Yesterday I received a free lesson in how easy it is to miscommunicate.
SCENARIO
I Tweeted the following last night on Twitter:
Publishing to Web is like doing a show without audience. But not as much as publishing print is.
Andrew Gorham, the Toronto Globe and Mail arts editor (who would know a lot about writing for print media, right?) picked up on my Tweet and said the following:
@MarkDykeman Dream on, mon frere. Wishing does not make it so.
Followed by:
Riddle me this: Why do non-print writers have such hostility to print?
Liz Hover, who blogs here, asked:
@andrewGorham They do? I write for both print and web. What gives you the impression folks are hostile?
To which Andrew replied:
@lizhover stuff like this: RT @MarkDykeman Publishing to Web is like doing a show without audience. But not as much as publishing print is.
And they basically dropped it there.
I Tweeted Andrew a couple of times, as per the following:
@andrewGorham wishing what? just describing how it does feel at times, regardless of the reality. But, shrug, that’s the way it is.
and
@andrewGorham @lizhover look, I think you are misunderstanding me. It’s not hostility. I’m describing the lack of contact with audience.
EXPLANATION:
I was trying to say one thing and I believe that Andrew misinterpreted what I was saying.
Let’s break my original Tweet into two pieces:
Publishing to Web is like doing a show without audience.
In retrospect, what I should have written was: “Publishing to the Web is like doing a show without a live audience.” Note the word “live”. This refers to having an audience in person that is actively watching and listening to your performance. The thing about a Web audience is that it varies both in size and when it actually occurs. You could have 10,000 people read an article on the Web, but they wouldn’t all be reading it at the same time. In fact, they might be reading it over the course of days, weeks, months, or even years. However, even with statistics packages, you only get an imperfect view of how many people are reading and when they are reading.
In a way, this is similar to movie or television performances which are broadcast after the work is done. You normally don’t have much of a live audience when this happens, so you have no real idea who is watching or when it happens.
But not as much as publishing print is.
As imperfect as Web statistics are, print reading statistics are even harder to come by. Sure, you can get sales statistics, but they do not correlate to when (or even if) print media is being read. Moreover, print media does not have the same commenting and feedback mechanisms built in that Web publishing does. The only way a print author knows they are being read is if there are told in person, by phone, by E-Mail, or by the old faithful standard of communication, the letter. Thus, if writing for the Web sometimes feels like you’re performing without an audience, print publishing can feel even more like that.
(NOTE: I have been published in print before: a local newspaper column and a freelance magazine article, so I have seen both sides of this, at least a little bit.)
TAKE-AWAY
If I left Andrew with the impression that I think there’s no audience for print writers, then I guess that’s my fault for not communicating clearly. There is obviously a huge audience for print media. Personally, I prefer to read print than online text, but the barriers to entry for online media are virtually zero.
I was trying to describe the feeling of writing to, or playing for, a quiet void which is occasionally broken up by some form of feedback. Web content tends to get faster, possibly more, feedback due to the tools present in that medium. That doesn’t make it any better (or worse) than print media in terms of quality or content. It’s just that print media has a more delayed feedback mechanism that comes with the limitations of the distribution system.
Who says you can’t learn anything on a Friday?
EDIT: I have received subsequent communication from Andrew Gorham and I think we understand each other’s point of view now. Interestingly enough, I don’t think that I really understood his point of view until I started writing this post and really thought about what his Tweets meant. Educational on a Saturday!
With Twitter, it's a bit of a no-win situation. There are three things that affect communication as it applies to Twitter. The obvious one is the 140 character limit. The upside is the emphasis on brevity, the downside is the difficulty in achieving clarity.
The second thing is the way we read online, emphasized even more so with Twitter. We don't really read, we scan. So it is very easy to misread a tweet's intention and meaning.
These two aspects stress the importance of being careful about what and how we write. It stresses the editorial function. But …
Number three pops up, real-time communication. Where something is immediate, taking time to fashion a tweet so it says exactly what you mean and does so in a way that minimizes the chance of misinterpretation, is difficult at best.
I don't think there is away around this problem other than to be aware of how easily we can miscommunicate and to do our best to be clear within the limits imposed. (I often use smiley's like
or an lol, although I hate them, simply because I worry someone might misunderstand what I'm saying.)
Yeah, I feel the same way about using emoticons, but I've come to believe they are a necessary evil.
Those are certainly three strikes against clear communication in microblogging, but we just have to do the best we can.
fascinating! i love posts like these. i always like to point out that communication, online or offline, is so much more than just shuttling bits and of information back and forth.
my grandparents' generation often didn't want to have telephone conversations – so little chance for expression! then we used to say that we can't express emotions or subtleties in email. i hear that less and less now. once everyone is used to twitter, facebook messages, etc., will that change, too?
don't have an answer. just wondering.
No question that brief communications like Twitter or E-Mail leave lots of opportunities for misinterpretation, etc.
That's really cool. It shows not only that the instantaneous nature of Twitter and online communication in general makes miscommunication possible, but that it makes solutions and clarity easily achievable as well.
Mark, I am a social media blogger who reads your posts frequently. The company I work for here in Atlanta, Georgia, is ThePort Network and we have several media chains as clients. They are all in very, very difficult competitive times. But some of the more progressive ones are trying hard to turn things around with new, integrated social networking communities. For me, I like reading on- and offline content if it's well done. Speaking of well done, we featured your excellent blog on my educational social media site today, as well as on our corporate site.
http://www.socialmediabuyingguide.org/post/spot...
http://www.theport.com/blog.aspx
Every time you post, you appear in our RSS feed roll on the Social Media Buying Guide.
Anyway, thanks for all the great links and keep up the good work.
Walter