I was recently in a client meeting with my boss, Julien Brunet, discussing social media marketing and how the various platforms available can be used to meet a brand's communication needs. Specifically, we were going over the various possible applications of a microblogging platform, such as Twitter. During this convo, we were explaining to our clients that if a company doesn't have the proper resources (at first) to fully engage in social media and produce fresh daily content...then a microblogging tool could be used (and is so used by many Twitterers) to aggregate and share a series of interesting (and pertinent!) information pieces relative to the client's industry.It was at this precise point in the conversation when Julien coined the term "Information DJs" in reference to how many Twitterers use this tool as an information remix platform. His term really struck a chord. I found this to be really interesting, as it is yet another manifestation of the remix culture we are currently living in. We are all information remixologists in some form or fashion... sharing cultural artifacts we find to be of interest with our entire network.
But, has this not always been so? Have we not always been information remixologists? Have we not always shared the information we've acquired with our friends, family, coworkers...Don't we spend our entire lives giving shape to information? Is it not simply our tools and our selected channels of communication that have changed? But then... if "the medium is the message", then would it not mean that this new medium has altered the way we remix and convey the information we acquire?
Hmmm....so many questions...
In an attempt to answer these questions, here's the information (wink) I found that helped clarify things a bit in my mind.
First, I found this interesting video that answers the question "Do you know what information is?" Check it out:
Ok. So information has no form. We're the ones who give form to information... we give form to it by the manner in which we choose to communicate it. Therefore, we often confuse information with the form that it takes. So, according to this video, the medium is not the message... and this digital revolution does not directly alter our understanding of information, because information has no form to begin with.
But I still want to know how the medium affects the message. How does the medium (the Web) change the way we seek out, find, understand, manipulate and share information?
I found my answer in the following video "Information R/evolution" produced by Michael Wesch, Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Digital Ethnography at Kansas State University:
So "We no longer just find information. It can find us. We can make it find us... It's an information explosion, an information revolution. And the responsibility to harness, create, critique, organize and understand is on us."
Beautiful!
