Digital Works Podcast
Talking about all the different things that 'digital' means in the arts, culture and heritage sectors. Tales of success and failure, interrogating the shiny new things and looking at what works (or not) and why, Interviews with digital folks working across the sector and beyond, in-house, consultants, funders, and more.
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Digital Works Podcast
Episode 057 - Ash and Katie, Bytes #13 - on the state of social in 2024, an AI policy from the National Library of Scotland, and a story which highlights the delicate nature of the internet
The thirteenth episode of Bytes, where Ash and Katie discuss 3 (or 4) things from the latest Digital Works Newsletter.
In this episode we'll be discussing some of the links in the newsletter that went out on Sept 3rd.
We talk about:
- Matt Stasoff on the State of Social in 2024
- Rob Cawston on the National Library of Scotland's AI Statement
- Carly Ayres on "how design's oldest org torched a decade of design discourse"
You can sign up for the newsletter at thedigital.works.
Hello and welcome to the Digital Works podcast, the podcast about digital stuff in the cultural sector. My name's Ash and today's episode is episode 13 of Bytes. Bytes is our regular short-form series where we look at three or four things from the most recent Digital Works newsletter, and joining me today and for all episodes in this series is the person who puts that newsletter together, my colleague Katie, and today we'll be talking about some of the things which were included in the newsletter that went out on Tuesday September. The 3rd have plucked to discuss are Matt Stasov's observations on the state of social in 2024, which is a 200 plus slide. Google deck, an article on LinkedIn from Rob Causton at the National Library of Scotland and an article on Substack from Carly Ayres titled how Design's Oldest Org Torches a Decade of Discourse.
Speaker 1:So our first thing is the aforementioned mega deck from Matt Stasov, which looks at the state of social in 2024. And looking through it, it's a really engaging, interesting, I think, insightful piece of work. It is long, but if you're interested or involved in social, I would encourage you to take a look, and there are a few themes that seem to emerge and how people behave on social platforms and also use social platforms. The rise of TikTok seems to continue to explode and, at this moment in time, feels fairly unstoppable. Another big theme is something that we've discussed before is this sort of technical change in the shift from a social graph to an interest graph, and also something that we've talked about before is that shared or common experiences are becoming increasingly rare, and that's for a number of reasons, not least the impact of the algorithms which are involved in building out an interest graph. But, katie, what does Matt's very long deck tell us about the state of social in 2024?
Speaker 2:I mean, wow, what a piece of work. First of all, I will confess to not knowing much about the guy who put this together. I don't know if you looked him up, but kudos to him. There's a lot in here. It's very interesting.
Speaker 2:It brings together a number of related but sort of different strands.
Speaker 2:So, for example, the fact that Gen Z are much, much more closed in the way that they use social media, by which I mean they're very considered about what they share, where they tend to not be putting everything out onto open social platforms, but more selective, where they put things, who they share things with. There's one slide he has where he says social's gone from how we see the world to how we view the world, which sounds like the same thing. But I know what he's getting at. But I know what he's getting at. He's getting at the fact that on a lot of the platforms now, the algorithm is taking people down increasingly specific routes and that what that does is it reinforces their existing worldview. And, yes, there is all the stuff about how you know kind of algorithms you know. Things like TikTok have changed social media from being inherently social to being much more about content. So, like the For you page on TikTok. So yeah, I think it's a really great summary of everything. There's a lot in there.
Speaker 1:I will say there is, and I think you know, as well as a lot of summary and observations, there's also some practical advice in there. Yes, you know he talks a lot about, I suppose, the quality threshold of social posts and actually you maybe need to agonize less about the sort of aesthetic quality of what you're saying and actually what you're saying, if that makes sense, the thing that you're trying to land. And he has a slide in it which I think will ring true to every social media manager which says, on a daily basis, I am day trading attention, aka trying to understand pop culture trends and social media and other media and media arbitrage to see where there is value, which I think speaks to the increasingly complex role that social media managers have in trying to create valuable and impactful content.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. I cannot imagine, in a way, a more difficult job in the world of digital at the moment than being a social media manager, and I say that without irony. Really you do have to be so astute at picking up on what is going to land. It isn't just about copying a meme and kind of trying to do it in the style of. It's so much more than that when it's done well and actually it is quite hard to articulate. So I think there is some useful practical bits in here. He does manage to sort of summarize some of those things very well, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if you're interested in social, or if social is part of your job, then do check out that deck. The second thing we're going to look at is an article that rob causton posted on linkedin. Rob is the director of digital and service transformation at the national library of scotland and his article is titled approaching ai at the national Library of Scotland. And his article is titled Approaching AI at the National Library of Scotland, and it shares a bit about how NLS have approached, thinking about and adopting AI tools. He points to the recent publication of their AI statement, which outlines how they will and won't use AI. Now, this is something that we've talked about quite a lot over the last year. We've recommended that cultural organisations have something like an AI statement or principles around how they're engaging with AI. What does the National Library of Scotland's approach tell us? Are there any lessons there for other cultural and heritage organisations to learn?
