GUTENBERG AND THE SOCIAL

MEDIA REVOLUTION: AN INV

ESTIGATION OF THE WORLD
WHERE IT COSTS NOTHING T
O DISTRIBUTE INFORMATION
PRAYER
• PRAYER\Still - Hillsong
United with Lyrics(720P_HD).mp4
AWARENESS
How can we make our world a better place without d
estroying anything?
ACTIVITY
• ..\Documents\STS MAM LABS\2019\Gutenberg(480
P).mp4
The pre-Gutenberg w
orld
• In the world before the introduction
of the printing press it was not possi
ble to distribute precise replicable i
nformation to a large number of pe
ople. Information could be capture
d, in the laborious and time consum
ing process of hand-produced books
, scrolls or tablets, but access to this
information was restricted to a smal
l elite group
Transmission of knowledge thereafter ha
d to rely on purely word-of-mouth chann
els and the form of information that was
prevalent was therefore the story, this be
ing the form best adapted to surviving th
e process of ‘Chinese whispers’ that mass
communication involved.
The Gutenberg revol
ution
• It is widely acknowledged that the i
ntroduction of the printing press wa
s revolutionary in its impact. It was
credited as being the catalyst for th
e Renaissance, the development of
science and creating the pressures
which forced power to slip from the
hands of monarchs and religious or
ders
• and become shared across a much
broader section of society. However
, there is a temptation to see all of t
hese shifts as history and fail to see
the extent to which, what might be
called the Gutenberg principle, con
tinues to play an active role in the s
hape and operation of society and i
nstitutions today.
• Gutenberg principle can be expressed as the fact th
at mass distribution of information is possible, but e
xpensive. The effect of the Gutenberg principle was
the rise of institutionalised and mediated channels
to create the efficiencies and
• scale necessary to manage the inter
action between people with inform
ation and needs on the one hand, a
nd the people who wanted that info
rmation or could satisfy those need
s.
• While the technologies and channel
s for the distribution of information
have developed significantly since t
he Gutenberg press, the basic struct
ure of the Gutenberg principle has n
ot: it still costs lots of money to dist
ribute information to a mass audien
ce.
The post-Gutenberg
world
• The emergence of the internet and
the World Wide Web in the 1990s w
as initially hailed by many as usheri
ng in new democratic age, driven by
much greater access to information.
In reality, while the internet had a d
ramatic impact, the revolutionary s
hifts predicted did not occur.
• This is because, in its earliest days, the
World Wide Web still conformed to the
Gutenberg principle. Building a web sit
e, accessing server space and publishing
information required both money and t
echnical expertise and was therefore stil
l the preserve of institutions rather than
individuals. The reality of much greater
access to information was not matched
by a greater ability to publish it.
• Speed of access also limited the abil
ity of the internet to be a channel fo
r all forms of media, restricting its u
se to text based and transactional fo
rms. As a result, much of the initial
investment in the web went into ser
vicing and creating institutional opp
ortunities, with e-commerce emergi
ng as the major new web-based phe
nomena.
• This changed with two developmen
ts. First, the spread of broadband in
ternet access made it possible to ea
sily both upload and download all fo
rms of media: video, images and au
dio as well as just text and transacti
ons
Second, tools emerged which made i
t simple for people to publish or spre
ad information. Blogging was the firs
t example, followed by social networ
king and distribution and sharing site
s like YouTube and Flickr.
• There has been a third trend which i
s gathering significance, based arou
nd attaching relevance and context
to all of the otherwise random piec
es of information now being publish
ed. This concerns practices such as
tagging, rating and commenting, as
• well as services such as social book
marking and news-sharing sites whi
ch allow individuals to store and sha
re information. This trend is respon
sible for creating forms of collective
intelligence and what has been calle
d ‘crowd wisdom’ and is probably th
e
• most important area to watch going
forwards because of its ability to all
ow individuals to create the trust an
d connections necessary to transact
and communicate amongst themsel
ves without any institutionalised int
ervention.
• Information can now flow between
one individual and all of the potenti
al individuals for whom that inform
ation might be of relevance, withou
t any form of significant institutional
ised intervention
• (except the provision of a freely avai
lable technological infrastructure).
This is what could be called the pos
t-Gutenberg principle although perh
aps a better term would be the soci
al information principle.
Understanding the post-Gutenberg world

There are essentially three ways in w

hich the post-Gutenberg world is alre
ady intruding. These are:
1. The decline (or slide into irrelevan
cy and obsolescence) of institution
s and businesses for whom inform
ation mediation is their principle f
unction
2. The rise of transparency and the c
hallenge to institutionalised trust

