Republic of the Philippines

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

KM. 39 Gulod Sta. Maria, Bulacan Campus
Km. 39 Gulod Pulong Buhangin Sta. Maria Bulacan

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY

UNIT 8: The Information Age

(Gutenberg to social media)

Submitted by:
Group 8
Caluya, Maria Clarisse Inocencio
De Asis, Charlot Palabino
Dela Cruz, Cherrielyn Juan
Espera, Faith Ashley Nerpiol
BSENTREP 2-1

Submitted to:
Professor Leonardo Correa

October 2022
First Semester, S.Y. 2022-2023

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………......3

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………4

The Pre-Gutenberg World…………………………………………...…………………………5

The Gutenberg Revolution……………………………………………………………………..6

The Post-Gutenberg World…………………………………………………………………….7

Understanding the Post-Gutenberg World…………………………………………………...9

The End of Institutionalized Mediation Models………………………………………………9

Transparency & Trust…………………………………………………………………………11

Mass Markets disrupted by Niche effects…………………………………………………...13

Adapting to the Post-Gutenberg World………………………………………….…………..14

Assets or Competencies…………………….………………………………………..15

The Journey…………………………………………………………………………………….16

Content………………………………………………………………………………….17

Conversation…………………………………………………………………………...20

Community……………………………………………………………………..………22

References…………………………………………………………………….……………….24

Further Readings………………………………………………………………………………25

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 ABSTRACT

This paper examines the history of information to discuss its future. As we move away
from the lengthy period of print, which started more than five hundred years ago with
Gutenberg and the printing press, it implies that we have already experienced at least
two information orders or revolutions. After World War II, we passed through a predigital
period before entering a new one marked by the prevalence of technologies that are
considered to signal a new "digital revolution" and the emergence of a different kind of
"information society." It presents an outline of an account of the circumstances and the
trajectory of events that have culminated in today's "information revolution" and
"information society." It contends that because of the revolutionary changes that are
presently occurring, it is easy to recognize that the past is now subject to new types of
examination. It suggests that in the history of information, science is increasingly
regarded as a component of a still-unrealized convergence of various historical
perspectives on how information and the infrastructures that develop to control
information access and use shape societies' constitution, sustenance, reproduction, and
change. In conclusion, it suggests that as we move into the digital world, various
historical knowledge bases and historical research methodologies have emerged.
These methodologies may one day be combined in a useful way to broaden and
deepen investigations of significant historical information phenomena, from Gutenberg
to Google.

This paper briefly discusses how much the Gutenberg principle has influenced our world
before focusing on the common characteristics of the post-Gutenberg era, or the world
of social media, and identifying how organizations will be affected by it as well as how
they will need to adapt to survive in a world where power won't lie in the institutionalized
ability to control access to information.

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 INTRODUCTION

Online and social media were made possible by the advancement of the information
age, and this development will continue to support valuable innovations in the future.
Let's return to the past before focusing on the future. A clock, a compass, and a
calendar are examples of ancient technology that you may be familiar with. These
technologies are now merely basic smartphone features. We also have a printer, a
typewriter, and a photocopier. For their school projects and assignments, our parents or
grandparents may have used them, but today's students may already use a laptop and
a multifunction printer, which is a newer technology that can perform more tasks than a
typewriter or a photocopier. These are only a few effects brought on by the information
age's development. Let's first examine what information is before discussing how the
information era came to be. The Latin term "informare," which means to give anything
form, shape, or meaning, is where the information originates. Information's primary
function is "communication," and if it is not shared with someone or something, it no
longer serves its intended purpose. Information has the power to portray our world. For
instance, the sign for information is ℹ️. Agent, sign, and object are the three (3)
fundamental properties that make up the structure of information. The agent is the one
interpreting the thing, which is then represented by the sign.

It is probable that the past 500 years will be remembered as the Gutenberg age if
mankind is fortunate enough to still have a history, because one defining trait, originally
established by Johannes Gutenberg, was responsible for influencing society and its
institutions during this entire time. The ability to disseminate information widely became
possible, but it was expensive and so institutionalized. This trait could be called the
Gutenberg principle. As we stand now, at the end of this era, it is still challenging to fully
comprehend the extent to which this idea has influenced the structure of our world since
it has become so ingrained and ubiquitous. The potential to see the extent to which this
link between information and distribution has shaped and formed not only organizations

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 like the media but also other sorts of mediators like banks led to the creation of mass
consumer brands and controlled the relationship between people and institutions of all
types, both commercial and not, has only come with the rise of a new world where
information does not adhere to the Gutenberg principle.