Speaker 2:I think it is a useful starter for 10, for all cultural organisations. Really, we've said a few times it is important to have an AI policy now. It is something that you could approach as a tick box exercise, but I think examples like this demonstrate that there is a more meaningful way to put these kinds of policies together and to really think deeply about what it means for what you do as an organization. So, in the case of National Library, they are not only thinking about how they use AI tools in their work, but they're also, of course, thinking about what's use AI tools in their work. But they're also, of course, thinking about what's their remit when it comes to kind of collecting, preserving and providing public access to material that's generated using AI, like. What decisions do they need to make around that? So they've obviously thought very carefully about it, and I think that's the key thing really is how if you're looking at this yourself is thinking what are the relevant sort of strands for us as an organization?
Speaker 1:And I think another thing that seemed to jump out from Rob's description of how they've approached this is that this wasn't addressed solely as a sort of digital or technology concern. It seems like there was a group put together with representation from across the entire institution to really discuss AI and its implications in the round, which again touches on something we've talked about before that you know, digital and technology is not just digital and technology. It's as much about the people and the culture and the usage of those things, and it feels like ai is a really clear example of that yeah, definitely for sure.
Speaker 2:there is no one right way of doing this. We're in such early stages with ai that I think you have to bring everybody into the not everybody, but you have to bring lots of people into the discussion when you're setting these policies, because otherwise it can just be one person's opinion and view of AI and which could be very different from another person. So I think that collective approach is useful for sure, and you know we have other clients who have sort of taken that approach so Art Fund, sure. And you know we have other clients who have sort of taken that approach. So Art Fund, for example, very collaboratively approached the development of their AI policy as well.
Speaker 1:Our final thing is an article on Substack from Carly Ayres titled how Design's Oldest Org Torches a Decade of Discourse, which talks about how the American Institute of Graphic Design decided to take down their AIGA eye on design publication, which has been documenting the American design industry for the last 10 years or more. This was done as part of a streamlining and data migration exercise, and it seems that the AIGA was hoping, or assuming, that the Wayback Machine, which is a digital archive of the web, would pick up the slack for anyone who wanted to access back copies of articles that have been published but no longer existed on the AIGA website. In Carly's article, she says in talking about the backlash the extremely vociferous backlash to this decision. This isn't just about nostalgia or hurt feelings. It's about the very real consequences of erasing our shared history. What does this tell us about the nature of the internet and perhaps the ways in which organizations should be thinking about their content?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fascinating really, as a wider kind of point of interest is. You know, on the face of it, there is an argument that says, well, they were running it and it's up to them what they do with it. Of course, this argument is, you know that that's had a huge amount of groundswell, of community input, and that's actually what made it great. And to just now kind of dismiss it and hope that it will be picked up by the way, that machine is morally and ethically wrong. Of course this is the problem, isn't it? You know we live in a capitalist society, so not to get into a discussion about capitalism, but the reality is that content that exists online that isn't on a space that you own can be removed at any time without your you know say-so, and that is morally and ethically dubious. You know say so, and that is morally and ethically dubious. It's also, though unfortunately I'm not sure, easily solvable.
Speaker 2:There probably is a world in which they could have. In this particular case, they could have potentially done much more consultation with the design community. They could potentially have hived it off into a not-for-profit. Maybe that community would have been interested in sort of maintaining it, but that's a huge amount of work and effort even to do that. So I think from a practical perspective, it should make you think about if you're an organization producing lots of content, where are you putting it? If you're putting it in places that you don't own, there is a risk that that might disappear. So you know, if you think about, from a writing perspective, platforms like Medium, you know people are still writing on Medium, maintaining blogs and so on on Medium, but it's possible that Medium could close down one day and take all that stuff with them. So it's just thinking through the ramifications of it all, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think I think again touches on something we've talked about before and our friends at story things have talked about more than us is, you know, when you're building audiences and archives on platforms that you don't own, they are fundamentally not your audience and not your archive. And I do think it's interesting for cultural organizations who are maybe producing, you know, knowledge or research focused content or sort of long form qualitative content that isn't just marketing and created. Because of the nature of the internet. There will be audiences coming across that content in months or years or decades time if it's still accessible. And it's interesting, I think, for cultural organizations to think about the role they can find all episodes of the podcast on our website at the digital dot works, where you can also find more information about our events and sign up to the newsletter.
Speaker 1:Our theme tune is vienna, beat by blue dot sessions. And, last but not least, thanks to mark cotton for his editing support on this episode. See you again soon.
