We are used to thinking of social media as a
thoroughly modern phenomenon. From this book, we learn that it has been with us
since the time of the Romans who exchanged messages written on wax tablets
shuttled back and forth by fleet-of-foot slaves. What's thoroughly modern is
the democratization of social media. Thanks to the internet and a wide array of
applications we all know too well, anyone who can get online can do it.
Maybe even more insightful, is how the author
puts into perspective our understanding of what media is. The overwhelming
influence of radio and television have instilled in us the narrow idea that
media is broadcast media -- a one-to-many occurrence that is a recent
development in human history. The author would have us see that social media is
not a modern aberration, but the norm, less peculiar than broadcast media. It
just takes place today on a scale bigger and faster than broadcast media.
The book also shows us how coffee shops centered
on specific industries or interests developed, beginning in Great Britain, and
how these coffee shops eventually began to print their own newsletters. In a
sense, these were the first associations.