The humanisation of media? Social media and the reformation of communication

Abstract

This article explores the extent to which social media are overcoming the limitations of mass communication and restoring the humanising elements of interpersonal communication to modern communication. It examines how the technology of social media alters the ability to communicate, the nature of what is communicated, and the extent to which social media lives up to its promise as a humanising and democratising factor. It argues that technological structures and processes of social media incorporate artificiality and lack genuine authenticity and asserts that the power arrangements and the magnitude of messages carried by social media reduce its abilities to provide quality public communications, promote elite control, and leave us vulnerable to hysteria and moral panic. Social media at best represent a slight improvement to public communication over the legacy media of the past. At worst, they are replicating legacy media as a means of social control.This article explores the extent to which social media are overcoming the limitations of mass communication and restoring the humanising elements of interpersonal communication to modern communication. It examines how the technology of social media alters the ability to communicate, the nature of what is communicated, and the extent to which social media lives up to its promise as a humanising and democratising factor. It argues that technological structures and processes of social media incorporate artificiality and lack genuine authenticity and asserts that the power arrangements and the magnitude of messages carried by social media reduce its abilities to provide quality public communications, promote elite control, and leave us vulnerable to hysteria and moral panic. Social media at best represent a slight improvement to public communication over the legacy media of the past. At worst, they are replicating legacy media as a means of social control.