Culture Is Not Created Online. It Is Revealed There

By Megan Keogh

Digital platforms do not create culture. They reflect it.

Systems are often described as neutral. They are not. They learn from behaviour. (Illustration by Carlos PX)

What gains traction, whose voices are amplified, and which ideas are repeated are all signals of what we value at a given moment. That is why conversations about bias, visibility and leadership styles continue to surface. Not because they are new, but because the underlying patterns remain familiar.

Systems are often described as neutral. They are not. They learn from behaviour. From what is shared, rewarded and reinforced over time. Bias does not only exist in individuals or structures. It shows up in habits. In repetition. In the stories we keep telling, because they feel comfortable or recognisable.

This is where original, perspective-led storytelling matters.

Not content created purely to perform, but ideas that challenge how leadership looks, sounds and behaves. Thought leadership that broadens representation and reflects the complexity of the world we actually live in.

I see this play out constantly across media, leadership communications and brand storytelling. Not just in what is published, but in what is avoided. The moments where a different perspective might feel risky, harder to explain, or less immediately rewarding.

Cultural change does not come from a single statement or campaign. It comes from consistency.

Growing up, my grandmother lived with us. Born in 1910, she experienced extraordinary change across her lifetime. From silence to voice. From exclusion to participation. None of that happened quickly. It happened because people kept showing up, repeatedly, until new ideas became understood and accepted.

The same principle applies today.

Things are not always fair. Progress is rarely linear. But culture shifts when individuals and organisations choose clarity over convenience, and honesty over comfort. When they keep contributing perspectives that challenge the default, even when those perspectives take time to be recognised.

Platforms reflect culture. If we want that reflection to change, the work has to begin long before anything is shared publicly.

Megan Keogh, Director and COO at Arize, specialises in strategy, resourcing and crisis management.