Blockchain technology could rebalance social media with privacy, Pt. 1

Introduction

Michael Meyer is a graduate student of the Zimmerman School of Advertising for Mass Communications at the University of South Florida. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in multimedia journalism and production from USF in 2005. This blog will focus on various aspects of mass communications research and practice, and relate these findings to the many current technological shifts that have an impact on communicators; including social media, data mining, and the emerging field of blockchain technology.

Blockchain technology, which includes cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, are technologies that promise to disrupt not only the way we bank, but also the way we communicate with each other on the internet. In a nutshell, blockchain promises to make our data more secure and more private.

This emerging field is largely misunderstand by the public, and often feared by existing power structures, such as government intelligence agencies or rival tech giants that mine, scrape, and sometimes sell the personal data of the world’s “netizens” for their own ends.

The year 2017 was a remarkable year for cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, that resulted in an investment boom that went from $17 billion on Jan 1st, 2017 to $682 billion in the same week during 2018, (coinspeaker, 2018). In the following months, cryptocurrencies have declined to $220 billion leaving many disillusioned investors.

As a consequence, advertising about blockchain technology has been banned from most social media platforms, and traditional media sources like television and newspaper reporting focus primarily on the the unfulfilled promises of this nascent technology and the volatile price movements from day to day. The communication teams of cryptocurrencies have returned to communicating bi-directionally through social media channels and at various technology summits, but eschew more traditional means of organizational communication.

The strategic communicator for a cryptocurrency or blockchain technology, then has the challenge of informing a skeptical public about a product that they either don’t understand or is often framed in terms that make it appear untrustworthy.

What is Strategic Communication?

Strategic communication is defined as communicating purposefully to your audience to advance the mission of an organization, cause or social movement, as described in the article “Defining Strategic Communication,”(Hallahan, Holtzhausen, Van Ruler, Verčič, & Sriramesh, 2007)⁠. The article goes on to explain that “strategy” in this sense does not necessarily mean manipulative behavior, but that being inclusive or collaborative and engaging in relationship-building will be more strategic and effective than being propagandistic or manipulative.

A quick primer on strategic communications will assist us with describing how we got here, where we are, and where we could be going. Kuhn (1996) popularized the concept of a paradigm by recognizing that the various communication pursuits of organizations have similar goals such as selling a product, or improving relationships between an organization and it’s stakeholders.

For most of the 20th Century, mass communications – whether is was newspaper, radio or television; was conceptualized as a one-way communication model from sender to receiver, or at best, one which had limited feedback from customer to organization. With the advent of the internet and social media, organizations can receive constant feedback from their stakeholders, assess results, and make adjustments to their communication techniques or channels. They can also address stakeholder needs and concerns by communicating that to business leaders. In this way, advertising, marketing and public relations becomes more bi-directional and focused on relationship management.

In the article “Strategic Communication, Opportunities and Challenges of the Research Area,”(Halloran, 2007)⁠ ,the authors cite the coming crisis of “datafication” or the collection of massive amounts of personal data from consumers being used in unethical ways.

In the years since, the world has seen this come true as predicted by many researchers. One example is the Cambridge Analytica scandal as reported by the New York Times (April , 2018). According to their investigative reporting, millions of Americans personal data held by Facebook was provided to an organization that then sold it Russian “information operation” teams to influence the 2016 Presidential election. In addition to this, computer servers and emails related to the Democratic campaign in that election were hacked by Russian agents to leak compromising information about candidate Hillary Clinton.

In response to this event and other revelations, there appears to be renewed interest in internet security and personal privacy. This is exactly what blockchain technology excels at. In future editions of this blog, we will discuss in more detail the agenda setting and framing of cryptocurrency in the media landscape, methods for communicators to educate and build relationships with their target audience, and describe several emerging social media platforms that aim to balance the wants of consumers and advertisers while respecting the privacy of stakeholder data.

Hallahan, K., Holtzhausen, D., Van Ruler, B., Verčič, D., & Sriramesh, K. (2007). Defining Strategic Communication. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION, 1(1), 3–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/15531180701285244org/10.1080/15531180701285244

Halloran, R. (2007). Strategic communication. Parameters, 37(3), 4. Retrieved from http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/PARAMETERS/Articles/07autumn/halloran.htm

https://www.coinspeaker.com/2018/01/17/weekly-cryptocurrency-ico-market-analysis-january-1-14-2018/

⁠https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-scandal-fallout.html