Digital social media is nothing new

Digital social media is nothing new

With the contemporary explosion in popularity of web 2.0, Twitter, Skype, Facebook and other social media providing a great number of people with the ability to instantaneously communicate around the globe it is interesting to note that digital electronic social media is a Victorian invention. In a public demonstration, Marconi famously introduced wireless technology to the citizens of London in 1896. From the very earliest days of 'electric' media, amateur radio experimenters were engaged in communities of social interaction, and they relied entirely on digital communication – Morse code is classified under 'digital modes' by regulators such as the Australian Communications and Media Authority because of its on-off encoding of the carrier wave. There is much to compare between contemporary social media and amateur radio. After all, the internet shares technological developments with amateur radio, such as 'packet radio' – the process of breaking up digital information into pieces, and transmitting then reassembling them at the receiving end. This paper uses a variety of sources to compare the practices of amateur radio with contemporary social media, and investigates the popularity of amateur radio in a world where almost anyone can now easily join the global community through modern social media.