The term "information age" or "modern age" refers to a period when information has
developed into a commodity that is quickly, widely, and easily accessible, particularly
using computer technology. In other words, this is a period when information is very
accessible and very convenient to have. The information era, which started in the
middle of the 20th century, was marked by a quick transition away from conventional
industries. The industrial revolution laid the foundation for information technology's
economic foundation. The invention of the transistor in 1947 and the optical amplifier in
1957, the foundation of fiber optical transmission, have been linked to the advent of
information. The capitalization of computer micro miniaturization developments that led
to modernized information and communication border usage with society becoming the
driving force for social evolution, according to the United Nations Public Administration
Methods, gave rise to the information era.

THE PRE-GUTENBERG WORLD

Before the invention of the printing press, it was impossible to make exact, reproducible
information available to a large audience. Information could be recorded in the tedious
and time-consuming process of hand-producing books, scrolls, or tablets, but only a
select elite group had access to this information. Following that, knowledge had to be
spread only through word-of-mouth routes, and stories were the most common format
for information since they were most suited to surviving the "Chinese whispers" that
mass communication involved.

Religion and medieval political systems, which were well suited to the use of narrative
or hierarchy as a tool of transmission or control, tended to dominate society and
constrain institutional growth.

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THE GUTENBERG REVOLUTION

The term "Gutenberg Revolution" is used to illustrate how the printing press's
emergence into society had a democratizing influence. The printing press's creation
made it possible for changes to occur on a global scale. The development of the printing
press and its social implications led to the birth of democracy. It allowed people to have
a voice who was not able to spread their messages before. The Reformation gave
people the freedom to read the Bible in their own language, leaving it free to their
interpretation. The invention of the printing press made all of the literature possible.
People learned the discipline of reading through the printed text, a tremendous tool for
comprehension and fundamental communication. Without literacy and printed language,
it would not have been possible to record such media in a physical copy. History and
contemporary concepts were saved and afterward utilized to bring about significant
changes in European societal norms. It was transparent, and that's why it worked. The
printing press not only made the Bible more accessible but also sparked the
Renaissance. The Renaissance would not have been possible without the ability to
convey enormous amounts of information.

The media was perhaps the most obvious example of an institution that developed, but
in reality, almost all of the institutions that have developed since Gutenberg owe at least
some of their existence to the application of the Gutenberg principle. A bank, for
instance, is essentially just a way to establish the scale and efficiencies required to
mediate information about people who have money and those who do not. It still costs a
lot of money to disseminate information to a large audience, despite the fact that
technologies and channels for doing so have advanced greatly since the invention of
the Gutenberg press.
It is commonly agreed that the printing press invention had a revolutionary effect. It was
attributed with serving as the impetus for the Renaissance, the advancement of science,
and the formation of the forces that compelled monarchies and religious organizations
to cede control and allow it to be shared among a far wider segment of society. It is
easy to dismiss all of these changes as historical changes and fail to see how much the

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so-called Gutenberg principle still influences how society and institution functions and
are shaped today.

The Gutenberg principle is the idea that widespread information diffusion is technically
feasible but prohibitively costly. The Gutenberg principle led to the emergence of
institutionalized and mediated channels, which allowed for the creation of the scale and
efficiencies required to manage interactions between those who had information and
needs on the one hand and those who desired that information or could meet those
needs on the other.

THE POST-GUTENBERG WORLD

The rise of the internet and the world wide web can be used to define this time period.
This made it easy to upload and download any type of media instrument, including
audio, video, and photos. It makes it possible for anyone to share or publish information
even more quickly and widely. Furthermore, the rate of communication increased
significantly as a result.

