you are what you link
March 18th, 2009 • posts i've written
I took the time on the flight back from SxSW to digest Henry Jenkins’ eight part series on Spreadable Media. In the digital world it may be considered a hefty tome, but it’s an incredibly thought provoking piece of academic research (so read it). I also had the pleasure of meeting Henry at SxSW, albeit briefly.
In lieu of writing a cliff notes version of Henry’s work, I want to instead focus on the creation of one’s identity online (a key component of Henry’s studies). SxSW is a conference for marketers and advertisers; and this year I found the dialogue very much concerned with the consumer as means for distributing a brand’s marketing message.
From my own perspective, I’ve seen about three dozen too many powerpoint slides with the words, ‘Viral Video Concepts’ written across the top. I’ve heard far too many marketing managers speak about their next viral campaign as if their work was already complete. And I’ve watched far too many brands chase the next platform or piece of technology. I know you’re fed up too.
In truth, this fatigue is all our own doing. We’ve looked for easy answers, and we’ve fabricated for ourselves a false panacea. It’s time we ween ourselves from this idea of a ‘viral’ mechanism. Ideas (and marketing messages) do not self replicate. The mechanism of mobility does not lie within the message itself; your youtube video does not pluck itself from one pair of eyeballs to another. There’s a human hand at work here – a human hand we have ignored for far too long.
Like a crime novel detective, understanding motive is critical. We must investigate our subject’s motive if we’re to better understand why messages spread. In the digital realm, rarely is our consumption or sharing of media invisible to our social graph. Particularly, our sharing of media is a conscious one; and the spread of these messages is intrinsic to establishing our own identity. As we’re prone to do, we’ve applied a myopic focus to the effect or end result, and have completely ignored the root cause.
Our identity among our peers is defined by our use of messages and the meanings we construct together. It’s critically important to understand that the meaning of these devices (or messages) is created by both the individual and the observer; and that controlling meaning (by the publisher) is impossible (and a waste of a scarce resource, time).
In Henry’s research, he extrapolates various motives for why people spread media:
- They are doing so because the brand expresses something about themselves or their community.
- They are doing so because the brand message serves some valued social function.
- They are doing so because the entertainment content gives expressive form to some deeply held perception or feeling about the world.
- They are doing so because individual responses to such content helps them determine who does or does not belong in their community.
Clearly, there is a complex decision making process happening when people spread media. It can no longer be said that content is ‘viral’ or memetic.
Talking about memes and viral media places an emphasis on the replication of the original idea, which fails to consider the everyday reality of communication — that ideas get transformed, repurposed, or distorted as they pass from hand to hand, a process which has been accelerated as we move into network culture.
Henry also goes on to speak about how media starts as a cultural commodity; and through the process of spreading, media can become a cultural resource – but only when we choose to give it to someone else. Thus, we are what we link. We are what we choose to spread; what we consciously decide to give to others. Through this process of spreading media we make meaning among those resources and ourselves. And we’re constantly in the process of defining our identity among the various networks in which we participate.
As a marketer, this completely negates our previous strategies of fixating purely on the content; sprinkle in this, make that joke, get this celebrity, etc.
We must begin to focus once again on the people we wish to affect, and the networks and cultures in which they participate.
We must imbue our messages with cultural significance by using outside cultural resources that resonate with an intended group of people.
We must relinquish the illusion of control over our messaging and intellectual property.
We must cease targeting mass markets with single messages. Digital media is not mass media. Niche communities offer defined social norms, shared resources, and tighter connections.
We must create more using less.
Here I’ve specifically excluded content strategies from the discussion, although Henry’s work includes detailed discussion on the matter; have a read.
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Bud I found this to be an interesting read. Of late have seen many takes on ‘viral marketing concepts’ that’s misses the point of interconnectedness ‘human factors’ aspects. In some instances undeveloped products/services that feed egos and provide little value.