Triumph of the Old Media?

Peter Daou, a leading online strategist and former adviser to Hillary Clinton has a rather fascinating post on the current health care debate that pertains to some of the discussions about social media and information strategy examined here over the last few months:

"[M]y fellow digerati: it's time to admit that the communications landscape, at least in politics, isn't necessarily tilted in favor of new media. The health reform showdown is powerful evidence that the much-touted online advantage of the left, if not a chimera, is certainly questionable when it comes to major political confrontations. ...It's been fashionable in tech/political circles to think of the Internet as an establishment-slayer that destroys business models and shakes up the political landscape and to consider 2008 a watershed for citizen empowerment, but the more sober scenario is one where the establishment stops the bleeding, stabilizes, and reasserts its capacity to shape public perceptions. The health care battle bolsters the latter case."

Why is this so? Dauo argues that the "establishment" has co-opted social media, established hybrid forms of media (such as Politico), and that old forms of media such as cable news still set the agenda. Let's put aside Daou's simplistic "rebels vs. establishment" binary (a myth and a rhetorical device that the netroots propate) for a second and unpack the meaning of this essay.

What Dauo is essentially stating is that it is difficult to transform "online power" (tweets, blogs, facebook profiles, etc) into political power. Curtis Gale Weeks explained why earlier in an analysis of the Iranian Twitter uprising. While the greening of thousands of Twitter profiles may seem like the mobilization of a movement, Weeks argues argues that it is in fact “the sound of multiple people clapping one hand in the effort to increase the volume of their outrage.” The self-multiplication effect makes it difficult for one to objectively assess the amount of power he or she can employ at one point in time.

Second, while it may be fashionable to bash centralized and hierarchal organizations, they have a number of important advantages. They have their heft and power, and a "topsight" that gives their efforts strategic coherence. And they can enable their lower elements to move with a surprisingly flexible articulation. Citing German "mission tactics" has by now become something of a cliche in strategic studies, but I think people keep coming back to it simply because the example is so basic and powerful.

People who consider themselves "insurgents" often vastly overestimate their ability to keep their opponents off balance. They imagine their opponent as a kind of shapeless mass that can't fight back, or is supposed to be bowled over by superior technology. They severely underestimate the opponent's ability to adapt and use both old and new tools.

Comments

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=789043751]

Excellent post!

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=789043751]

As a follow-up, you mention that Old Media has been co-opting New Media -- which is a great observation; but the counter-move would be the New Media co-opting the Old Media. In other words, Old Media, in their effort to co-opt the New, keep a very close eye on what is happening in the New....

[A.E.]

That's an interesting thought, but I haven't seen much of New Media trying to co-opt the old. Part of this is due to New Media's antagonistic pose towards Old Media. The new media figures who have made the move toward old (such as Ezra Klein at the Washington Post or Ross Douthat at the New York Times) have kind of faded into the background.

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=789043751]

From the very beginning I thought the new media's self-back-patting was odd, since from the very beginning they always went to the Old Media for their source material, heavy on the quotation.

Old Media has a lot of resources which most New Media does not. Old Media is better able to find new sources; New Media is quite limited in that respect (typically.)

[Susan]

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[Eddie]

Actually though, the old media at least had standards. You don't have as near as much of that in the New Media, despite claims to the contrary that they "police" the screw-ups in the Old Media. Palin's death panel meme on Facebook allowed her to post things even the WAPO editorial board wouldn't clear and her celebrity turned that post into a massive discussion that the Old Media gorged on for days in order to keep a controversy alive that drew viewers.

If you say that Palin made that Facebook post influential herself, not some average Joe, you would be right. However, if an average Joe had taped her speaking to that effect at a town hall or a dinner party, it would be all over Red State or HP in minutes attracting many bottom feeders reading and linking to it that then drew the attention of the MSM.