Today I realized the success of Radio Engage will be contingent upon one thing, and that is whether or not stations and their listeners choose to embrace a style of conduct that places outcomes higher than ego.
We’re weeks away from getting KUSP fitted with a brand spankin’ new website, chock full o’ the shiniest social media bells and whistles. Fans will be able to share photos, articles, micro-blogs, make suggestions for improving the station, and have conversations with each other–all from the station’s website.
If it works, it will add new dimensions to the public radio experience. Two new information pathways will open. In addition to the movement of information from the station to the listeners, now listeners will be able to send information back to the station…and to each other.
It’s the last information pathway that worries me as I sit here, trying to type up station protocols for KUSP’s new social media tools. It would be super-easy to say that nobody can use the word “jerk” or post pictures of people making mean faces on my website…if I was running a small business. But nobody owns the public radio station–except, maybe, the public. What user-generated content gets allowed? What gets denied? Why is it appropriate to do so and can we possibly arrive at a shaky consensus?
Can the community be trusted to use social media tools in the context of public radio with the collective well-being in mind?
Yes, but it’s going to take a thought upgrade. Social media allows us to share experiences in ways we never before imagined, and that’s dandy–but some experiences are less than pleasant. The old school way to keep out uncomfy experiences was to lay down strict guidelines: “no nudity,” for instance. But if it’s artistic nudity, then your helpful guideline might change into controversial censorship. If you change your guideline to allow artistic nudity, you are confronted with another problem: how can you tell when nudity is artistic?
The rules that used to put limitations on online shared experience are breaking down. Hack at it enough with a logical argument, and it will fall over. This is a good thing. It means we’re getting closer to a solution that is better than rules: a sensible solution that takes personal accountability as its mantle instead of careful moderation.
In order to arrive at that solution, it goes without saying that we all need to look at ourselves a little more closely, and think before we act. Ideally, we must all moderate our own content, putting it in its appropriate place the best way we can. That’s easy.
More difficult will be the task of increasing our tolerance for experiences we fear. Radio Engage will give locals the meeting hall they never had, and for all the good it will do, I suspect there will also be plenty of disagreeable information rising to the surface that we never got to see before. When something happens that we don’t like, we’re all going to have to suck it up. But that’s the nice thing about Radio Engage: if it works, it will let us–the users and listeners–take a more active role in our community. We will get a real, tangible opportunity to make important changes. But it’s only going to happen if we all remember to share.