The Hidden Internet Shaping Society
The Shadow Discourse has long been a part of human societies. Now it is playing an even bigger role in our sociocultural systems.
In a month, or perhaps a few months, you may well be talking about something that means something significant to you and your friends or family. It could be really exciting, or perhaps rather scary. Unbeknownst to you though, that conversation started several months ago, somewhere way out in the aether of the interwebs, a tiny spark that was ignited.
I call it the Shadow Discourse or perhaps more academically, though I’m not an academic professionally, Parallel Discourse Networks. And while it all sounds quite fancy and new, this type of sub-discourse has been a part of human societies going back thousands of years.
We can see it in the coffee houses of 17th and 18th century England and France. They were places where ideas began to spread outside the formal public discourse. So much so that some pundits believed coffee itself would lead to crazy ideas and public insanity. Maybe it did in a way.
The American Revolution itself was planned in large part in taverns, coffee houses and secret societies (no, not Freemasons.) The samizdat networks of the Soviet Union banned literature and alternative…
