It’s been a strange couple of weeks, both personally and given the events occurring across the country. My personal situation is changing radically, I’ve had some unfortunate news about some family members, and it’s been hard to collect my thoughts on anything not immediately related to my work whilst mainstream media, Twitter and Facebook have been constantly churning with updates, responses and reactions to the civil unrest.
Having seen and attempted to analyse social media in the context of events abroad, it’s been strange looking at something so close to home, affecting friends and former colleagues. I’ve watched mainstream media struggle to add any meaningful context and insight into events as online media and networks have been providing both, and seen a wide range of responses from all areas of my online connections.
I’ve bemoaned the amount of commentary from middle-aged white commentators on what is happening with young multicultural teenagers in areas of economic deprivation, and the number of politicians who don’t seem to know what the heck is going on, but want it to stop unless they can score some political points from it.
I’ve seen social herd behaviour lead to violent unrest, and then seen it result in people coming together to clean up the aftermath.
I’ve seen people criticise those who copied people in joining in mindless violence end up copying people who signed up to a group started by someone who has consistently posted offensive and racist content.
I’ve seen the media mis-label social networks and flash mobs, and at the same time as they look at communication tools as a cause, they’re using them to share their own content from reporters on the ground and news teams back at the studio. And I’ve seen police forces change from engagement to enforcement on social networks.
I’ve seen important reports and information mixed with rumour, hearsay and almost hysterical panic, and both the mainstream media and online media have shared in misreporting the facts as well as bringing important news to light.
And I’ve seen a huge mix of people looking for punitive retribution as a solution to the problem, and an unequal number looking at what they believe to be the causes and triggers of the events which could potentially have been prevented.
And given what appears to be a relatively quiet and trouble-free night, at the end of it all, it’s hard to quantify exactly what has changed as a result of the rioting, whether in a political, social or purely technology-led sense.
Despite the predictable flurry of bloggers attempting to get traffic by relating their top tips for marketing or small businesses which can be derived from the rioting, there’s still a huge amount of uncertainty in the air, and a sense that the implications of what has happened will take a while to surface.
And all of this comes at a time when the digital era is still leading to massive media disruption, the increase in robotic technology is having more implications for unskilled labour, and 3D printing is set to unleash a whole new wave of disruption to the manufacturing industry.
Strange, and interesting times indeed.