Many people first welcomed the advent of the internet and the World Wide Web in the
1990s as ushering in a new democratic era that would be fueled by much easier access
to information. Although the internet had a significant impact on reality, the revolutionary
changes predicted did not happen. This is because the World Wide Web first followed
the Gutenberg concept. Due to the costs and technological requirements, building a
website, gaining access to server space, and posting information remain the domain of
businesses and organizations rather than private citizens. In spite of the fact that
information was much easier to get, publishing it was not much easier.

Two things happened that caused this to change. First, the widespread availability of
broadband internet connections makes it simple to post and download all types of
media, including text, commerce, video, pictures, and audio. Second, methods that

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made it easier for people to publish or share information started to appear. The first
example was blogging, which was then followed by social networking, content sharing,
and distribution websites like YouTube and Flickr.

A third trend that is becoming more important focuses on giving meaning and relevance
to all of the currently available material that would otherwise be unrelated. It refers to
techniques like tagging, rating, and commenting as well as tools like social bookmarking
and news-sharing websites that let people store and distribute information. Because it
enables people to establish the connections and trust required to transact and
communicate among themselves without any institutionalized intervention, this trend is
likely the most important to watch going forward. It is responsible for creating forms of
collective knowledge that have been referred to as "crowd wisdom."

Without any kind of significant institutionalized intervention, information can now flow
between one person and all of the possible users for whom it would be relevant (except
for the provision of a freely available technological infrastructure). This is what might be
referred to as the post-Gutenberg principle, though the term "social information
principle" might be better.

In very general terms, the social information principle is expected to have a very strong
de-institutionalizing or disintermediating effect that, in theory, might have social
consequences at least as substantial as those brought about in the beginning by the
invention of the printing press. Since the institutions and practices that have supported
our civilization for 500 years are unlikely to vanish overnight, this is likely to take place
over a long period of time.

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UNDERSTANDING THE POST-GUTENBERG WORLD

There are three main ways in which the post-Gutenberg world is already invading.

• The downfall (or fall into irrelevance and obsolescence) of institutions and
enterprises whose primary purpose is information mediation.
• The growth of exposure and the challenge to establish trust.
• Markets are being challenged by lower entry costs and the capacity to meet
specific demands.

THE END OF INSTITUTIONALIZED MEDIATION MODELS

As was already said, the Gutenberg principle, which governs how knowledge moves
within organizations and society as a whole, is hardwired to some degree into practically
every institution that has developed over the previous 500 years. But the enterprises
that deal with information or content in its purest and most basic form—those that were
the first to appear after Gutenberg's discovery—are also the ones that have felt the
effects of the end of the Gutenberg period. These industries are the media, music, and
film industries, and examining their decline is crucial not just for the hints it offers as to
how other sectors may be impacted, but also due to the media's vital position in
business and society at large, particularly the news media.

Almost all of the time people spend using social media comes at the price of time spent
watching conventional media. There are several predictions about how this will play out,
but one extremely reliable source, Ron Bloom, CEO of Mevio (previously PodShow),
asserted in 2006 that, within five years, 50% of the media that customers consume will
be created by other consumers (i.e., social media) [1]. Although this estimate may be on
the high end of the spectrum, almost no one has seriously disputed the idea that using
social media significantly cuts down on the amount of time people spend watching
traditional media, and that amount of time directly translates to the amount of money
that can be made. Any organization that heavily relies on traditional media for
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communication or information distribution will find their ability to communicate severely
constrained and they will be forced to enter the social media space simply in order to
maintain a profile or share-of-voice. This obviously has significant commercial
implications for the traditional media (if Bloom's prediction is correct this will equate to a
50% market reduction). This alone may be the impetus for businesses to use social
media, especially given the enormous competitive advantage that businesses that can
effectively use this channel would have.

The manner in which the old media are fading away is quite instructive. Many in the
media still have the mistaken belief that social media material is inferior to conventional
media content because it isn't authored or produced with the same level of
professionalism or adherence to "journalistic integrity" standards. They thus find it
ludicrous to think that "the narcissism of the blogosphere" or "the garbage on YouTube"
could ever replace a newspaper or television. In actuality, the demand for public appeal
shapes their idea of what is "good," whereas the social information principle, of course,
states that individual relevance—rather than bulk appeal—determines how information
is disseminated. The misconception that one institutionalized form of access to
information (a newspaper) will be replaced by another institutionalized type of access
serves as the foundation for this misconception. Instead, a large portion of the
information provision organized by the institution of conventional media is being
replaced by the process of information sharing inside social media. One of the
distinguishing features of the transition from Gutenberg to the post-Gutenberg era is this
change from institution to process. This isn't occurring because social media is doing
"news" any better; rather, it's because it has altered the definition of news, moving it
away from one constrained by the economics of expensive dissemination and toward
one based on personal choice. People still desire national and international news and
material with broad appeal, but these things usually come after news about their friends,
family, jobs, hobbies, and neighborhood in terms of importance.

