Campos Freire, Francisco (2008): The impacts of social networks on the traditional media. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 63.

Francisco Campos Freire, Ph. D. (C.V.). Professor of Journalism at the Faculty of Communication Sciences at the University of Santiago de Compostela, USC - fcampos@usc.es

Abstract: The rapid and successful debut of the so-called social networks in the last two or three years has alarmed the traditional media. The new social networking phenomenon reaches an audience of millions, increases its advertising revenue, manages user customization, and breaks with some of the barriers of old media organizations. This new via of communication is already used by millions of Internet users as one of the major sources of entertainment and information. This research paper analyzes the structure of eleven global social networks, which provide content in Spanish and other languages, and compares them against the 30 major online newspapers in Spain. The aim is to establish whether the so-called social networks are a new type of media, and a new platform for social relationships, business and post-media content that look more like the audiovisual media than the traditional printed press.

Keywords: convergence; attention economy; post-media; trans-media; social networks; virtual community; online newspapers; traditional media; new communication channel; personalization; information and entertainment.

Summary: 1. Introduction. 2. Justification. 3. Objectives. 4. Methodology. 5. Results. 6. Conclusions. 7. Bibliography.

Internet’s transformation into the main gateway to knowledge, information and entertainment awakens a huge cascade of questions about the role and future of traditional media, whose contents are competing with new information systems. The traditional media are considered cornerstones of the social mediation, the dissemination of information and knowledge, and the democratic impulse. Their importance is unquestionable to such extent that for almost a century society is known as mass media society. Does the incorporation of social networks, considered as new media, enrich and improve the media menu? From the outset, the new, media, or post-media, scenario causes many concerns and uncertainties in spite of its expansion and openness.

Advances in information and communication technologies have adopted new forms of intermediation and interactivity that are reshaping the media space. Social or professional relations and networks established and developed through the Internet constitute a new phase, which some describe as a post-media phase, of the service society which is even more accelerated and in which the attention is more segmented, personalized, instant, diluted, convergent, transparent, flexible, light, conversational, interconnected and oriented to collaboration, participation, and trivialization. The public relations of the media are changing: increasing fragmentation and diluted mediation.

Timoteo (2008) warn us about the new context of relationships between the media and their audiences: “The media go from being an opportunity to a problem. The relations with the media are full of distrust and competition”. Why rely on the media to communicate when the new Internet tools and technologies already allow connections from all to all? Timoteo also describes the effect of communications convergence as “the overwhelming horizontal sector that is present (like money) everywhere in all human activities, which have screen terminals as a references and dominant factor, is supported by several alternative technologies (cable, satellite), is privatized and organized in oligopoly, uses the spectacle as the dominant technique and evolves in parallel with other economic areas”.

Even if we think that they are very recent concepts, because they are a remarkable part of our present society, the notions of knowledge, information, convergence and social network have centuries of history. Their modern genealogy stems from the crisis of medieval European society and the cultural awakening of the Renaissance. The first to emerge was the concept of the knowledge society, associated with the emergence of the European Universities in the 12th century (Burke, 2000: 24), and then the concept of information, in the 15th century, linked to “the genetic code of the mystique of the number” (Mattelart, 2007: 15). The information and communication needs of modern society simultaneously encourage the convergence and the establishment of networks.

The notion of convergence is as broad, generic, ambiguous and elusive as the notions of society of knowledge and information. Like them, convergence comes from the confluence of the humanities with mathematics and has been successively used by different scientists, including the English William Derham (1657-1735) and Charles Darwin (1809-1882), although in the mid 20th century it also jumped to politics, economy, and technology. This jump occurred (Flichy, 1980) at the origin of modern communication industries (telegraph, telephone, radio or film) when electrical, mechanical, chemical, and telecommunications technologies were brought together.

In the last quarter of the 20th century convergence is used to explain syncretically and pragmatically the confluence of information technologies with telecommunications networks and the content circulating within them. But although the causal force of convergence is of a techno-informational nature, its consequences and effects are economic and social. The first convergence was the “technotronic” (1969: Brzezinski), then the “telematics” (1978: Nora-Minc) and almost simultaneously the “digital” (1979: Negroponte). To digitalize information is to encode it into digits and convert it into numbers, in order to manage it in a more effective and complex manner. Among the precursors of this new techno-informational revolution were the English cryptographer Alan Turing (1912-1954) and American engineer Norbert Weiner (1894-1964), both respectively dedicated, during the Second World War, to the task of deciphering the secret information codes of Nazi spies and the precision shooting of the canyons pointing to the Japanese.

