Stand Firm

Video: More on Why 815’s Communications Efforts are Doomed

Yesterday I posted on why the 815 Communications Office, to the extent that it sees its choices as one, the other, or some combination of reporting the news and managing a p.r. effort, is doomed. The nutshell was that what people want - in this case, what they will support with individual and diocesan pledges - is not a newspaper, but journalism; and real journalism is not exactly what Episcopal Life is known for. If they scuttle the whole journalism enterprise and focus entirely on managing p.r., they’re forced to hide behind a rapidly thinning reed.

In that post I quoted from Clay Shirky’s essay on the grim future of newspapers. Today at TED, I find a 17-minute presentation by Shirky that takes us one giant step further in explaining why any expectation on 815’s part that simply by “embracing” new media tools and channels, only to peddle a message that’s phony and hollow, they’ll do anything but replicate their current problems, is flat wrong. This is well worth 17 minutes of your time.

Excellent talk. Very thought-provoking. He’s right. And, he sounds like Tom Hanks.

I should note that Shirky is an unabashed liberal and Obama supporter; I don’t think he’s yet come to terms with the reality that The One has shown himself to be oh, just a tad hostile to dissent. I suspect it’s at least as likely that the social media - Obama’s use of which Shirky so admires - will be his undoing, as it is that Obama will be able to use it to build anything resembling a hyper-statist grassroots movement, which is pretty clearly his desire.

However, pay close attention to Clay’s observations re China and Twitter, and ask yourself how much 815 resembles Beijing.

Greg,
You have made my day/week/month by posting this video. Clay is absolutely brilliant!

The pipeline used to deliver the product is just that, the pipeline. The product, in this case, the message, will be determined to be worthy or not by the people.

In the end, their output is rotten, so how they deliver it won’t really matter that much. A bad product that gets to you faster or cheaper is still a bad product.

Until I stumbled (and I do mean stumbled) onto anglican.tk I was completely unaware of TEC’s problems. I was aware of my Parish’s problems, and to a lesser extent DOhio’s problems, but I had no concept that the denomination shared them. Blogs opened my eyes and a full-blown revisionist interim pastor confirmed what the blogs were saying. Twenty years ago TEC would have been able to do damage control, and indeed did manage to do so. Now it can’t and they haven’t adapted to the facts. They are still trying even though they recognize their failure. Nothing is going to restore the pews to mushroom status. That is why the ASA at our ten o’clock service shrank from about 250 to around 40 by the time I resigned. They can’t control the conversation anymore. Really, they should quit trying.

“Restore the pews to mushroom status?” I’m sorry, but I don’t know what that means. That they are not going to get the people back?

The new address of the national headquarters is:
815 Tienamen Square
Beijing, NY

But protesters beware: don’t get any funny ideas about taking the metal in your wounds to the grave, they will need the bullets back, since they are TEC property under the Dennis Canon.

It’s ironic that the liberals, who act like they want to be so “inclusive”, are the very ones who want to control the conversation. They would rather die than be transparent; they want you to see what THEY want you to see, not what is really there.

Easy Life Lesson #3,245 - if a person or group refuses to be transparent, DON’T TRUST THEM.

You know, kind of like how the TEC has repeatedly refused to disclose how much of YOUR $ they are spending to sue parishes, priests and dioceses.

Greg,
If I follow this presentation’s line of logic, it is not only 815 that has to be watched for how it squelches things, but pretty much all sources of information, even Stand Firm. There seem to be a wide number of Anglican websites and blogs and “news services” and there is even AnglicanTV; but perhaps in the not-too-distant future there will be alternative Anglican media, that will be so interested in filtering or controlling the conversation, simply because there is a niche for it. Ultimately the same may be true in terms of being “in the Communion” or “outside the Communion”, maybe there will be a place for an alternative Anglican Communion?

Yes, if you follow Shirky’s logic, the veracity and value of all blogs’ (and Tweets’, etc.) information has to be watched. Where I think he would put the brakes on the idea of following his logic to its final terminus, though, is in the assumption that having everyone pouring content into this channel or that is necessarily a good thing. If that were true, 99% of YouTube comment threads wouldn’t devolve into abject idiocy like they do.

If you go back to Shirky’s essay, he talks about the expense and logistical support required to run a printing press. I can’t remember if he mentions the challenge of creating and maintaining a distribution infrastructure, but that’s something to remember as well. I think the “sweet spot” where Shirky would pull up short of asserting that everyone talking at the same time is a good thing, is somewhere between the point of the monopolistic newspaper/network paradigm, and the anarchy that represents the logical terminus of his thinking. It is where the highest value is found in the information that is available, and by that I mean: Take this site, for example. We have a long-standing and well-known policy of having a very short fuse with people who insist on turning every conversation into their soapbox on the matter of women’s ordination. That is an example of controlling content along the lines of what Shirky refers to in his China example. But, the reason we have that policy is because if we didn’t, there are people who would camp out here all day and monopolize EVERY SINGLE THREAD in order to make their point about WO, and pretty soon (I’m talking a week or less) there would be no reason for anyone but that small group of folks to come here and visit our site. We would, in that case, be allowing a small group of people to shut down what has become the single largest conduit of information in the Anglican world.

That is just one approach to how we attempt to add value. Not only do we sift through news feeds, email tips and links, other blog posts, Twitter activity, etc., in an attempt to offer you information what we think is worthy of your attention, we also have to keep noise from interfering with our signal.