According to Clay Shirky, the media and the profession of journalism "has been founded
as a result of scarcity (the capacity to write)," but professionals are frequently the last to

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notice when that scarcity disappears in his most recent book, "Here Comes Everybody"
[2]. Understanding that you confront competition rather than obsolescence is simpler.
The conventional media won't likely be the first industry to face a challenge from
obsolescence rather than a traditional rival. The traditional media will almost certainly
not be the first industry to be challenged by obsolescence rather than a traditional
competitor. Managers of businesses in many other sectors will find their markets
shrinking and customers leaving them, not because they are doing anything wrong, but
simply because their customers have found better ways of doing things or spending
their time - typically by cutting out middlemen and transacting amongst themselves.

TRANSPARENCY AND TRUST

In the world of Gutenberg, confidence was institutionalized. Organizations strove to

build a reputation that would make people believe everything that they did without
having to double-check it.

This was successful because it was effective from the organization's point of view and
because people realized they could not (or did not want to) thoroughly investigate every
organization they dealt with. They would agree to a firm's "institutionalized image" of its
own (brand) as long as they could be fairly assured that it was accurate. The one
problem with this paradigm was that if something led individuals to doubt this
representation, this would destroy their trust in the institution as a whole. This could be
mitigated, nevertheless, by the fact that, for instance, one example of poor customer
service tended to live and die with the person in question and possibly the group of
friends they discussed it with, and if it did come to greater prominence, it tended to go
through channels which could be controlled—either sidelined by effective PR or
drowned-out by advertising.
Those preconceptions are being challenged by social media. Since anybody may now
access mass publication techniques, it is possible to point out discrepancies between
claims and reality. Every client has the ability to be an investigative journalist with

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access to audio and video recording technology (i.e., a mobile phone). Forums are
emerging, particularly to enable the logging and promotion of these experiences. It
slowly connects to additional pieces of data and is drawn into the storm cloud or digital
halo that is gradually forming around businesses (and people)—their "digital identity."
The power of the crowd comes into play, which is arguably the most important aspect of
this new transparency because it does not require that everyone spend time using these
new tools to question organizations. It suffices that someone is taking the time to
accomplish this, that you are aware of it, and that you have the option to question the
procedure if you want. Wikipedia is a prime example of how population intelligence can
be produced quickly once there are enough people contributing.

In social media, trust is invested in visible processes rather than in institutions. The
simplest way to explain this is to take a closer look at the conflict between Wikipedia
and Encyclopedia Britannica as an example. One of the most well-known examples of
institutionalized trust is the Encyclopedia Britannica. You believe its entries to be
accurate because you are aware of the reputation for accuracy it has built and carefully
maintained over the years. You do not feel the need to inquire about this reputation or
explore its background in any way. Wikipedia is very different. You only believe its
entries because it has made it clear how they were created and improved. Even if you
decide not to look into each entry's history, the fact that you can and that there is a
procedure in place, meaning that someone is doing it, instills a certain level of trust in
you. Importantly, a component of this trust is based on your need to evaluate the
process for yourself and decide how much trust you give it.

Not that individuals will reject institutionalized trust but maintaining institutionalized trust
will be much more difficult in the transparent world that social media has created.
Therefore, organizations will discover that moving to a model based on the process—
which entails providing the ability to observe in much greater detail how an organization
conducts its business—is ultimately the only effective method to sustain confidence.

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MASS MARKETS DISRUPTED BY NICHE EFFECTS

For the majority of organizations, this effect probably has less immediate
consequences, but it has the potential to be the most disruptive over time. The only
industry currently experiencing its effects is the music industry, which has not only lost
the influence that came with controlling the means of distribution (due to the growth of
music file sharing and downloading) but is also losing relevance due to the sharing of
musical tastes and preferences via music blogs and the ensuing loss of ability to
channel musical tastes through a limited number of channels, such as rock or pop.

