? Is the story now getting lost in the noise and can it ever be dug out again?
Great post btw :)
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