Forget Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison - there’s a new breed of rock star in town. They might be not able to play the guitar, but they still know how to work a crowd. They are “social rockstars” - the power users on social news sites.

There has been a lot of talk about “social rock stars” and their importance to the process of submitting content to social news sites. SEOMoz found that the top 100 Digg users control 56% of the homepage. More recent statistics show that the top 100 Digg users are responsible for 48% of the content that appears on the home page. This isn’t just the case with Digg; if you looked at all social news sites the results would be fairly similar.

While there has been lots of analysis on the power of these “social rock stars”, little attempt has been made to identify exactly why power users are now so important or even why they are needed. The argument is that if a site were truly democratic then content would rise to the top, no matter who submitted it. However, few people have looked at the cultural reasons behind the emergence of these power users.

The simplistic answer is that these power users work hard to build their reputation on the various social news sites and that other users come to trust them because of the quality content they submit. While this is true, it still overlooks the cultural reasons for their emergence.

Now, if you’re going attempt to analyse the cultural changes that technological developments can bring, there’s probably nobody better to base your ideas on than Marshall McLuhan.

Social media is a return to oral culture

McLuhan was perhaps the world’s foremost expert on media and communication. His books and ideas continue to shape media theory even today. McLuhan thought that all technology is an extension of ourselves, for example, a hammer is an extension of our arm and a knife is an extension of our teeth. (Watch the video below for more examples from McLuhan himself on how technology is an extension of ourselves)

McLuhan popularised the term, “global village” in the 1960’s and saw how technology was about to change the landscape of western society. Instead of a visual culture, the new technology would bring about a return to oral/aural tradition.

We still have elements of a visual culture, after all, we have, Youtube, photographs and blogs and emails are written in text. But, in order for those to reach large numbers of people they all need to be talked about.

Yes, blogs are text based, but people linking back to your article and leaving comments is a return to oral tradition. Instant messengers, Twitter and Facebook all use text as the primary method of communication, but they are still all part of a conversation.

These social media tools are an extension of our mouth. Because these social media tools revive an oral tradition, it should come as little surprise that the idea of the tribe leader is also revived from the oral society. The power user is essentially the new tribe leader.

By understanding that we’re moving away from the visual culture to an oral/aural culture, it becomes easier to see why power users have emerged on social media sites. To see the rise of the power user we can look to McLuhan’s Tetrad of media effects.

The “Tetrad of media effects” was devised by McLuhan as a way of understanding the effect technology has on society. While McLuhan stressed the importance of analysing the technology over the content of the medium, it’s still a useful model to examine cultural trends.

The key questions the tetrad asks you to consider are:

• What is enhanced?
• What is made obsolete?
• What is retrieved that had been made obsolete earlier?
• What is reversed when pushed to extremes?

If we apply these four questions to the emergence of power users on social media sites we might end up with something like this:

What is enhanced? - The idea of an authority for the collective. When we have lots of people speaking it is the voice of authority and experience that commands attention.

What is made obsolete? - The power of the individual is lost. The average social media user becomes redundant. Of course, s/he can still work their way up to being a power user in time, but the average user is left with little or no power and is forced to rely on top users in order to be “heard”.

What is retrieved that had been made obsolete earlier? - Brings back the idea of the shaman or tribe leader.

What is reversed when pushed to extremes? - Back to “master and servant” methods of information retrieval. When pushed to its extremes more users will go back to using search engines. The social media power user is in itself a reversal of search engines - from lots of information sources to trusted sources.

So what does McLuhan’s Tetrad model tell us?

If we use McLuhan’s model we can see that there is a reason why a majority of stories that make it onto the homepage are from a small number of users. The power users have simply filled a hole that exists because we are returning to an oral/aural culture.

McLuhan’s Tetrad shows that the idea of a “tribe” leader is being revived with these tools. Some marketers have recognised this are have seen the need to build relationships with the top users.

Marketers know they’ll have a better chance of making the popular pages if these power users submit their content. It’s the equivalent of having a quiet word with a tribe leader before a meeting and asking them to bring up a particular topic. The power user is holding the conch and speaking on your behalf because they have more authority among the rest of the group than you do.

The Tetrad also shows that there will inevitably be a backlash against power users. People feel frustrated that their voice isn’t being heard, but that is the nature of the oral society. Not everyone can shout loud enough to be heard.

So what do you think? Are social media power users a result of a return to oral/culture or is there another reason for their emergence? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.