Social Media and Oppression

Paulo Freire argued in his book, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (1970), that the liberation of the oppressed is possible only when the oppressed master the dominant mode of communication. Another way to say this is that the elite control and monopolize the dominant mode of communication for their own benefit.

I learned about the connection between communication technology and the structures of society from Tom Boomershine when we were colleagues at United Theological Seminary in the 1980s. Boomershine connected communication technology with religious beliefs. For example, when texts were hand copied and read by very few people, the elite would read and interpret the texts in community at places like monasteries, synagogues, or churches. The religion and values of society were based on belonging to a community.

With the introduction of the printing press in Europe, the new technology came with new and evolving values. As books became more available, the old habits persisted in some places. Even today, books are read aloud in houses of worship. But people discovered that they could read silently to themselves. This practice went hand-in-hand with the religious movement where individualism dominated. So, Lutheran theology emphasized the importance of individual agency in “believing” correctly. Printing technology made it possible for “believing” to compete with “belonging.” And the values of individual freedom in religion and economics evolved. Authors discovered that books could be used to make new ideas available to others. Thus, the book “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine was successful in convincing many colonists in 1776 to give up their identity as British citizens and join the American Revolution.

The history of the introduction of the printing press in Europe includes many stories of the church, the government, and people who made a living producing and selling hand-copied books resisting the printing press. In 1690 historian Johannes Trithemius described what happened when Johann Fust took ten copies of a printed Bible to sell in Paris in the mid-1450s. Fust was an investor in Johann Gutenberg’s printing press. He hoped to make a lot of money from his investment. The Parisians found it incredible that anyone would have so many copies of the Bible. The copyists who depended on Bibles being rare and, therefore, expensive created a conspiracy theory that the devil made the Bibles. And they drove Fust out of town and back to Germany. It may not be a coincidence that social media today promotes conspiracy theories and a conservative political agenda that preserves the privileges of the wealthy.

Silent reading presented challenges to the elite, which they figured out how to overcome. They established schools where people are taught reading comprehension. Some institutions are designed for the elite. In America, political leadership is largely reserved for those who come from the Ivy League. We saw this when the Supreme Court acted to protect the white elite by denying Harvard – and all other institutions of higher education – the tool of affirmative action. Only Amy Coney Barrett, on the court that ruled in the Harvard case, did not attend an Ivy League school.

To protect the privileges of the elite, they established schools for the non-elite designed to give students the impression that they are participating fully in society while the curriculum (content) supports the ideology of the elite. Also, schools were created that intentionally denied access to individual empowerment. For example, schools in many poor urban neighborhoods are designed only to keep children contained rather than to empower them as Freire proposed.

Marshall McLuhan summarized this in a slogan: “The medium is the message.” A much longer way to say that is that the dominant technology of any age defines possibilities for how information, values, and emotions can be shared between individuals. McLuhan challenged those who reflect on communication technologies to think about how new technology opens opportunities, and changes human relations. More than that, McLuhan invites us to reflect on how we want to use the possibilities of new technology to support values. This is turning Boomershine upside down. Rather than reflecting on how new technology correlates with changes in values, we can start from the perspective of values. Then the question becomes how can a new technology open possibilities for expressing multicultural values and developing a nation without racism?

McLuhanist thinking also allows us to stand Freire on his head. History shows us that the elite figure out how new communication technologies will be used to marginalize others. What if we decide to capture the new technology for the oppressed? What if we begin with the values of a multicultural, racism-free society with individual empowerment for all? What if we step out ahead of the elite and claim the new technology for all of humanity rather than as a tool of oppression?

It is easy to see social media as a tool with its own logic. There certainly is a sense in which social media is a technology. However, today it is owned and managed with a view to enrich a small number of mostly white men. This exposes that social media today has economic and political support that is critical for its success in preserving the interests of the elite. As Freire taught us regarding printing, the oppressed do not need to accept the monopoly of the elite over the most powerful communication technology. And Freire’s most important teaching for us today is that unless we claim a non-oppressive use of the dominant media, we can never become a multicultural nation without racism.