Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas, redefined the term “social media” as he felt that it did not explain the form or function adequately. “The term I believe is more appropriate is connecting technologies, that is tools that connect individuals to information, which we typically call new media, and to each other which we call social media,” he said. He felt that most important was the aspect that connected individuals to resources, including telemedicine and education for example.
The reason that discussion of social or connective media was currently in focus, said Cohen, is the growth of electronic media and connectivity over the last decade. In that time, global cell-phone use had risen from 907 million to five billion and Internet connections from 361 million to two billion.
The significant change, he said, was that 20 years ago large corporations from whom the user rented equipment owned the means of communication. “Now the user owns it,” he said.
Social media has the power to transform lives, bring about social change and drive innovation. However, the creators of social network programs have no idea how they will evolve in different cultures, said Cohen, adding that their spread is inevitable. However, the writers and companies that generate these programs or tools, as he described them, take no responsibility for how they are used. “It is the individual’s choice to use the tools,” he said. The innovation in their uses will take place in countries where the tools are used, not made.
“Technology doesn’t choose sides, people do,” said Cohen. “As a company that is pushing a lot of these tools out there we feel a sense of responsibility to be part of the conversation across multiple sectors, disciplines and experiences to look at some of these global challenges and rephrase them in ways that account for technology.”
New media has both positive and negative potential, said Martin Dickson, deputy editor of the Financial Times. On the downside, it removed their ability to control ideas. “The implication for the old media — the sales and advertising revenue model looks pretty well bust,” he said.
He added that although businesses got quicker feedback and allowed customer profiling for advertisers, the potential for danger to a brand was very high as a comment on the Internet was able to cause huge damage to reputations.
Chrystia Freeland, global editor at large for Thomson Reuters, said social media “empowers the people against the hierarchy.” She noted that people were increasingly turning to their friends for information. However, users still looked for guidance from responsible, authoritative and trusted journalists.
Social media also accelerated and exacerbated the rise of the “super star” phenomenon while ironically leveling the playing field for the majority of users. She gave the example of the rise of the Sarah Palin brand, self promoted from a house in Alaska with simple equipment and almost zero cost.
David Eilenberg, head of development and current programming at Mark Burnett Productions, raised the question of quality and relevance of content that might be spread over 500 million “local neighborhoods.”
He offered, as a solution, the idea of “thinking local and acting globally” — a reversal of conventional thinking.
