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.
Ina 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 political views through underground publishing. Russians it seems, have been uncannily aware of this type of underground discourse. To this very day. It is why they remain masters of disinformation in the digital age.
As the printing press began to take off in society, many subculture groups created pamphlets and brochures that often used symbolism and specialised language to convey their ideas that didn’t jive with the powers running society, such a churches and government. Often they were revolutionary ideas.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, similar to today, science was seen by the church and even political powers with suspicion. So scientific groups used coded brochures and pamphlets to get their messages out to other scientists. It was a form of Shadow Discourse.
The rise of the internet and adjacent communications technologies such as smartphones, social media and satellites has simply scaled and accelerated this Shadow Discourse. The core pillars of the Shadow Discourse are shared language, trust networks and resistance to established systems of power (typically institutions and bureaucracy.) The biggest shifts are scale, time and speed in what we might call the “shrinking present.”
The following diagram shows how the Shadow Discourse begins in digital spaces and filters into mainstream society and the broader public awareness. Not all ideas and debates reach broader society and become mainstream. When they do, it is a strong signal that a fairly large swathe of society agrees with an idea, be it good or bad.
Today, instead of pamphlets and brochures with a secret language or coffee houses, the Shadow Discourse is taking place on podcasts, YouTube channels, Medium and Substacks and social media channels like Twitter (X), BlueSky and increasingly more private tools like WhatsApp, Telegram and Messenger. Decentralised networks like Discord are also starting to play a significant role in this shadow conversation.
The Shadow Discourse can;
Generate powerful alternative narratives
Mobilise large groups quickly
Challenge established institutional power
Create its own cultural language
Operate faster than traditional media cycles
This isn’t necessarily a failure of traditional, more “mainstream” media channels. But these establishment channels are struggling to keep up with and engage with the Shadow Discourse. They’re trying to adapt but struggle in an age where anyone can become a broadcaster and where once broadcast and journalistic standards held sway pre-internet, fringe and increasingly larger groups prefer to ignore them.
While it can be tempting to think this Shadow Discourse is the bane of negativity and anger, it is not. There are centrists, groups and people who have positive and good ideas about how society might be organised. The Shadow Discourse holds the myriad range of the good, the bad and the ugly.
Unlike before in history however, the Shadow Discourse can be more easily found, tapped into and understood. A fact that populist, far-right, state and non-state actors, mostly of malintent, have tapped into more readily than more centrist elements of society.
This presents a unique opportunity that our sociocultural systems haven’t had before. An ability to dive into the Shadow Discourse and understand the weak and strong signals being sent about how elements of society are pushing for sociocultural changes. The challenge of course, is to do this listening and analysis in an ethical and respectful way.
The Shadow Discourse will always be an aspect of human societies. In authoritarian and oppressive societies, it can be a means of resistance and an attempt to preserve cultural identities. In more open societies, it is the bubbling up of how a growing majority of a culture wants change to the current systems.
A key challenge today is that the prevailing communications technologies means cultural transmission of ideas, beliefs and values move much quicker and across multiple cultures unlike ever before. In the past, we relied on ever faster transportation technologies to aid cultural transmission such as sail boats to steam, then carbon fuels. We have eliminated the need for these technologies in cultural transmission and the Shadow Discourse.
This is of course, a very short article and look at the Shadow Discourse and its role in our hyperconnected global society. But if we understand it and the important role it plays, we can better assess and understand the signals of sociocultural changes underway today.