The 19th century was the century of the networks: roads, railroads, submarine cables, power lines, and telegraph. The conception of the networks, which extends to the inauguration of the telegraph in France (1794: Paris-Lille), is present in the theory of the social philosopher Claude-Henri de Rouvroy, earl of Saint-Simon (1760-1825) and father of French socialism. Saint-Simonian notions of community and network were used again in the 20th century, after the 1970s, to ease the rigidity of Weber’s model of the administrative bureaucracy. The rectilinear conception (Miguel de Bustos, 2007), which was born in the 19th and 20th centuries with the communications revolution had once again its political transfer to the (global) diplomacy of networks that conceptualizes Zbigniew Brzezinski, adviser of American President James Carter.

The current media phenomenon of social networks is a seed germinated after the crisis of growth of the Internet, at the beginning of this century. The psychological need to maintain and nurture contacts emerged from the knowledge, human resources and networks of relationships established between the computer technicians who were involved or affected by the burst of the virtual bubble, and then, gradually, these interpersonal networks grew and expanded into something more serious and organized. With three or four years of experience these social networks have evolved into higher professional organizations, with characteristics of new media. There are already many networks: specialist, of general-interest, open, elitist, of different types and profiles.

General-interest networks divide their expertise into entertainment, generated by users or from third party sources, and information of interest, rated and reviewed. The business networks have also emerged (Shaner-Maznevski, 2007) and there are usually three basic types: entrepreneurs (formed by a growing core group of innovators), closed (with connections and trust) and sponsored. The life cycle of a network is shorter than other conventional media and its audience threshold can only grow up to a certain limit, beyond which it begins to lose profitability (Katz, 2008).

The model of activity - and of course of organization and business - of the traditional media is very different. The media’s information system follows the dictated traditional piloting model: selection, evaluation and control of content. This is not the model that fits, precisely, with the collaborative, open, horizontal and participatory philosophy of "social networking". The so-called Web 2.0, coined by Tim O'Reilly in 2003, was not popularized or characterized as "social networking" or as new collaborative philosophy of doing things until 2005 and 2006. It is a phenomenon of very recent emergence.

The main features of the "social network" are: the concept of community, through the creation of networks of users who interact, discuss and provide communication and knowledge; flexible technology and bandwidth necessary for the exchange of information and open-source web standards; and a modular architecture that favours the faster creation of complex applications, at a lower cost. While in the Web 1.0 users are mere recipients of services, in the Web 2.0 they produce content (blogosphere), add value (exchange) and collaborate on the development of technology. The communication process generates, in short, an active flow of participation.

The dynamic of convergence is not only a technological and economic issue but also transmedial and social, i.e. the clash is more of cultures than of structures. Are the new social networks of communication accelerating or mitigating the impact of the traditional media? Are they a prolongation and extension of the mass media society? How are the traditional media embedding or using these new forms and tools of communication? Based on a sample of virtual platforms of global social networks and Spanish media, this research attempts to explore how the so-called Web 2.0 is expanding and reshaping the structure of media organizations and the systems of dissemination of information and knowledge.

The new forms of communication and the relationships developed through what has been termed Web 2.0 mark a huge and complex challenge for traditional media companies and their professionals, in particular, and society in general. In the face of criticism over the power, influence and control of the media, the new systems appear to resemble a greater chance of participation, transparency and interaction. But is it a false appearance? Relations through the Internet networks, introduce new forms of communication, an economy and culture that give priority to new values and forms of direct, segmented, personalized, collaborative, collective, and interactive exchange. In other words, communication and collaboration networks based on models of syndication, affiliation, aggregation, portals, communities, wikis, chat, forums, blogs, folksonomies, interactivity, etc.

The traditional media are involved in a lengthy and challenging marathon of strategic risks. First, competition between them and, then, the emergence of new digital media that, apart from taking a bite of the traditional cake of the attention economy (the supermarket of marketing), incorporate new forms and models based on collaboration and participation of receivers or users. Consumers become producers, not only of attention (generation of audience) but also of information, communication and other entertainment or knowledge contents. It is not about receptors of a product but users who choose a service they interact with.

The convergence and integration of technologies, networks, and communication systems encourages even more the media environment, facilitating the entry and concurrence of all. The media no longer compete only among themselves but also with their own publics. Does the media industry is losing control over the information value chain? Is the media industry adapting to the “remediation” and evolving into an ecosystem of hypermedia value? Are the processes of the production organization breaking up or evolving? Are we facing a new order and a new organization of the media industry and the media system in general? What are its forms and values?

The eruption of new concepts and labels such as "multimedia", "social networking", "virtual communities", "Web 2.0", "cyberspace", "cyberculture”, "digital Journalism" "citizen journalism", "collaborative journalism", "Journalism 3.0" or "social journalism" in the technological, academic and scientific informative literature demand us to question whether this diversity of tabs is foreshadowing a new post-media landscape or will it remain in approximations and experiences that, if not assimilated by the old and new media, will eventually languish. The entry or adjustment of these new technologies in the traditional media has come, however, through the back door and with some suspicion. Still, nobody wants to miss out trying to access the new menu.