Due to social media's ease of targeting or connecting with much smaller consumer or
customer segments, previously unprofitable niche industries can now be targeted by
enterprises. Being a niche brand in the past was challenging, and it was nearly
impossible for a niche brand to compete with the large players in terms of scale or
ability to function in the areas where these players competed. This was due to the fact
that, rather obviously, a niche implies that customers are dispersed in a way that makes
them difficult to reach or aggregate, and because it is expensive to enter a market and
then compete with well-known brands for consumers' attention and retail or distribution
space, a large audience is required to make this profitable.

With social media, distribution is free, and if you know how to communicate within social
media this levels out the playing field between big and small brands. The concept of
'crowdsourcing' or 'open sourcing' is advancing, whereby the ability to design and
develop products and services is shared across a large group of people. With
crowdsourcing, a sizable number of scattered participants produce or provide goods or
services, including ideas, votes, tiny chores, and money, for pay or as volunteers. The
rise of the 'neo-nicotie means that niche brands can spring up and then die off,
potentially creating a segment within a category that is in a continual state of flux,

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populated by temporary 'category squatters'. This could also be hugely disruptive to the
more established category players.

ADAPTING TO THE POST-GUTENBERG WORLD

In this section, we examine the more concrete consequences of the post-Gutenberg

world and begin to trace the measures that all organizations might take to minimize or
benefit from their growth. However, social media is still in its infancy and has yet to build
the institutions necessary to introduce collective and crowd-based mediation and
brokerage into more complicated domains such as banking and financial services. The
time it will take for social media's revolutionary influence to touch industries such as
financial services is a key asset that must not be wasted. The adjustments required to
adapt to the post-Gutenberg world will be significant, and they can only be managed by
a gradual, long-term, and persistent effort.

In terms of undertaking this journey, rather than attempting to see too far into the future
and making significant strategic decisions based on outcomes that are still very difficult
to predict with any certainty, the best approach in adapting to the Post Gutenberg world
is to begin the process of shedding investment and assets in areas that could be called
Gutenberg dependent and developing assets and competencies that have value in the
social media world.

The main change here is away from 'hard' channel investment and toward the three
'soft' worlds of Content, Conversation, and Community.

Looking at this in more detail: in the Gutenberg world, the key to success generally lay
in control of channels, be they channels of information, content, or transaction. Social

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media is giving control of channels to individuals rather than institutions and allowing
information, content, or transactions to become the non-channel defendant.

The connectors or nodes in the new model will not be institutions, rather they will be
digital communities where individuals coalesce and where much of the process of
mediation and knowledge sharing will take place.

These new skills or assets can be summarized as follows in very brief form:

• Content - the opportunity to begin seeding and populating your digital area with a
diverse variety of discoverable content and information geared to specialized
interests, which will attract the appropriate individuals and assist create trust.

• Conversation – it is not easy to be passive recipients, so conversation is the

capacity to engage your core audiences and give them a chance to start
contributing to the goods and services you offer.

• Community - fostering or encouraging the ability of the people with whom you
have spoken to begin talking and conducting business among themselves about
the issues pertinent to the goods and services you offer.

In the sections that follow, we will look at practical methods that organizations can build
their capabilities in each of these three areas and at some successful organizations as
examples.

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THE JOURNEY

As seen in the graphic below, engagement with the new assets of information, dialogue,
and community may be viewed as a journey. Making your present content asset more
accessible and discoverable online is the simplest place to start. A very simple example
of this is that videos are considerably easier to find and access on YouTube than they
are if they are locked away on a website. The ultimate goal is to be able to delegate
management of a part of your company to communities that you do not own or manage.
This may sound like an absurdly far-fetched idea, but it has importance as a goal
because, as we shall see below, communities are likely to emerge as the center of
power in the post-Gutenberg world, with institutions serving only as the infrastructure
needed to facilitate community interaction. This power shift will take place over a long
period of time, but since it is so radical, it can only be accepted slowly. Therefore, the
institutions that begin the journey now are likely to be the ones that are still in existence
after 10 or 20 years.

