Tom Standage’s latest book, [amazon_link id=”1408842068″ target=”_blank” ]Writing on the Wall: Social Media – the first 2000 years[/amazon_link], has kept me going through a week of travel and meetings. As you’d expect from such a consistently interesting and good writer, it’s a fabulous book. It combines storytelling with the point (similar to that in his equally terrific [amazon_link id=”162040592X” target=”_blank” ]The Victorian Internet[/amazon_link]) that there are some constant themes in the impact of communications technologies through the ages. Here, the point is that all media are social media: they are all means of communication, the defining feature of human societies. It’s what we do. What’s more, the characteristics of different media are complementary, and introducing a new means of communication will certainly change how the older methods are used but will not displace them.
[amazon_image id=”1408842068″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Writing on the Wall: Social Media – The First 2,000 Years[/amazon_image]
Writing on the Wall draws parallels (in a suitably subtle way) between innovations of the past and today’s social media – for example, English Civil War pamphleteering and blogging, or London’s 18th century coffee houses and Twitter. The examples range from Republican Rome to pre-Revolutionary France, Martin Luther and the printing press, and the dawn of modern mass media in 19th century newspapers. In every case, the innovation was enthusiastically used by the many, and condemned as a vehicle for dangerous – blasphemous, uncivilized, destabilizing – by the powerful few. Each technological innovation did disrupt existing political structures, the book suggests.
Some of the less well-known examples (to an English reader) are especially interesting. I liked the example of disrespectful songs about Louis XV circulating in late 18th century Paris – Robert Darnton’s terrific book [amazon_link id=”0674066049″ target=”_blank” ]Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in 18th Century Paris[/amazon_link] covers this episode. People wrote rhymes on slips of paper they could hand out in the coffee house or leave lying around in the park. The ‘nodes’ of these networks were known as ‘nouvellistes’. The reason these handwritten slips circulated was because the French authorities restricted printing so tightly – they were the Chinese censors of their day. It’s interesting to see that French journalism is still rather respectful of authority. I attended a Franco-British conference last week, and our French counterparts assured us that ‘everyone’ had known about President Hollande’s affair (by word of mouth) for months – impossible to imagine that happening in British journalism.
[amazon_image id=”0674066049″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Poetry and the Police[/amazon_image]
Newspapers played an important role in the American colonies, in paving the way for the war of independence. Although also controlled by the British authorities, publishers successfully resisted the strictest measures, and papers circulated alongside letters in written correspondence. Tom Paine’s catalytic pamphlet [amazon_link id=”1448657113″ target=”_blank” ]Common Sense[/amazon_link] was serialized in many papers.
I loved the title of the Epilogue – ‘History Retweets Itself’. It argues that ‘old’ mass media were an anomaly, and prior to their emergence in the mid-19th century social media networks were the means of sharing information and ideas. There are some interesting thoughts on the future of ‘new’ social media – will they stay in their proprietary silos or not? The book concludes: “The rebirth of social media in the Internet age represents a profound shift – and a return, in many respects, to the way things used to be.