Why Conversational Media Is Newly Important, Even Though It's Definitely Not "New"

What's the big deal about conversational media? A lot of people get confused by that term because, rightly, they know that print and broadcast media have been used to facilitate certain kinds of conversations. So why bother talking about it if it's not new?

That's an important point: conversational media is NOT new. In fact, it's quite ancient. However, conversational media recently has attained crucial significance because, thanks to advances in communication and search technology, it's now more widely accessible and less controlled than ever before.

In media, conversation used to be a minor sideline to publishing. More and more, it's getting to be the main attraction -- not just in terms of popularity, but influence.

How old is conversational media? Well, do you have a Bible lying around?...

In this posting yesterday, I buried a bit of context that deserves more focus. So forgive me for repeating myself, but here it is again:

Much of conversational media involves distributed conversation, which occurs over time via discrete and generally public statements or articles that react to, respond to, or synthesize from each other. Different branches of the conversation may involve different participants or audiences. Each statement may appear superficially independent, but collectively they build a web of conversational context through citations, quotes, links, and other kinds of direct and indirect cross-references.

Distributed conversation via conversational media has deep and ancient roots. Early examples include the "letters" books of the New Testament, the Islamic hadiths, the Federalist Papers, and the back-and-forth that occurs via articles and papers in scientific or academic journals.

In a comment to this posting, Robert Westervelt raised a related theme. He wrote:

"What is the difference between 'conversational media' and a newspaper columnist’s column that appears online? Does that column even have to appear on the Internet to be 'conversational?' For years, newspapers have held a dialogue with their readers, allowing a public conversation to take place with their readers through their editorial pages. I have even seen some small community newspapers print in a discussion board style, a dialogue between readers, allowing them to address issues and bring up new issues on the pages.

"So the definition is a good start, but it addresses a media that has been going on for years. It doesn’t address the delivery method of that media. 'New' conversational media would be through the use of blogs and e-mail to address a wide audience via the Internet."

Good points.

In my opinion, too much recent discussion of media and communication lately has fixated on technology or delivery mechanisms, rather than action. Personally, I think it's more useful -- and far more interesting -- to look at what we're doing differently with communication today, and how that affects our lives, our work, our communities, and our world.

So let's separate the technology from the action:

• Almost any kind of media is potentially conversational. It's easier to exercise this potential in some media than others. Whether and how you choose to exercise this potential is up to you.
• Yes, print and broadcast media can be conversational. However, generally this is not accomplished easily or freely. Participation is limited, and cross-references (links) require significant initiative and work to follow.
• Yes, online media can be used for non-conversational publishing. In fact. this is quite easy to do. For instance, you can use a blog or a one-way e-mail newsletter to, say, publish a weekly column -- not very different from using print media for the same goal. You also can choose to turn off comments, or to not publish or respond to e-mails or other feedback from readers. Before about 2000, many web sites were used as straightforward publishing tools. Although they had links, there wasn't much sense of a conversation happening among them.
  
• Conversations get vital and varied when more people can join in easily. When conversations gain momentum, energy, and diversity, they spawn more action and effects. THIS is what's new and important about the advent of the internet -- and specifically weblogs and other tools that make public conversations easier to discover, join, and follow. With these tools you often don't have to submit your contribution to the discussion to an editor of some sort who will decide whether you eventually get heard. And even if your voice is somehow excluded from one facet of the conversation, it's easy and free to create your own online presence (such as a blog) or to raise your points in other venues.

So yes, Robert is right. Some print and broadcast outlets (such as community newspapers) have always provided a public glimpse of a very controlled, limited aspect of public conversation via editorial pages or other formats. I'm not knocking that level of editorial control -- especially with contentious issues, it can vastly improve the signal-to-noise ratio and save time.

Again, conversational media does not necessarily have to be online. It's just easier, more immediate, and more diverse online -- which offers benefits and drawbacks.

So conversational media is not new, but that's beside the point. It's newly vital, newly popular, and newly influential.

I doubt it will ever replace traditional publishing -- in fact, both approaches to communication are very complementary. However, conversational media has definitely emerged from the sidelines of publishing. It's got its own venues and momentum, and people can access most of it directly -- without traditional publishers or other gatekeepers.

The public conversation is going to happen with or without you, whether you ignore it or not. In coming years, it most definitely will affect important aspects of your life, business, and world.

Personally, I think it's smarter to keep an eye on things that affect me directly. Your mileage may vary, of course.