Homologation has always been a problem that society poses when it reflects on itself, and today, when the reflective mirrors of the media have multiplied and diversified, the question becomes even more interesting.
In the 1950s Merton spoke of “homophilic behavior” when already selected themes and products were chosen, we could say almost “filtered” by others with whom we share thoughts, politics, the taste more for the pleasure of being similar to them than out of true conviction. Certainly it was a society, at least in appearance, more compact and cohesive, yet even today that principle well outlined by the great sociologist seems to be in vogue more than ever. In fact, social media, let’s think only of the influencer mechanism, are deeply based on the dynamics of homologation. However, we cannot fail to notice some changes that could even make us rethink the very concept of homologation.
The question interests me above all from the point of view of information and cultural consumption: the times in which television channels and newspapers provided an almost monolithic vision of the world, despite the countless differences of opinions expressed, are certainly over. To date, when, for example, I speak of media patchwork, I am referring to the possibility that the media offer us to build a much more customizable representation of ourselves and our world. Imagine comparing a patchwork and a puzzle: the first more disordered and heterogeneous, the second more rigorous and rigid. Certainly the first is more suitable for describing our contemporary way of acculturating and informing ourselves, the second more akin to a pre-established and heterodirected way of constructing one’s own vision of the world. However, to think that having at our disposal an almost infinite plethora of information sources and cultural products protects us from danger, or at least from the tension towards homologation would be naive. First of all, because the mainstream it still has a large hold on large sections of the population and even social networks (think memes) fish with both hands in cultural production for the huge audience by tearing it apart and recombining it for the niches of followers. And on the other hand, even the most obscure processes of counter-information – think of the extreme example of QAnon’s conspiracy and its fight against the elusive “new world order” – work in a similar way. In fact, they aggregate people around them in search of their own collective identity and define a group to which, in the final analysis, we are homologated in an almost uncritical way.
It therefore seems unrealistic to me to think that the multiplicity of media and formats has sheltered us from homologation. Another very recent operation that illustrates very well how the process of hybridization of media and imaginaries makes it much more complicated to understand where the mainstream and where do you start the no mainstram is represented by the hit starring Fedez, Achille Lauro and Orietta Berti. Who would know who among the three he really is mainstream and who underground? Certainly all three are broadly and firmly embedded in the cauldron of pop culture, but if I had to choose I would say that the less mainstrem everyone is Orietta Berti. In this phenomenal game of mirrors where it is not clear who is contaminating whom, it seems to me, however, that I see the imprint ofhomophilia in the sense that Merton spoke of it. Are we desperately trying to find similarities, are we looking for normalization, and perhaps homologation?
The truth is that a good patchwork, a good information and cultural blanket is not enough to cloak us in originality and innovation: it is a process that costs much more expensive than that. Nonetheless, we must not stop daring to change, and look for new paths as the wonderful Robin Williams says in The Fugitive Moment.
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