Are Social Media The New Mass Media?

Are social media the new mass media?

We like to live in definitions, those little boxes that form our awareness of the world. Neat packages that make us feel comfortable and necessary. Conventional thought enables humans to create patterns which, in turn, shape our culture.

The terms we give to mass media are no different. Mass media are cultural industries. Mass media are the channels of communication. Mass media are movies, radio, books, newspapers, music and television. Upon further reflection, can we make a case that social media are forms of mass media and therefore, they are the next generation of mass media?

Maybe with our foundational thought, we have ceded the term mass media to a one-way street where corporations provide us the content. We merely consume it. But social media are different. Social media allow us to be the creators and distributors. We seek out new friends, communicate in 140 characters, and display our creative works to a potential world wide audience with unfettered freedom. We make our own media texts and we circulate them while creating the grammar of communication.

Like Webster, our new grammar has purpose. Like McLuhan, our new grammar breaks from conventional ways. We, in our social media universe, become the next Gutenberg's.