• by Jim Meskauskas , May 1, 2002

A week ago an article appeared in the New York Times that made a very interesting point about shared events and their ability to create community, a common point of reference imbued with all sorts of “emotional and symbolic content.”

Professor of economics at University of California, Los Angeles, Michael Suk-Young Chwe, has just written a book called Rational Ritual, which basically makes the point that common experiences, or experiences in which groups of people “have faith” create the conditions for social status, perceptions of authenticity, and even legitimacy of authority.

Meaning in general has always worked this way. A word, or utterance – an intentional speech act, for example – is nothing but senseless sound unless 2 or more individuals agree that that speech act has meaning; a reference to an object, event, or concept in common.

Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, among other things, speaks to the kind of social contract constituents have with their leaders. The leader derives power from the masses sublimely agreeing among one another that a leader is, indeed, the leader.

Professor Chwe suggests that the same is true for mass brand advertising for products that exist in a shared world and are consumed “publicly.” Products such as these rely on the associating of “symbolic” characteristics with a particular product or service to convince the prospective consumer that engagement with that product or service will somehow alter their relationship with the world around them in such a way that that world recognizes the relationship.

Sort of like how the stock market has worked certainly for the last few years, if not always: a security has a value because people believe it has value and agree to this value.

But in Professor Chwe’s book, so the article suggests, is a point made about Internet advertising. Essentially, the point is this: online advertising can’t garner the sort of dollars that traditional brand advertising does because individuals are unaware of one another’s encounters with the medium.

An interesting point, but is it true? Is our experience with online media a monadic engagement?

I could suggest that the concept posited by this article supports an argument for audience-based media currency. That is, of course, if the water-cooler communal effect is your objective. Having media currency that is representative of a unique user base and advertising that is fixed rather than random and dynamic may be able to create some of the "common experience" that enables community.

The use of diffuse, gross impressions does not allow for users to have shared experiences. They instead promote individualistic encounters that sublimely enforce the self as unique and alone in his or her engagement.

If you think about it, this is really what most of the web media experience amounts to. Why do you think porn is so popular? Because everyone can look at you looking at it? No. It is the insular, anonymous nature of the web - AS AN ACTIVITY - that is its dominant feature. Certainly the web AS A MEDIUM rests in contrast to this, promoting connection with the faceless global village. But aren't you still hidden and unseen?

This contrasting experience is manifest in HOW one uses the web. When being used as a text-based medium -- searching for data, services, chat, email -- the web serves as a network medium, connecting people to one another, if only as producer of content vs. consumer of content. When being used as an entertainment vehicle, however, I would argue that most experiences are individualistic. The experience was MY experience. Sure, you may tell your friend about the game you played or the animated film short you saw, but the part of what appeals to a user when it comes to entertainment in this medium is the feeling that YOU own it -- you discovered it, you chose to engage it, and you have the power to keep it secret. What you don't do is have the experience WITH someone else.

As for the Yahoo! take-overs that some advertisers have committed to, I don’t think that rises to the level of a communal media experience yet. I don't know that anyone other than online media nerds talk about them. I mean, really! Have any of you asked your parents or your kids if they’ve seen the Pizza Hut take over on Yahoo!'s front page? I bet the answer wasn’t, "Oh, yeah! Everyone at school was talking about it on the playground. One kid didn't see it and everyone made fun of him for living in a cave or something!”

The medium, in its current form and given its current uses, is not a community medium in the sense described in this article. The web can be, but very differently from broadcast. I think of Napster or the Kenneth Starr report as experiences that created the kind of community that rivals what is possible with broadcast but unique to the web.

How can advertising be a part of this type of experience? That's something for us to figure out.