3. The challenge to markets posed by

reduced costs of entry and the ability
to service niche demands.
The end of institutio
nalised mediation mod
els
• Gutenberg principle is hard-wired to
a greater or lesser extent into almos
t every institution that has emerged
over the last 500 years because it co
ntrols the way in which information
flows within organisations and socie
ty as a whole
 However, it is the businesses which
deal with information or content in it
s purest and simplest form – those th
at were the first to emerge following
Gutenberg’s discovery – that have als
o been the first to feel the impact of
the end of the Gutenberg era.
• These are the media, music and film
businesses and an examination of t
heir decline is important, not just b
ecause of the clues it gives as to ho
w other sectors may be affected, bu
t also because of the role and impor
tance of the media – the news medi
a in particular – in business and the
wider society.
Transparency and Tr
ust
• In the Gutenberg world, trust was in
stitutionalised. Organisations work
ed to establish reputations such tha
t people would trust anything and e
verything they did without feeling t
he need to interrogate it for themse
lves.
• Trust within social media is not vest
ed in institutions it is vested within
visible process. The best way to exp
lain this is to look further at the Wik
ipedia example and its battle with E
ncyclopaedia Britannica
 The Encyclopaedia Britannica is a cla
ssic example of institutionalised trust
. You trust its entries based on your
knowledge of the reputation for accu
racy it has established and carefully n
urtured over the years.
• But perhaps the most critical thing i
s that this new transparency does n
ot demand that everyone takes the
time to use these new tools to inter
rogate organisations –
• the power of the crowd comes into
play. The fact that someone is takin
g the time to do this and you know i
t is happening and can interrogate t
he process if you wish is sufficient.
Mass markets disrupt
ed by niche effects
• Social media is making it easier to ta
rget or relate to much smaller consu
mer or customer segments and this
is making it possible to create busin
esses that target niche markets that
were previously not viable.
• In the past, it was difficult to be a ni
che brand and it was very difficult, if
not impossible, to be a niche brand
that could challenge the big players
in terms of scale or ability to operat
e in the markets within which these
players operated.
Adapting to the pos
t-Gutenberg world
• In this section we look at the more s
pecific implications of the post-Gute
nberg world and start to chart the st
eps all organisations can take to miti
gate their effect or profit from their
development. But first, a word of c
aution
• The unpalatable truth is that many
business models may find they have
very little long-term future in the po
st-Gutenberg world. The fact there
have been only two significant casu
alties to date, in the traditional med
ia and music business
is because these businesses operate
as pure play content mediation servic
es and are thus exposed to the basic,
entry level, forms of content sharing
and distribution that social media ha
s currently developed.
In very brief terms these new assets
or competencies can be described th
us:
• Content – the ability to start seedin
g and colonising your digital space
with a broad range of discoverable c
ontent and information, tailored to
niche interests, which will draw the
relevant people to you and help gen
erate trust
• Conversation – the ability to engage
your key audiences and allow them
to start to make a contribution to th
e products and services you provide
– i.e. not simple to be passive receiv
ers
• Community – creating or supporting
the ability of those people whom yo
u have engaged in conversation to s
tart to talk and transact within them
selves about the issues relevant to t
he products and services you provid
e.
The journey
• It is possible to represent engageme
nt with the new assets of content, c
onversation and community as a for
m of a journey – as represented in t
he diagram below.
• As the diagram suggests – the key t
o success in this journey is the progr
essive ability to start to share contr
ol with your stakeholders. For exam
ple, it is not possible to have a
• successful one-way conversation an
d many companies are already disco
vering the value in encouraging cust
omers to create and share content:
the so-called Consumer (or User) G
enerated Content.
• While it might be attractive to belie
ve that you can progress from conte
nt into conversation and then comm
unity by following a horizontal track
and retaining complete control ther
e are very defined limits to this appr
oach.
• At some point it will become necess
ary to generate the elevation that c
omes from shared control because
effectively engaging in conversation
and community is impossible witho
ut it.
Content
• In the Gutenberg world organisatio
ns produced a restricted range of inf
ormation. That which was produce
d was expensive and of high produc
tion value, for example advertising,
brochures, corporate videos or corp
orate websites.
• This was because the Gutenberg pri
nciple dictated that it had to be of
mass relevance in order to subsidise
the high cost of distribution. Simply
put, if you are spending millions buy
ing media for an advertising campai
gn you will want your content to be
as focused and high quality as possi
ble.
Conversation
• Conversation is a more difficult asse
t to develop than content. There ar
e two reasons for this: first it is nece
ssary to establish what you can hav
e a credible conversation about and
second, conversations need to have
humans at both ends of them and t
his has implications for use of, and i
nvestment in, people.
Community
• The area of community represents a
further step-up in terms of degree o
f difficulty than conversation. It is al
so the area which is only just startin
g to form and we therefore have to
rely far more on extrapolation and p
rediction to give some clues as to h
ow it will operate.
Conclusion
• We are just starting to recognise tha
t we standing in the twilight of a wo
rld that has lasted for 500 years. It i
s a world which has become shaped
by the institutionalisation of the inf
ormation that flows between indivi
duals
• The world we are moving into is on
e where new technologies are maki
ng the process of institutionalised m
ediation obsolescent. Information c
an flow between one individual and
• all of the potential individuals for w
hom that information might be of re
levance, without any form of institu
tionalised intervention except the p
rovision of a freely available technol
ogical infrastructure.
WHAT WOULD LIFE B
E AFTER 10 YEARS?
 CRITERIA
Content: 30%
Creativity: 30%
Organization: 40%
TOTAL: 100%
•Make a creative presentation
about the importance of the I
nformation Age.