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Media Logic is Dead, Long Live Media Logic

It’s time to update our PR playbooks for digital-first.

Jerry Silfwer
by Jerry Silfwer

Cover photo: @jerrysilfwer

tl:dr;
We need to proclaim the death of media logic — at least as we know it. We must understand, embrace, and harness the the way classic media logic is evolving into social media logic.
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Media logic is dead … sort of.

We don’t live in a mass-media soci­ety any­more. Instead, we are embraced by the Electronic Age.

Media logic seems to be chan­ging in our wired world. But rather than simply dying, it seems to be re-emer­ging — in force like a bin­ary tsunami.

As a PR pro­fes­sion­al at the inter­sec­tion of tra­di­tion­al and digit­al media since 2005, I want to high­light why we must embrace digit­al-first — or per­ish as a pro­fes­sion. 1Silfwer, J. (2011, June 17). PR Must Adapt or Die. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​p​r​-​m​u​s​t​-​a​d​a​p​t​-​o​r​-​d​ie/

Here we go:

Classic Media Logic: Beware the News

Media logic theories.
Media logic theories.

Classic media logic can be regarded as a rhet­or­ic­al approach to PR the­ory.

“The pos­i­tion and size of art­icles on the front page is determ­ined by interest and import­ance, not con­tent. Unrelated reports […] are jux­ta­posed; time and space are des­troyed and the here and now are presen­ted as a single Gestalt. […] Such a format lends itself to sim­ul­tan­eity, not chro­no­logy or lin­eal­ity. Items abstrac­ted from a total situ­ation are not arranged in caus­al sequence, but presen­ted in asso­ci­ation, as raw exper­i­ence.“
Source: The new lan­guages (1956) 2Carpenter, E. & McLuhan, M. (1956) The new lan­guages. Chicago Review. 10(1) pp. 46 – 52.

Contrary to pop­u­lar belief, clas­sic media logic is not one single the­ory. Instead, it’s a col­lec­tion of the­or­ies about how the medi­um and its con­text influ­ence medi­ated messages.

“[…] each com­mu­nic­a­tion chan­nel codi­fies real­ity dif­fer­ently and thereby influ­ences, to a sur­pris­ing degree, the con­tent of the mes­sage com­mu­nic­ated.”
Source: The new lan­guages (1956) 3Carpenter, E. & McLuhan, M. (1956) The new lan­guages. Chicago Review. 10(1) pp. 46 – 52.

Classic Media Logic Effects

Classic media logic is hypo­thes­ised to influ­ence the news media in the fol­low­ing ways: 4Nord, L., & Strömbäck, J. (2002, January). Tio dagar som skakade världen. En stud­ie av medi­ernas beskrivningar av ter­ror­at­tack­erna mot USA och kri­get i Afghanistan hösten 2001. ResearchGate; … Continue read­ing

  • Aggravation. As a res­ult of media logic, the news media will exag­ger­ate events, con­cepts, and ideas to make them seem more severe or dan­ger­ous than they are.
  • Simplification. As a res­ult of media logic, the news media will dumb down events, con­cepts, and ideas to make them seem more under­stand­able than they are.
  • Polarisation. Because of media logic, the news media por­trays events, con­cepts, and ideas as more conflicting/​provocative than they are.
  • Intensification. As a res­ult of media logic, the news media will sen­sa­tion­al­ise events, con­cepts, and ideas to make them more irres­ist­ible than they are.
  • Concreteness. Because of media logic, news media will report events, con­cepts, and ideas more straight­for­wardly than they are.
  • Personalisation. Due to media logic, the news media will over­em­phas­ise the role of named indi­vidu­als in con­junc­tion with events, con­cepts, and ideas.
  • Stereotypisation. Because of media logic, the news media frames events, con­cepts, and ideas as more aligned with con­ven­tion­al perceptions/​opinions than they are.