As the diagram illustrates, the capacity to gradually start sharing control with your
stakeholders is the key to success in this journey. For instance, a one-way discussion

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cannot be successful, and many businesses are now seeing the benefits of encouraging
users to produce and distribute so-called consumer (or user) generated content. There
are very clear limitations to this strategy, despite the allure of thinking that you can
follow a horizontal track while maintaining total control and moving from content to
conversation and eventually community. In order to engage in discourse and community
effectively, it will eventually be necessary to generate the elevation that results from
shared control.

CONTENT

In the Gutenberg world, organizations produced a limited range of information.

Gutenberg`s principle required large-scale relevance to subsidize the high distribution
costs. Focus is about creating sophisticated offerings that can capture the general
interest of a large group; niche is about specific relevant providing high-quality
information and creating small groups). In the post-Gutenberg world, there are no
delivery costs, so different content rules apply.

This creates an opportunity and needs to generate a much broader range of

information. Crowd intelligence cannot be generated simply by shutting out the press,
as the “crowd” only responds based on personal relevance. That means throwing out a
lot of very niches and specific information that acts as a digital thread that can be traced
back to your product or service. Therefore, the organization that can extend the farthest
fine mesh network of relevant digital content threads is likely to attract the most interest.

Looking at the need to create a much broader, richer, and discoverable content asset,
we have seen in the previous section how trust is shifting from institutions to processes
and why it is becoming harder and more expensive to maintain institutionalized trust
models. In the past, organizations tended to view their digital space as that which could
be captured or controlled by their corporate website or e. commerce operations. What is

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happening now is that digital spaces are being created that are much broader and more
sophisticated than this.

The challenge for all organizations is to understand and then exert a level of control
over their relevant digital space and recognize that this can`t be achieved from behind
the wall of a corporate website.

Once an organization has this understanding it can start to colonize this space with
relevant content threads as well as recognize which of the other players within that
space, communities, networks, etc. Traditionally corporate websites have been
designed to be places individuals are driven to and contained within – a walled garden
approach. However, as we have seen, most of the relevant digital action is taking place
outside of these garden and traditional websites are not very good at launching
information into this space. However, a more effective and easier strategy than re-
designing corporate websites is to adopt the publishing tools and platforms that
individuals are using to colonize digital space.

Probably the simplest first step here is to use a blogging platform to create an online
newsroom – even if you have a newsroom or press releases within your corporate site.
A blogging platform has all the functions necessary to produce social content built into it
– such as the ability to use RSS feeds, content that is automatically tagged to be
search-engine friendly, and the ability to create a level of interaction through
commenting. Such a platform also has the advantage of being able to operate in real-
time – publishing through it is very easy and fast – and once established it can be used
to launch any sort of content as well as being a hub to link together other places where
you may wish to place content such as videos in YouTube or images in Flickr.

Almost every news story relevant to your organization will have first surfaced within
Twitter via the people immediately exposed to it, before being picked up by blogs

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together with images or videos posted on YouTube or Flickr. If you restrict your ability to
detect and respond to such information to contact traditional news organizations, you
will have missed the opportunity to engage and respond at the crucial early stages in
the development of an issue.

In 2004, a group of employees was able to start an initiative called Channel 9. This was
basically five of him with video cameras walking around the company interviewing
engineers about their work and products. Despite opposition and protests from some
within the organization, particularly publicists and legal experts with a vested interest in
controlling reputation, the initiative was highly successful and strengthened Microsoft's
reputation and the wider public. It has had a transformative impact on our relationship
with the software developer community. The entire company's reputation from a distant
and arrogant organization to an open, flexible, and transparent organization. Give
Microsoft a human face. This Wired article of his provides a very informative overview of
Channel 9 and the broader business transparency initiative that spawned it. That's why I
created a blog called Coca-Cola conversations for corporate archivists. com will not only
bring information about the history of Cola into the digital space but also act as a
content platform to spark conversation and foster community development for those
interested in Cola memorabilia.

However, this initiative is undermined by the fact that all its content is still imprisoned
within a corporate site and the information itself is `Gutenberg content` i. e. an
institutionalized representation designed for mass consumption rather than a Channel 9
type of authentic representation designed for discovery by niche groups.

