by Kathie Wallace


No More Middle Man

With social media tools, there is an opportunity for every (extra)ordinary person to come to the forefront of our human story-telling and world-creating. The middle man is cut out; no Daddy figures, hierarchical external authority figures, gurus, preachers or teachers can run the show, from the top down, in a true social media experience. Social media is people engaging together with other people. It is empowering people to tell the necessary stories that can create the new world which is so urgently needed now.

From the Wikipedia, which is itself a very successful example of social journalism, “With today’s technology the citizen journalist movement has found new life as the average person can capture news and distribute it globally…. As Yochai Benkler has noted, ‘the capacity to make meaning – to encode and decode humanly meaningful statements – and the capacity to communicate one’s meaning around the world, are held by, or readily available to, at least many hundreds of millions of users around the globe.’”

The locus of control is now back in the hands of all the (extra)ordinary people if we choose to awaken to this truth and act on it.

The Level Playing Field

If we are co-creating and collaborating as true equals in an experience of reciprocal “give and take”, with no one pulling the group energy to her/himself, then it can be said that we are existing on a level playing field. There can be no dominating, hierarchical energy if it is a true level playing field.

Right now in Vancouver there is a new and burning social issue that could be consciously used as an experiment to prove the power of social media. The Campbell government has steadfastly refused to respond to the critical need to build more social housing in Vancouver. As the same time, it has earmarked $450 million dollars to build a casino in downtown Vancouver. It is common knowledge that casinos promote social ills like addiction, poverty and illness which add to the already groaning burden of anguish and despair that is carried by the collective populace in today’s world.

(The reason why any government would choose to build a casino, which keeps people sick and addicted is certainly worth writing about.)

If some one is inspired to take up this challenge, we, the people, could stop this government plan in its tracks as we tell the government to re-allocate the $450 million to social housing. If people choose to aggregate together and spread the word with social media tools by creating a Facebook page, Twittering, videoing, blogging, and forming meetup groups on this issue, we, the people, can stop this horror…if we choose. The playing field has been levelled. We have the power now to do this kind of action…if we choose.

"We are the traditional journalism model turned upside down," explains Mary Lou Fulton, the publisher of the Northwest Voice in Bakersfield, California. "Instead of being the gatekeeper, telling people that what's important to them 'isn't news,' we're just opening up the gates and letting people come on in. We are a better community newspaper for having thousands of readers who serve as the eyes and ears for the Voice, rather than having everything filtered through the views of a small group of reporters and editors.

There are some who would be the gatekeepers, trying to block this revolution that is called “social media”, perhaps because of ego and a desire for fame and attention. Part of the confusion about social media right now is because we are living in two worlds simultaneously: the old paradigm hierarchical world of dominator and control energy and the new world where the locus of control is held deep inside everyone on a level playing field of equals. If the locus of control is held by people engaging as equals with all other people, it can no longer reside in hierarchical systems or organizations nor can middle men any longer mediate between ordinary people communicating with ordinary people. The current global dialogues that are unfolding everywhere through social media, across the whole diverse spectrum of humanity, are weaving together the collective shared wisdom of the “(extra)ordinary all of us”. This is how we are creating the new stories that we need to manifest the new world being birthed right here, right now on Mother Earth. This critical story-telling activity by the collective of humanity trumps “going green” as the way to create our new world.


In this YouTube video, Zennie Abraham speaks to the need for a level playing field whenever people come together in community. He says, “I’m tired of going to… conferences… listening to someone else talk…I want to go to a conference where people are interacting with each other….not one supposed icon up there talking….no one has the right answer for anything….[so] share….and… out of that, new things come”

Social media is a tool empowering ordinary people as equals on a level playing field where hierarchies cannot exist. This will become clearer as the gatekeepers wake up and graciously assume the role of background, “invisible” facilitators, allowing ordinary people to come to the forefront. The systems will have to become the “empty structures” that facilitate people holding the power.

Social media has problems and a negative side as does everything and it is going through a learning curve. But the arrogant insistence on “my way or the highway” of traditional media is not present. Using the tools of the social media world, we are all equal storytellers, gathering, exchanging, and sharing information collaboratively in this new world paradigm. The revolution has already happened. There is no going back thanks to social media. We ARE the new world now. WE humans, in awakening to our interconnection through social media interactions, ARE the system. People now hold the power on the planet. This is the next step in our human evolution.

Columnist Ron Shewchuk stated recently, “This broad adoption of social networks is profoundly changing the way people find and share information. It's also creating powerful online communities that can stage activist campaigns, lead consumer revolts and even influence the outcome of elections.”

One example of the interactive and world-transforming work of social media is the “Ringing Cedars Revolution” Ning website that shares the story of Anastasia, one Russian woman who is changing the world. It is one iterative example of a global movement of people quitting their “surface reality” jobs and aggregating together to move back to the land. They are growing their own food and living freely in self-sufficiency as equals within a self-organizing community.


These self-emerging, self-organizing new world communities are inspired and made possible through the connecting, collaboration and co-creation that goes on with the tools of social media. These tools are leveling the playing field all over the planet. People are coming together and forming new patterns of connections and communities. They are inspired by, and acting on, their own inner urgings and desires as they share information freely with each other. The momentum of these steadily-growing aggregations of human energy will determine now what happens on the planet as we transform into a new world that affirms full-potential life for everyone. National boundaries are becoming irrelevant.

One of the most advanced examples of social media, which I currently know of, has just self-emerged. It is called “The Great Kitchen Table Debate” due to be activated Sunday, April 4, 2010 1-8 PM GMT LIVE from Glastonbury UK.
The invitation is: “Come and join us at "The Kitchen Table" for an experimental discussion forum…. This will be a fully interactive participatory event, in a blending of theatre and discussion, where there is no audience as such as everyone is welcome to be involved.”

It seems to be a level playing field where “ordinary people” participants run the event and determine what unfolds rather than a few “talking heads” controlling the experience. For those unable to attend the event in Glastonbury in person, the discussions will be webcast through the website. It is already being Twittered, emailed, texted, Facebooked, and YouTubed.

”Those who are watching on the web will be able to interact with the discussions through Twitter which will be projected on a large screen in the venue. These contributions will be fed into the ongoing discussions and back out through the webcast maximizing the potential synergy of the event …because the only way we can change the world is co-creation and co-collaboration”.

On a level playing field, where the locus of control is held deeply within the core of every person, ordinary people aggregating around issues of concern can change our world instantly…if we wake up, if we claim our power, if we choose, if we act.
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Previous blogs on this topic: Dimensions
Concluding blog for Social Media and “The Great Turning” coming next....
This article first appeared in the on-line Vancouver Observer ow.ly/1u4GS