Talkspan Repulsion - Why we hate what we once loved

"The medium is the message" is a phrase coined by the Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan, and it describes the idea of how the form of a message (print, visual, musical, etc) will determine how the message itself is perceived.

Certain platforms or media forms can alter some essence of your message, either for better or for worse. It's up to you to decide how much distortion is acceptable to your message, but be aware of the mediums you use whether it's social media posts, video content, or the written word.

Unfortunately, I have found myself at the crux of a dilemma over the years, which starts with the way my changing perception of certain interests begins to gradually lead to my repulsion of those same interests. And my suspicion is that the medium of consumption has a lot to do with this interesting phenomenon.

I'm sure some of you have had the same experience, especially in the face of rapid and progressive new mediums of the digital age, whether it's social media platforms, online publications or video-focused channels.

I used to be an avid consumer of online fitness content until I eventually grew tired of its overarching presentation. Concurrently, I'm an advocate of most things related to the ancient Greek philosophy of Stoicism, but I find myself rolling my eyes at the ongoing modern interpretations of Stoic teachings on Youtube.

It's a feeling of general disdain - not severe enough that I can put my finger on it so easily, but nagging enough to trigger a repulsion reflex. A popular word these days to describe such a feeling may be 'cringe'.

A pushback against manufactured consent

The prolific scholar Noam Chomsky spoke about the intricacies of his ideas on Manufacturing Consent, including the propaganda channels and their categorical attributes. Within his framework, he included the classification of the 'elite media', a term that he used to describe the top media networks running most of what we see and hear in mainstream mediums. They focused and controlled the selection of topics, distribution of concerns, emphasis, framing of issues, and the filtering of information - all processes that helped consolidate and manage their overarching presentation of the world around us - a propaganda effort of sorts - manufacturing our perception of life and society itself.

It seems we're now witnessing a transition in popular media trends. A fragmentation of perception as a pushback to manufactured perception if you will, with the growing prominence of new media forms, namely digital mediums. The consolidated power of the elite media has now been somewhat challenged by the democratic structures enabled by social media and user-generated content platforms. Let's call this class 'citizen media'.

Now we get to hear everyone's take on things, courtesy of the internet.

It has come to a point where components of elite media (news networks, established television channels) will draw from the corpus of citizen media for engagement-worthy content. For instance, news segments feature the public consensus from popular social media channels like Twitter to draw conclusions about politics or lifestyle trends.

This democratization of media has allowed a few generally positive things to happen. Typically, everyone has an individual voice that can be heard through independent silos. We are able to tune into our favourite social 'mediums' and tap into the pulse of any public community at any given time.

In turn, this has allowed the power of media control to be shifted (to some degree) back to the 'people'. There is an open flow of information that enables us all to learn from each other, create interesting dialogues at scale and come to original conclusions through an abundance of knowledge resources (also leading to the rise of autodidact - or self-learning - culture).

So, what are the problems then?

The inevitable distortion of democratized media

The first and most prevailing issue of democratized media is also the most evident. Without conventional regulation, people can say and do whatever they want in relation to any field or point of discussion.

Where conventional media used to be gated with filters and screening processes that deduced only a handful of shortlisted entries at any given time, the thematic essence of de-media or citizen media is freedom (tied to freedom of speech or expression).

At its most severe degree, citizen media presents a chaotic ensemble of maddening noise comprising disinformation, deceptive messaging, and the socially unacceptable or abrasive presentation of ideas that lead to high-level conflict in some cases.

Steps have been made to try and mitigate such extreme reactions within this citizen media ecosphere. Social media sites have cracked down on individual accounts, banned certain sensitive topics, or set prohibitions in light of political correctness. This narrative leads to a whole other topic that I won't go into right now.

There's a second degree of problematic citizen media. It's a subtle distortion of any mass message, sometimes caused by the independent presentation of that message through the medium.

In other words, it's not the message that's the problem, but the way that message is presented.

You may not like the context in which your favourite concepts are being articulated. You may not like the people talking about these things, you may not like how they look, how they sound, or the general style of their content. It doesn't match with your own preferences or it may fall directly within the spectrum of prejudices you've developed over time.

The content might be too youthful or exuberant, too vibrant and irritatingly flashy, or maybe the influencers are too pretentious in their behaviour and demeanour. Regardless, prejudicial filters are triggered and as the narrative goes in classic communication theory, you stop engaging with the message (and medium) altogether.

This is what I'll describe as repulsion caused by distortion.

My associates and I at Palindrome have come up with a framework that tracks the regressive lifespan of a message and medium mix before reaching the repulsion state.

We're calling it Talkspan. Think of it as the lifespan of communication efforts, with the advocate (representing message and medium) going through different lifecycle stages (default, fatigue, distortion).

We'll be coming out with more papers elaborating our development of this framework. Stay tuned.