Orangejack

Tonight (Wed night) I will be participating in the first Ignite Orlando event. All presenters get 5 minutes to talk about anything they want. The title of my presentation is “Social Media Amplifies What Happens IRL” (in this case IRL = in real life, not Ireland – that would probably be a real interesting presentation!)

What I am hoping to communicate in that short amount of time is that social media (really any media) enhances a message.  This idea is something I think a lot of people just aren’t seeing when it comes to new technology.  For some reason we see a new blog or Facebook or Twitter or YouTube or Cell Phone and we all of a sudden go stupid. We think we have to become or act or talk like we are someone different. Instead, what happens online is a reflection of what happens offline.

As I talk about this tonight, I plan to actually drift from this slightly. I hope to show, by example, how a particular kind of media amplified a particular situation in such a way that it played a large role in a very significant event with global and historical impact.

That story is that of Thomas Paine and his 1776 pamphlet Common Sense.

You probably know the story of the Revolutionary War and how the new USA declared its independence from England. And you may even know about Paine and his pamphlet (BTW, does anyone write pamphlets anymore? We just call them eBooks don’t we?). Here’s the basic story…

• The Colonies felt perscuted and beaten down by the British
• There was a lot of talk about how to deal with the situation
• Many discussions happened in homes, pubs, and town-hall meetings
• Several wrote documents about the plight and what to do about it, usually using lofty and intellectual language
• Thomas Paine wrote the pamphlet Common Sense using language common folk understood and to which they could relate
• The pamphlet was printed and reprinted, distributed, read and read aloud to the masses
• The pamphlet served as a rallying cry to help solidify the need and desire to become an independent state
• Eventually the USA won the war

There is dispute in how large of a role Common Sense played in the writing and motivation of the Declaration of Independence, but there’s no dispute how the change in style of communication (or media) amplified an already existing sentiment.

The idea of revolution already existed. It was discussed and shared among many. However, once the idea was captured in a medium that could be distributed and understood well, the message was amplified many times over. For certain it helped set the eventual course for the Revolutionary War.

The point I want to make from this story is that the ideas, the emotions, the thoughts, the conversations that we have with others is amplified when we transform them using a new or different media.

There are many examples of this throughout history – and a lot of them happened before the Internet! However, the Internet is probably the loudest amplifier we’ve ever experienced. So be careful what you do and don’t do online (or anywhere) because once it’s published, it has the opportunity to be amplified.

What other examples can you share with us?