Presented for the Charlotte City Club's Dialogue and Discovery, June 2011

1. A History of Social Media
Charlotte City Club Dialogue and Discovery
Dr. John A. McArthur : @JAMcArthur
June 1, 2011

2. Image from:

3. media technology shapes society
or “all media work us over completely” – Marshall McLuhan (1968)

4. tribal epoch
print epoch
digital epoch
electronic epoch
literate epoch
mode: orality
technology: voice & sight
medium: the
spoken word
printing press
telegraph
Internet
writing
2000BC 1450 AD 1835 1994

5. tribal epoch
mode: visual
technology: alphabet
medium: written text
literate epoch
writing
2000BC
printing press
print epoch
1450 AD
telegraph
Internet
electronic epoch
1835 1994
digital epoch

6. tribal epoch print epoch
digital epoch
electronic epoch
literate epoch
mode: visual
technology: printing press
medium: books and
papers
printing press
telegraph
Internet
writing
2000BC 1450 AD 1835 1994

7. electronic epoch
print epoch
tribal epoch
digital epoch
literate epoch
mode: aurality
technology: telegraph
medium: electronic
devices
printing press
telegraph
Internet
writing
2000BC 1450 AD 1835AD1994

8. digital epoch
print epoch
tribal epoch
electronic epoch
literate epoch
mode: digitality/orality
technology: Internet
medium: “computers”
printing press
telegraph
Internet
writing
2000BC 1450 AD 18351994 AD

9. print epoch
tribal epoch
digital epoch
electronic epoch
literate epoch
Note the exponentially
faster shifts in culture
through communication
technology.
printing press
telegraph
Internet
We are becoming a writing
global village.
2000BC 1450 AD 1835 1994

10. “the global village”
• the globe becomes the new tribe

11. “the global village”
• the globe becomes the new tribe
• instantaneous movement of
information across time and space

12. “the global village”
• the globe becomes the new tribe
• instantaneous movement of
information across time and space
• brings social and political functions
together

13. “the global village”
• the globe becomes the new tribe
• instantaneous movement of
information across time and space
• brings social and political functions
together
• heightened social awareness of human
responsibility

14. “the global village”
• the globe becomes the new tribe
• instantaneous movement of
information across time and space
• brings social and political functions
together
• heightened social awareness of human
responsibility
• cultural shift

15. “the global village”
• the globe becomes the new tribe
• instantaneous movement of
information across time and space
• brings social and political functions
together
• heightened social awareness of human
responsibility
• cultural shift
technology and media
have always been social