The difference between us and, for example, MSNBC or 815, is that even though we are advocates for orthodox Christianity in the Anglican Communion, we are also open about criticizing those on our side of the debate. Anglo-Catholics, evangelicals, charismatics, pretty much every conservative Anglican organization… have all at some point or another been the object of our criticism. The other difference is that, aside from the WO issue and trying to keep trolls at bay, readers are given a lot of leeway in what they say and how they say it. This isn’t a perfect forum by any means, but on balance, day-in-and-day-out, we’ve foudn a formula that works to bring in more readers than anybody else involved in this debate. We’ve found a way to be more valuable than the monolith at 815, *as well as* more valuable than, for example, just setting up a bulletin board and letting anybody and everybody talk as long as they want about whatever they want, in whatever fashion they want.

I have to head out now, so I may or not be able to get back to your questions about media for those in vs. out of the communion; I do have some thoughts on that and I’d say as away of previewing them that the very fact you (and everybody else) use the oppositional terms “in” and “out” implies that they are co-dependent; so I’d say that the chances you can set up media outlets devoted to one camp, that pays zero attention to what’s going in the otehr camp, is not very likely. It’d be one thing if you were talking about Hindus and Baptists, but you’re talking about Anglicans, who were born in conflict and continue to be defined by it. That’s my $.02 anyway.

The reference is to the joke about how to raise mushrooms: Keep them in the dark and feed them s#!t.

Thanks, Greg. I understand the joke. It just wasn’t coming across clearly to me in the context. ;^)

BTW, Clay corrects me - he’s an Obama supporter, but also votes for some Republicans. So “tends liberal” is probably more accurate.

815 is ok w/ the media, but wants to cut out the “converstaional” aspect. 815 sees the internet as a new format for one-directional communication.

This is exactly what it is doing to the idea of “Indaba.” Instead of conversation with all kinds of connections, 815 sees a new “style” for the same one-directional lecturing.

Remember this video next time TEC talks about being “postmodern”, “emergent”, or any other claim to be cutting edge. TEC is run by petrified Baby Boomers.

To further illustrate Shirky’s talk, one has only to note what is going on in Iran right now. See
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20090617/D98SFGPO0.html
Government trying to supress news but
not being able to stop it entirely due to Twitter and cellphones and the Internet.

“people who would camp out here all day and monopolize EVERY SINGLE THREAD in order to make their point…and pretty soon (I’m talking a week or less) there would be no reason for anyone but that small group of folks to come here and visit our site.”

Almighty God, you proclaim your truth in every age by many voices: Direct, in our time, we pray, those who speak where many listen and write what many read; that they may do their part in making the heart of this people wise, its mind sound, and its will righteous; to the honor of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Perhaps someone should ask Mr. Shirsky what he thinks about how Obama is handling “dissenters to his opinion” now (two issues that come to mind - the recently fired IG and Obama’s long-form birth certificate and other supposedly “public” records (school transcripts, aid and scholarship info, etc.) (see World Net Daily for more)).

Well, I learned more about internet communications in 17 minutes than I learned in my grad class on internet marketing. And the 17 minutes were free.

It will be amusing to watch TECs propaganda artists trying to spin out press releases during GC when we can all follow what really happens in realtime on twitter or facebook. I mean, let’s face it, the egos of the HOD and HOB will be broadcasting everything they say, think or do. If you were to follow enough of them, it will seem like Babel. The stuff from Episcopal Life will read like those official Chinese government press releases after the earthquake.

Thanks, Greg. Shirky’s presentation was so packed with important insights that I watched it twice. If he’s right that we’re living through a mass communications revolution like no other in history, and it sure appears that he is, this indeed has immense, radical, and far-reaching implications for the Church in terms of getting out the message of the Gospel to the whole world.

This is mind-boggling stuff. I’m sure glad that SF is on the cutting edge of using this new technology in a “mature” way (Clay Shirky’s term). And I’m also glad that our foes still haven’t really caught on to how to do it…yet.

Can you imagine a day when the local TEC bishop (or Jim Naughton at GenCon) does what that poor, hapless Chinese official did after the devastating earthquake? You know, the guy who prostrated himself in front of the protesters and pleaded with them to stop exposing the graft and culpability of the government officials who, to line their own pockets with diverted funds, cut corners on the construction of those doomed schools that collapsed and killed all those innocent children? It would be great to see them groveling and begging us to stop airing all their dirty laundry for all the world to see. Yeah, that would be fun.

The more I think about it, the more clear and compelling seems the parallel between the indispensable role of the printing press in making possible the original 16th century Protestant Reformation and the equally vital role of this whole new interconnected digital world in making possible, and perhaps unstoppable, the New Reformation of the 21st century.

The problem with the MSM, both ‘news’ and ‘entertainment’ is that it is totally owned and operated by ungodly leftist agendites as a propaganda tool.
This applies to textbooks used in public schools and universities.

Dictionaries have also become means of legitimizing politically-redefined and distorted (untrue) meanings of words. Do not trust any dictionary that was produced after 1940 - but especially beginning around 1960-70.

The reason TEC leadership still thinks it can control the flow of information is that the leadership is older and out of touch. I was asked by a person who works closely with the Pastoral Development Office how one might use something like Facebook to promote the church. We could not really talk about it because she did not understand that things like Facebook are two way channels of communication.

If I had been more prepared for her question, I could have explained, “It’s not just about transmitting. It’s also about receiving.” I think that would have blown her mind.

Wonderful use of “petrified,” which has three somewhat disparate definitions all of which apply.

Based on this thread, I bought Shirky’s book: “Here comes everybody . . “. Stop what you’re doing right now and go buy the book; the first chapter alone is worth the cost!

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