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CONVERSATION
More so than content, a conversation is a skill that takes longer to master. There are
two reasons for this: first, it's important to decide what topics are appropriate for a
discussion, and second, conversations must involve people on both sides, which has
ramifications for how we use and invest in people.

To return to the initial point, one of the issues that businesses frequently run into when
trying to engage in dialogue with their clients or stakeholders is that the topics that the
business wants to discuss are not the topics that the "target" wants to discuss. This is
due to the organization's error of merely dumping the information it previously created in
the Gutenberg arena into social media. Thus, a company may believe that it wants to
chat to someone about a new buy-to-let mortgage it is launching but, in reality, the
person it wants to speak with would much prefer to discuss buy-to-let as a whole and
the reasons why such products are typically more expensive and less flexible. In more
extreme cases, there have been instances of hair care brands attempting to
communicate with their customers about music on the presumption that music is
relevant to their target audience. These brands forgot that their product and area of
expertise do not give them any credibility to talk about this and that even the music
industry is losing its ability to engage credibly with listeners of popular music.

The only option in this situation is to take some time to browse the existing conversation
threads in your digital area and then figure out where your company might be able to
contribute. This brings up the second problem, namely the time required since this kind
of online browsing takes a lot of time. Only a person can complete it, especially when it
comes to genuinely respond to problems that are discovered. Companies are resolving
this in one of two ways: either by merely adding more people to their digital workforce
(Dell, for instance, has a full team of employees entirely responsible for Twitter), or by
distributing the conversational load across the entire organization. Over 4,500 Microsoft
workers currently blog about their work thanks to an intentional policy that the company

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instituted. Most CEOs, corporate communications directors, and in-house lawyers find
the idea of 4,500 bloggers working for their company to be alarming. However, the
experience of the organizations that have adopted this strategy has typically shown that
applying a basic blogging guidelines policy and assuming a basic level of common
sense among their employees is enough to avoid the majority of the control and
disclosure fears, and, to the extent, there are any drawbacks, these are typically greatly
outweighed by benefits in terms of the ability to generate the engagement and support
of customers and stakeholders.

Organizations typically discover that as they use social media, their need to spend
money on purchasing media and distribution channels greatly drops, which results in a
large reduction in the cost of hiring personnel to manage discourse. The function of their
traditional media spending and communications changes, becoming much more
targeted and tactical and much less about trying to sustain brand image as a result of
their ability to move resources from purchasing traditional media to making social
media. In this video interview with Andy Lark, Dell's Head of Corporate Marketing, which
was just recorded during a Dell product launch, this is described very well.

In actuality, Dell serves as a very good illustration of a company having a discussion. It

is also likely the best illustration of a sizable organization that has fully embraced social
media's advantages. It's interesting to note that Dell's current leadership in this situation
was motivated by a difficult experience with the shifting power dynamics in the post-
Gutenberg era. A blogger by the name of Jeff Jarvis had a terrible experience with a
Dell computer in 2005, both in terms of hardware failure and the customer support
provided to have the laptop serviced. He wrote about it on his blog, and as a result, Dell
Hell's writings gained a lot of attention. In the end, Dell's solution included not just fixing
the original problems that were upsetting consumers, but also actively interacting with
them through a variety of corporate blogs and an effort called IdeaStorm. Customers
can recommend items and services they would like to see from Dell through IdeaStorm.
The community of all contributors, including the Dell staff, can then debate and vote on
these, and this community is then notified of the precise steps Dell is taking. With links

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to the original entries from Dell Hell and Jarvis's final statement that if Dell "keeps on the
route it's now on, it could well wind up being the smartest corporation in the age of
consumer control," this blog post by Anthony Mayfield provides a helpful overview of the
Dell experience. (http://open.typepad.com/open/2007/04/blogs_changing_.html)

COMMUNITY

Fostering or encouraging the ability of the people with whom you have spoken to begin
talking and conducting business among themselves about the issues pertinent to the
goods and services you offer. The level of difficulty in the domain of community is higher
than in the area of conversation. It is also an area that is just beginning to take shape,
so we must rely much more on extrapolation and prediction to provide some indications
of how it will function.

