mediations: Six degrees of Connection

Mediations: Philip Young

Mediations comments on public relations, journalism, and communication ethics, often in the context of social media. Philip Young is a senior lecturer in public relations and journalism at the University of Sunderland, specialising in media ethics. He is also a lead researcher for the Euprera EuroBlog project. All views expressed here are personal and should not be seen as representing the University of Sunderland.

Scoop!

Scoop!
Journalists appear in fiction in many guises and play many roles. Sometimes they provide central characters, often they intrude on the action, their attentions as unwelcome as they often are in real life. Scoop! gathers together these appearances under a variety of themes, some amusing, some trivial, some giving an insight into how the Press works and how it is seen to impact on our society.

I have been looking at transnational social networks for a conference presentation and started wondering how useful the notion of Six Degrees of Separation is in understanding the reach of social media.

The idea of being six handshakes away from anyone else is exciting (even if I can think of quite a few surprisingly short links to Adolf Hitler). I do it through 'portal people' like Tony Blair or Buzz Aldrin - men I have met but don't chat toon a regular basis.

Any meaningful connection in for communicators looking to social media needs to have topical element - will he or she pass it on in a timely manner? That severely restricts my transnational closeness.

Also, to try and converse with someone I have no direct connection becomes tricky. I almost inevitably find myself using media portals - to leap some gaps would have use a big website or news organisation.

I can trace a social path to most people, but it would take a range of platforms and channels to do so. And it would be almost impossible to pass on a message that retained the form I intended.

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