For the purpose of this study, we have chosen a specific sample of media-oriented social networks. The paper studies the structure of ten networks that offer content in Spanish, among other languages, and one network that offers content in English, for being the leading model of a type of consolidated information offer that has had plenty of followers, two of which are also included in this sample. Six of them were born and have their headquarters in the US, three in Spain, one in the UK and another one in Germany. The selection was random and was done during April 2008, taking weeks and days of joint and simultaneous representation. The audience data are indicative and correspond to my own sources and sources from other research (Gil, 2008).

The structure and organization of social networks were analysed on the same dates as the websites of the major Spanish newspapers. This second sample was constituted based on the list of newspapers with the highest number of unique users, according to OJD, 2006 (Bel Mallen-AEDE, 2007: 139). The use of a set of 30 characteristic variables or elements of Web 2.0 was examined in a sample of the 30 largest Spanish digital newspapers. A total of 300 indicators related to the so-called social networks and the Spanish online press were verified.

From the data analysed two types of content stand out: of relationships (friendship, sharing of photos and messages) and of entertainment and information (participation and opinion). Among the first group there are some -four, which is exactly half- offering information, although in a second level, which has as the main objectives the entertainment, leisure, hobbies and cultivation of friendly relations. When the informative genre appears in these types of networks it is primarily content of services, notices, events and developments. The sections tend to combine text with video images and photos, as well as blogs and podcasts or television channels. Regarding participation, the forums in two networks stand out (www.myspace.com and www.orkut.com) while in the rest participation occurs through general and specific groups. These are obviously two different forms of participation, in line with the respective concepts of network and community.

Source: Personally compiled from the analysis of a sample performed in April 2008. The numbers marked with asterisk correspond to groups or general forums, and are followed by the number of groups of individual participation.

The three information networks of the sample follow the model of www.digg.com, and none of them has the elements of organized participation through forums and communities. These networks also have a limited number of sections (4-5) and in all of the entertainment information stands out, particularly information with novel and bizarre elements. All of them offer audiovisual content, i.e. videos and photos, and another interesting aspect: links to traditional media and other sites, which are the primary and secondary sources of the information they offer. Let’s examine another important feature of the networks: their profile and conditions of accessibility.

Networks	Year of creation	Country	Registered users	Languages	Full Name	E-mail	Date of Birth	Conditions of use	Privacy Policy	User Elements
Facebook	2004	USA	58.000.000	4	X	X	X			6
Friendster	2003	USA	50.000.000	4	X	X	X			4
Linkara	2004	Spain	300.000	1	X	X	X	X	x	17
MySpace	2003	USA	217.000.000	4	X	X	X	X	x	15
Badoo	2006	UK	12.000.000	6	X	X	X	X		9
Orkut	2004	USA	67.000.000	2	X	X		X	x	8
Digg	2004	USA	1.000.000	1	X	X	X	X	x	14
Fresqui	2006	Spain	12.500.000	1	x*	X				4
Hi5	2003	USA	50.000.000	11	x*	X	X	X		6
Menéame	2005	Spain	50.000	1	x*	X		X		5
Neurona	2003	Germany	835.000	3	X	X	X	X		14

Two important sources of competitive advantage of the social networks against the open, continuous and mainstream traditional media (radio, television, and Internet) are the identification of accessibility of the users or recipients and their possible exploitation as advertising consumers. The accessibility to networks requires each user the registration of a minimum of 4 and 17 identification elements: email address, name, surname, date of birth, sex, place of residence or postal code, education, etc.

The networks’ obtaining of the consumer’s profile, together with the lack of adequate privacy demands or impositions (evident in six of them), represents an astute and powerful marketing tool for the segmentation and planning of the attention economy. Some networks incorporate a verification mechanism to prevent automated registrations of new users. These and other networks offer the viral system of recommendation to friends and acquaintances to add more members and/or friends to the network.

The entertainment-oriented networks offer sections of participation, but not all of them, especially those aimed at getting some users in touch with others through the creation and connection of groups of particular interests. Most of these groups are of entertainment and games, except in www.neurona.com, which is more professional and business-oriented. It is a network very different to the other ten, geared towards the specialization and professional relationships. This is another very salient trend that reflects the goal many companies are aiming: to create networks and communities for their customers and society in general.

The group of informative networks puts in practice its conception of participation through the opportunity to supply, offer, nurture, discuss and vote on the news. It is an informative agenda created, organized, evaluated and commented upon by the users of the network news who enter or withdraw news based on their own standards. The difference, compared to traditional media, lies in the professional treatment of information: professional standards, diversity of sources, preparation, commitment time, contrast, contextualization, codes and social responsibility.

Source: Own compilation of a weekday in April 2008. In Linkara the contents are reviews of books.

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