What happens to a blog author when they realize they can publish to the world? That was the question I was pondering today, partly because I’ve been thinking about the ramifications of the Backbone corporate blogging survey, its only been two weeks since we closed the survey, and a week since we finished writing our conclusions to the study. I am still digesting the experience, and playing with the language to describe the results and environment we studied even though I’ve been thinking about corporate blogging for two years since I started PR Communications.
There really is a difference between gathering data, and thinking about data.
It occurs to me there is a new twist on an old development with blogging. When printing presses were first invented, the printers and early authors could reach a wider audience very easily, why? Well there was a demand for printed materials, a ready audience, and towns were smaller, people communicated by local networks; information was shared rapidly through human contacts. In the recent past mass media was the mode of communication; you had to use professional media contacts to get your story published in the media.
I’ve been researching 17th century local history here in Boston since coming to the state, and what struck me about the ability of people to communicate and take an active part in their community was that it seemed that people in 17th century Massachusetts appeared to be able to take a more active role in their town governance then people do today.
Here’s an extract from an article on early New England history and its lessons for today’s communications revolution, I wrote in Nov 2003.
I have been reading a book about early English democratic ideas of the seventeenth century. The similarities between that time and today were striking to me. In this sense, there was a major technological revolution happening in the 16th and 17th centuries. Society was converting over to a literate society; print and reading were taking off. Interesting from our modern literate perspective those citizens who did not read could definitely play a very active role in society, becoming New England selectmen and constables.
We often think of the past as being more restrictive, especially when we think about the medieval period, during the 17th century, New England society was rapidly converting to a literate society. Yet ordinary people who were not literate were able to actively participate in courts, see this second post from an article about the written word in Oct 2003.
I have been researching 17th century Massachusetts Bay colony recently (don’t ask why) I have found that many illiterate people held significant offices within the colony’s town system. People in the colony also used the court systems to a greater amount than most modern day people probably use the courts today. It occurs to me that illiteracy was no great hindrance for an active and lively participation in early Massachusetts Bay colony town political and legal life. If today we live in a much more complex society than in 1660, with higher levels of technology, why when looking back does 17th century American society appear to involve a higher level of participation from many more people than today?
It occurred to me that people in the 17th century appeared not to need as much knowledge to participate actively in their town and courts. Today we need professionals to negotiate government and the courts, as in the recent past we needed professional journalists to write articles and speak to everyone in the town (society). Mass media is not going away anytime soon, but blogging changes the ability of everyone to publish without any difficulty, this is a change in the structure of society. With blogging you no longer need to negotiate with professional journalists to get out a message to a blogging community.
A blog author like the printer of the 17th century now has the ability to publish and get their message out to their community easily, while just a short time before we had to negotiate with professionals to reach our community.
As blog authors realize they no longer have to negotiate with web designers or journalists to reach their community, blog authors are empowered, they become more media savvy, and they become more polite, as they are see the reaction and consequences of their published words.