“The dom­in­ant pro­cesses, estab­lished routines, and stand­ard­ized formats which frame and shape the pro­duc­tion of mass-media con­tent, espe­cially its rep­res­ent­a­tion or con­struc­tion of real­ity, and its man­u­fac­ture of news. Media logic inter­sects with com­mer­cial logic and polit­ic­al logic — con­flu­ences asso­ci­ated with such phe­nom­ena as tabloid­iz­a­tion and the medi­at­iz­a­tion of polit­ics. Media logic exists wherever medi­ation exists. It con­trib­utes to the shap­ing of social order in mod­ern post-indus­tri­al cul­tures.“
Source: Oxford Reference 5Media Logic. (2023). Oxford Reference. https://​www​.oxfordrefer​ence​.com/​d​i​s​p​l​a​y​/​1​0​.​1​0​9​3​/​o​i​/​a​u​t​h​o​r​i​t​y​.​2​0​1​1​0​8​1​0​1​0​5​3​5​7​611

Learn more: Media Logic is Dead, Long Live Media Logic

Enter: The Electronic Age

Human cul­ture is often described based on our access to pro­duc­tion tech­no­lo­gies (e.g., the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age).

According to Marshall McLuhan and the Toronto School of Communication Theory, a bet­ter ana­lys­is would be to view soci­et­al devel­op­ment based on the prom­in­ence of emer­ging com­mu­nic­a­tions technologies.

Marshall McLuhan - Cambridge University - Digital-First
Marshall McLuhan at Cambridge University, circa 1940.

McLuhan sug­gests divid­ing human civil­isa­tion into four epochs:

  • Oral Tribe Culture. Handwriting marks the begin­ning of the end of the Oral Tribe Culture. The Oral Tribe Culture per­sists but without its former prominence.
  • Manuscript Culture. Printing marks the begin­ning of the end of the Manuscript Culture, which per­sists but without its former prominence.
  • Gutenberg Galaxy. Electricity marks the begin­ning of the end of the Gutenberg Galaxy. The Gutenberg Galaxy per­sists but without its former prominence.
  • Electronic Age. Today, we reside in the Electronic Age. Possibly, we haven’t exper­i­enced the begin­ning of this age’s decline yet.

“The Gutenberg Galaxy is a land­mark book that intro­duced the concept of the glob­al vil­lage and estab­lished Marshall McLuhan as the ori­gin­al ‘media guru’, with more than 200,000 cop­ies in print.”
Source: Modern Language Review 6McLuhan, M. (1963). The Gutenberg galaxy: the mak­ing of typo­graph­ic man. Modern Language Review, 58, 542. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​2​3​0​7​/​3​7​1​9​923

The Electronic Age according to Marshall McLuhan.
“The Electronic Age,” accord­ing to Marshall McLuhan.

As a PR pro­fes­sion­al and lin­guist, I sub­scribe to the concept of the Electronic Age. I firmly believe soci­ety is unlikely to revert to the Gutenberg Galaxy.

  • Like the rest of soci­ety, the pub­lic rela­tions industry must go digit­al-first, too.

Read also: The Electronic Age and the End of the Gutenberg Galaxy

Media Logic and Network Effects

In a mass media-cent­ric soci­ety, there are few senders and many recip­i­ents. Hence, the senders’ agenda will affect many. 

Everyone with inter­net access is sev­er­al steps closer to real mass influ­ence. Meanwhile, spe­cial interests can cir­cum­vent tra­di­tion­al gate­keep­ers and speak dir­ectly to their some­times massive audiences.

In a net­work-cent­ric soci­ety, we are all senders and recip­i­ents sim­ul­tan­eously. Marshall McLuhan stated the idea that the media tends to amp­li­fy the human body; the tele­phone is an amp­li­fic­a­tion of your ears, and a note­book is an amp­li­fic­a­tion of your memory. 

Networked media dis­places human-to-human rela­tions and group dynam­ics across time and dis­tance in a way that we can­’t even begin to see the full extent of.

Services like Google and Facebook are designed to amp­li­fy word-of-mouth mech­an­ics, but can vir­al­ity (effect) ever replace news­wor­thi­ness (idea) without some­thing essen­tial get­ting lost along the way?

With all of this in mind, we might be doomed to a vari­ation of a Postman-esque dysto­pia where we slowly stim­u­late ourselves to death. 7Silfwer, J. (2016, December 5). How Social Media Divides Us. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​o​c​i​a​l​-​m​e​d​i​a​-​d​i​v​i​d​e​s​-​us/

Enter: Social Media Logic

Social Media Logic - Doctor Spin - Public Relations Blog
Algorithms drive social media logic.

Media logic is a set of the­or­ies describ­ing how the medi­um affects the media. Typically, the format (as the medi­um dic­tates) influ­ences the medi­ated message.

