Yesterday's NYT turned its gaze to the patterns of political connection young people are establishing in social media. In an article entitled Finding Political News Online, the Young Pass It On, Brian Stelter describes a techno-political paradigm-shift: young people now turn to the social filter to find political information, as opposed to the traditional "professional" filters of the MSM. Nothing surprising or groundbreaking here, as we're saying the same things about "digital natives" that we've been saying about bloggers for ages.

Such a pronouncement benefits from nuance; young people have a high degree of diversity of communication practices. The expectations and tools they use vary between age ranges and network clusters. As most young people are plugged-in in one way or another, this demographic's network is very dense - making the social filter remarkably efficient. Of course, the social filter is also mysterious, prone to scamming, and biased towards spectacular events.

Rather than concentrating on the network aspects of the social filter, I'd like to address why it works on a personal level. That is, in an age where social political-speak is almost taboo, why do we feel comfortable sharing political information in digital forms? There are two main factors, identity and multiplicity of context, at work here (bear with me, I'll explain in human terms soon).

As a point of comparison, our "average" older person uses relatively few communication channels. Phone, fax, email - tools that are often depersonalized, tools largely "learned" in the work environment. It is hard for us to separate our social expectations from the tools we use, so some of us may feel uncomfortable pushing political messages in these forms. Our average "younger" person uses multiple communication tools; their toolset includes the traditional vehicles, and is extended to include new venues (social networks, IM) and forms (video, presence apps). Young people embrace these new tools because they're more personalized, lower effort, and "learned" in a social context. Email is the tool of work, a wall post is the new tool of personal communication.

For most of us, the personal space is the space where we can exert political influence. As social media is identity driven, it is inherently personal - making it a perfect space for political discussion (or link sharing, etc.). And because social media has many contexts - it isn't just a work, or school space - we're able to negotiate the right messages to send in the right contexts. Political organizations are savvy to the multiplicity of context; as a results, political messages come in many forms - spectacular (Macaca), serious (Obama's "More perfect union"), all-appealing (a politician making a gaffe), etc. Based on our uses and expectations of the social media spaces, we decide the appropriate venue and channel to pass these messages along.

Ultimately, the notion of the social filter is somewhat misguided. The social filter isn't solely a place to find information, but rather a place where information exists in its own right. It is its own channel, context and form, one that is multiplex and personalized. The social filter doesn't replace MSM; it is its own media. All medias have form: the newspaper has paper, TV news has a blinking screen. Social media has between us, in conversation.