The popularity of MySpace, Facebook, and more specialized networks like LinkedIn and
Plaxo has sparked a lot of interest in social networks. The fact that these are merely
platforms for social networking and not true social networks are frequently forgotten.
Attempts to build communities or networks inside these infrastructures have not
generally been effective. For instance, despite the considerable early buzz, Facebook
Groups rarely develop into authentic communities. The Facebook revolution has,
however, sparked a desire to build smaller versions of Facebook, either within
businesses to replace corporate intranets or centered around much more niche
interests. The creation of "white label social networking tools," hosted software products
like blog platforms that enable users to build their own social networks, has increased in
response to this demand.

The rise of social networks within the work environment is further normalizing this type
of behavior in much the same way as email usage and culture were introduced via the
workplace. Forrester has forecast that Enterprise 2.0 will become a US$4.6 billion

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business by 2013. The Gutenberg principle determined that collective benefits could
only be achieved through the creation of large institutions. The social information
principle now makes these benefits available to much smaller communities. This
suggests that the role of organizations in financial services lies in facilitating and
supporting the process of community building within their customer base. Idea Storm
argues that organizations should closely monitor the development of such communities
within their digital space and participate in the process of community formation along
the lines suggested above. Dell's most recent social media initiative has been the
launch of a community called Digital Nomads designed to align itself to the needs of
mobile workers.

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 REFERENCES

STS | Information Age | Lesson 1 - Bing video

https://www.studocu.com/ph/document/eulogio-amang-rodriguez-institute-of-
science-and-technology/electronics-engineering/chapter-viii-the-information-age-
gutenberg-to-social-media/20127234

http://richardstacy.com/2008/11/20/gutenberg-and-the-social-media-revolution-an-
investigation-of-the-world-where-it-costs-nothing-to-distribute-information/

I design things (markuraine.com)

https://newmedia.fandom.com/wiki/The_Gutenberg_Revolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing

https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Post-Gutenberg_World

http://richardstacy.com/2008/11/20/gutenberg-and-the-social-media-revolution-an-
investigation-of-the-world-where-it-costs-nothing-to-distribute-information/

CHAPTER VIII - The Information Age (Gutenberg To Social Media) | PDF | Printing
| Printing Press (scribd.com)

(346) Science, Technology and Society - The Information Age (Gutenberg to

Social media) - YouTube

The Information Age( Gutenberg to Social Media) - YouTube

THE INFORMATION AGE (GUTENBERG TO SOCIAL MEDIA).pdf - Information

Revolutions, the Information Society, and the Future of the History of Information
| Course Hero

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Further Readings

• Book: “Alan Turing: The Enigma” (Andrew Hodges and Douglas Hofstadter)

• TEDTalk: Julian Assange on “Why the World Needs Wikileaks”

• Activity Report: A Day without Technology

• Activity Report: Timing your Technology

• Activity Report: Technology and Past (interviews with elders)

• Nature’s Longest Threads by Janaki Balakrishnan and B V Sreekantan

• How we Decide by Jonah Lehrer

• Information: The new language of science (Hans Christian von Baeyer)

• Philippine Science and Technology: Economic, Political and Social Events Shaping
Their Development (Socorro M. Rodriguez, 1996)

• Germ Catcher (David J. Ecker, Scientific American, 2014)

• Physics of the Future: How science will shape human destiny and our daily lives by the
year 2100 (Michio Kaku, Doubleday, 2011)

https://prezi.com/tzwe8klf3anb/from-gutenberg-to-the-internet-a-comparison-of-the-
impact-of-gutenberg-printing-press-and-the-internet-as-media-technologies/?fallback=1
From Gutenberg to the Internet: A Comparison of the Impact of Gutenberg Printing
Press and the Internet as Media Technologies

https://www.cybersecurityintelligence.com/blog/social-media-is-the-new-gutenberg-
4280.html#:~:text=Just%20as%20the%20Gutenberg%20Revolution,government%2C%
20social%20and%20cultural%20revolution. Social Media Is the New Gutenberg

http://richardstacy.com/2008/11/20/gutenberg-and-the-social-media-revolution-an-
investigation-of-the-world-where-it-costs-nothing-to-distribute-information/

Gutenberg and the Social Media Revolution: An Investigation of the World Where It
Costs Nothing to Distribute Information

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