An alternative view of a social medium: Communication as coordinating and medium-making activity

Abstract

Over the past decade, ‘social media’ have been transformed from outposts of the cyber world to hallmarks of the digital era. Today, high-tech platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are generally accepted as devices which extend and facilitate communication between people both near and far. In this article, I present an excerpt from a recent visual ethnography into one community’s use of a decidedly low-tech communication system. The current study suggests that a medium, in this case one based upon modest technological bases, is inextricably tied to socially patterned relationships of meaning and action. Moreover, the study indicates that these relationships are structured by communication. A medium, then, is a technology translated through its placement within a communication system. One implication for this observation is that neither a medium – nor the technology upon which it is based – is a preformed physical conduit awaiting information or messages for transmission. The article suggests that all media are social and that much is learned about the basic nature of communication by investigating the communicational translation of a technology into a medium.