“Media logic is defined as a form of com­mu­nic­a­tion, and the pro­cess through which media trans­mit and com­mu­nic­ate inform­a­tion. The logic and guidelines become taken for gran­ted, often insti­tu­tion­al­ized, and inform social inter­ac­tion. A basic prin­ciple is that media, inform­a­tion tech­no­lo­gies, and com­mu­nic­a­tion formats can affect events and social activ­it­ies.“
Source: The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication 8Altheide, D. L. (2016). Media Logic. The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication, 1 – 6. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​0​2​/​9​7​8​1​1​1​8​5​4​1​5​5​5​.​w​b​i​e​p​c​088

As fam­ously stip­u­lated by Marshall McLuhan, “The medi­um is the mes­sage.” What are the typ­ic­al effects of media logic on medi­ated messages?

Classic Media Logic Effects

Classic media logic is hypo­thes­ised to influ­ence the news media in the fol­low­ing ways: 9Nord, L., & Strömbäck, J. (2002, January). Tio dagar som skakade världen. En stud­ie av medi­ernas beskrivningar av ter­ror­at­tack­erna mot USA och kri­get i Afghanistan hösten 2001. ResearchGate; … Continue read­ing

  • Aggravation. As a res­ult of media logic, the news media will exag­ger­ate events, con­cepts, and ideas to make them seem more severe or dan­ger­ous than they are.
  • Simplification. As a res­ult of media logic, the news media will dumb down events, con­cepts, and ideas to make them seem more under­stand­able than they are.
  • Polarisation. Because of media logic, the news media por­trays events, con­cepts, and ideas as more conflicting/​provocative than they are.
  • Intensification. As a res­ult of media logic, the news media will sen­sa­tion­al­ise events, con­cepts, and ideas to make them more irres­ist­ible than they are.
  • Concreteness. Because of media logic, news media will report events, con­cepts, and ideas more straight­for­wardly than they are.
  • Personalisation. Due to media logic, the news media will over­em­phas­ise the role of named indi­vidu­als in con­junc­tion with events, con­cepts, and ideas.
  • Stereotypisation. Because of media logic, the news media frames events, con­cepts, and ideas as more aligned with con­ven­tion­al perceptions/​opinions than they are.

The effects of the above media logic can also be recog­nised in social media. Still, social net­work algorithms seem to add even more effects:

Social Media Logic Effects

“Social media logic, rooted in pro­gram­mab­il­ity, pop­ular­ity, con­nectiv­ity, and datafic­a­tion, is increas­ingly entangled with mass media logic, impact­ing vari­ous areas of pub­lic life.”
Source: Writing Technologies eJournal 10Dijck, J., & Poell, T. (2013). Understanding Social Media Logic. Writing Technologies eJournal. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​7​6​4​5​/​M​A​C​.​V​1​I​1​.70

Based on the sug­ges­ted addi­tions for social plat­forms, we can add four extra dimen­sions to the clas­sic media logic effects model:

  • Programmability. Social media logic enables and encour­ages users to cre­ate and manip­u­late con­tent, lead­ing to a tailored por­tray­al of events, con­cepts, and ideas that might not fully rep­res­ent reality.
  • Popularity. Driven by social media logic, con­tent that gains ini­tial pop­ular­ity can dis­pro­por­tion­ately influ­ence pub­lic per­cep­tion, regard­less of accur­acy or completeness.
  • Connectivity. Social medi­a’s inter­con­nec­ted nature, rein­forced by social media logic, facil­it­ates the rap­id spread of inform­a­tion, often without suf­fi­cient veri­fic­a­tion, lead­ing to a dis­tor­ted under­stand­ing of events and ideas.
  • Datafication. The social media logic of con­vert­ing inter­ac­tions into data points emphas­ises quan­ti­fi­able aspects of events, con­cepts, and ideas, poten­tially over­look­ing their qual­it­at­ive nuances.

Social media logic seems entangled with clas­sic media logic. While more com­plex, social net­works seem to amp­li­fy the effects of clas­sic media logic.

Learn more: Social Media Logic: The Amplification of Media Effects

The Future of PR: Digital-FIrst

We need to claim the death of media logic — at least as we know it. We must under­stand and har­ness the dif­fer­ences between clas­sic media logic and social media logic.

There should also be room for future PR pro­fes­sion­als in this brave new world. 

When Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge pub­lished Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR in 2009, it pro­posed how PR should embrace the digit­al-first media land­scape and elev­ate our pro­fes­sion to new heights. 11Solis, B. & D. Breakenridge (2009, February 1). Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR. Amazon​.com: Books. … Continue read­ing

Journalists and politi­cians alike are des­per­ately blam­ing tech­no­logy. Governments are push­ing tech giants to cen­sor speech. Silent miners and mass media tycoons have con­fused the selfie gen­er­a­tion. Many people struggle with social media angst.

But to make ourselves use­ful, we must edu­cate ourselves as pro­fes­sion­als, media con­sumers, and producers. 

Since tra­di­tion­al media logic is mass media-cent­ric, its prin­ciples have been rendered use­less for those look­ing to har­ness the power of the social web.

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ANNOTATIONS
ANNOTATIONS
1 Silfwer, J. (2011, June 17). PR Must Adapt or Die. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​p​r​-​m​u​s​t​-​a​d​a​p​t​-​o​r​-​d​ie/
2, 3 Carpenter, E. & McLuhan, M. (1956) The new lan­guages. Chicago Review. 10(1) pp. 46 – 52.
4, 9 Nord, L., & Strömbäck, J. (2002, January). Tio dagar som skakade världen. En stud­ie av medi­ernas beskrivningar av ter­ror­at­tack­erna mot USA och kri­get i Afghanistan hösten 2001. ResearchGate; Styrelsen för psyko­lo­giskt förs­var. https://​www​.researchg​ate​.net/​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​/​2​7​1​0​1​4​6​2​4​_​T​i​o​_​d​a​g​a​r​_​s​o​m​_​s​k​a​k​a​d​e​_​v​a​r​l​d​e​n​_​E​n​_​s​t​u​d​i​e​_​a​v​_​m​e​d​i​e​r​n​a​s​_​b​e​s​k​r​i​v​n​i​n​g​a​r​_​a​v​_​t​e​r​r​o​r​a​t​t​a​c​k​e​r​n​a​_​m​o​t​_​U​S​A​_​o​c​h​_​k​r​i​g​e​t​_​i​_​A​f​g​h​a​n​i​s​t​a​n​_​h​o​s​t​e​n​_​2​001
5 Media Logic. (2023). Oxford Reference. https://​www​.oxfordrefer​ence​.com/​d​i​s​p​l​a​y​/​1​0​.​1​0​9​3​/​o​i​/​a​u​t​h​o​r​i​t​y​.​2​0​1​1​0​8​1​0​1​0​5​3​5​7​611
6 McLuhan, M. (1963). The Gutenberg galaxy: the mak­ing of typo­graph­ic man. Modern Language Review, 58, 542. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​2​3​0​7​/​3​7​1​9​923
7 Silfwer, J. (2016, December 5). How Social Media Divides Us. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​o​c​i​a​l​-​m​e​d​i​a​-​d​i​v​i​d​e​s​-​us/
8 Altheide, D. L. (2016). Media Logic. The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication, 1 – 6. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​0​2​/​9​7​8​1​1​1​8​5​4​1​5​5​5​.​w​b​i​e​p​c​088
10 Dijck, J., & Poell, T. (2013). Understanding Social Media Logic. Writing Technologies eJournal. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​7​6​4​5​/​M​A​C​.​V​1​I​1​.70
11 Solis, B. & D. Breakenridge (2009, February 1). Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR. Amazon​.com: Books. https://​www​.amazon​.com/​d​p​/​0​1​3​7​1​5​0​6​9​5​?​t​a​g​=​p​r​2​0​0​f​-​2​0​&​c​a​m​p​=​1​4​5​7​3​&​c​r​e​a​t​i​v​e​=​3​2​7​6​4​1​&​l​i​n​k​C​o​d​e​=​a​s​1​&​c​r​e​a​t​i​v​e​A​S​I​N​=​0​1​3​7​1​5​0​6​9​5​&​a​d​i​d​=​0​2​J​7​6​Y​W​6​R​9​G​X​V​R​C​C​J​J​M0&
Jerry Silfwer
Jerry Silfwerhttps://doctorspin.net/
Jerry Silfwer, alias Doctor Spin, is an awarded senior adviser specialising in public relations and digital strategy. Currently CEO at Spin Factory and KIX Communication Index. Before that, he worked at Kaufmann, Whispr Group, Springtime PR, and Spotlight PR. Based in Stockholm, Sweden.

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