Welcome to the Context Collapse

A seasonal update: Context Collapse #166

Note: We’ll be back to our usual coverage in the next issue.

So… welcome to Neal Ungerleider’s Context Collapse, the best damned mass communications newsletter on Substack.

This email is for both new subscribers and older subscribers who are wondering:

a) What the heck they signed up for.

b) Who the heck I am anyway.

So let’s go.

Artists conception of the state of mass media, 2022. Photo by Ricardo Viana on Unsplash

What is this newsletter and what are mass communications?

This newsletter is a way for me to write about mass communications on Substack. Substack is a free service that makes it very easy for me to write newsletters and send them to my subscribers.

Mass communications? That’s basically a shorter way of saying “journalism, mass media, social media, public relations and advertising.”

You see, everything got weird a few years ago when social media and the internet allowed ordinary people to bypass the traditional gatekeepers (television networks, newspapers, etc.) to create their own content. Entire social media services popped up that gave people a chance to create content for free which the services would then make money from by selling ads against them! There were also a few revolutions, political movements and mass cultural trends involved too.

Basically, traditional media’s been playing catchup and grassroots digital media conquered the world. And now the lines between the two are blurring!

“Context Collapse,” meanwhile, is a term that describes our current situation pretty damned well:

Context collapse or "the flattening of multiple audiences into a single context" is a term arising out of the study of human interaction on the internet, especially within social media.

Context collapse "generally occurs when a surfeit of different audiences occupy the same space, and a piece of information intended for one audience finds its way to another" with that new audience's reaction being uncharitable and highly negative for failing to understand the original context.

I’d say that’s a pretty good explanation for where we’re at.

Who the heck are you anyway?

My name is Neal Ungerleider. I run Ungerleider Works, a boutique comms consulting firm that helps clients launch email newsletters and podcasts, publish white papers and ebooks and a whole load of other stuff.

Before becoming a consultant I was a senior copywriter for R/GA, an advertising agency where I worked on television commercials, print ads, social media copy and retail store displays for a couple of big consumer technology brands.

Before R/GA, I was a masthead contributor to Fast Company magazine from 2010-2017. I wrote articles for both the print magazine and digital, worked on annual capstone issues like Most Innovative Companies and Innovation by Design and generally had a ball. My work as a reporter led to on-air interviews with CBS This Morning, NPR, trade show appearances in front of audiences of 10,000+ and a bunch of other things.

I am a former contributor to the Los Angeles Times op-ed section and my writing has appeared in places like Wired, Slate and Esquire.

Basically, a pretty damned good media career.

What can I expect from this newsletter?

A knowledgable, opinionated guy with a bunch of industry experience explaining what the heck is happening behind the curtain.

I don’t write about everything, but focus on things that I both have expertise in and can explain better than other people.

I also have very few fucks to give, can speak more freely than most people in the PR, advertising or journalism worlds and know how the comms industry works!

So there’s that too.

Looking forward to the adventure.

-Neal