Comments on: Marshall McLuhan’s view on the “social media expert”

By: Ruben

Ruben — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 23:42:00 +0000

Social media (or collaborative technology, as some now prefer in the enterprise world) is deeply woven into the fabric of both my work and personal life. On the IT journalism side, I use social media to find sources, provide live coverage of events, gauge sentiment, distribute content, track news and fact-check stories. When I’m not focused on work, I use social media to stay in touch with friends, family, former colleagues and classmates, find out what’s happening around whatever city I’m in or check on the status of events or government services. I try to use the various platform to get smarter.

By: RL COMM I Social Media Expert

RL COMM I Social Media Expert — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 17:08:00 +0000

You need to have many skills in social mediato be

socially successful in real life. You need to establish a respect and

presence before you will earn respect, authority, and the ability to

succeed

By: Ian Bruce

Ian Bruce — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:11:22 +0000

Hard to know what McLuhan would have made of social media (arguably a tautology itself). He’d have recognized the indetity crisis it creates, and the flatness and what he would have called the “deep cold” of the medium. The guy was out there a lot of the time…

By: mutuelle

mutuelle — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:38:19 +0000

mc luchans is a specialist no

By: Barry

Barry — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:48:44 +0000

sorry, not tautological. oxymoronic.

By: Barry

Barry — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:08:19 +0000

That is true if you restrict the ‘social media expert’ term to practitioners. One can become an expert in understanding social media – new media studies, social media studies and the like – without it being tautological.
In any case, McLuhan’s description of experts as uncritically accepting the rules of the environment only works as an absolute if you called Picasso and Dali amateur painters – which they patently were not. There aren’t one set of values and practices for experts and another for amateurs, but a range of values, practices and acceptances.
McLuhan’s a great polemicist, not a particularly great analyst.