It seems like the little man is making a lot more of a splash in the media pool. With the advancements of the Internet and the plethora of information we can find, we are able to shift from traditional media to a more wide spread interactive media we find with the web.
Jay Rosen’s example of the passengers who got their own boat is a perfect analogy. Everyone feels confident in their ability to operate their own boat and not have someone drive them around for God knows how long.
Why is this exactly? I feel like it has a lot to do with trust. We just can’t believe anyone anymore, we have to do our own fact checking. This article in NPR about disagreeing gives you some insight about how controversial we are. With the internet, we can fact check from thousands of different sources, not just the Big Six. The internet has made us all smarter, but also a lot more skeptical.
This horizontal shift in power gives us a voice, and it scares the hell out of people working in traditional media. Like Dave Winer said, “Once the user takes control, they never give it back.” I know I definitely won’t give it back.
The traditional media can’t familiarize themselves with all the different interests and passions that we all have. The Internet can. They’re appealing to the people who love the topic, written/created by the people who also love the topic. The public doesn’t care about profit, they care about sharing and appealing to the small market of people just like them. And with the Internet, you can find someone who has the same interests as you.
There is porn interest of it, NO EXCEPTIONS.
I think the best example of your argument in the movie Wag the Dog. In it, a fictionous US President’s PR team works with Hollywod producers to producea a fake war to take the audience’s attention of said president’s affair. The fact that it was at one time was possible for such a scheme to work shows how far we as consumers have come.
I think you are right, people dont really care about if they make a profit what they really want is to share thoughts and find people with similar interests.
I think you made a very valid point that “The public doesn’t care about profit, they care about sharing and appealing to the small market of people just like them” which I think is possible because the public doesn’t have to put in a lot of money to began, unlike the big media broadcasting companies who invest a lot of money for promotion and production.
I think that ONE of the reasons that these shifts in power are happening is the fact that some viewers want to hear more points of view than BIG news agencies can offer… Most of these BIG news agencies have a predetermined point of view on a given topic and a set agenda…many people dont like this biased approach to news casting and are thus looking a for a more “2-way street” alternative…such as the web provides. Instead of being lectured, people want to have a dialogue and an interesting conversation, something that is completely alien to traditional broadcasting.
Very interesting post. Personally, I would believe what my peers say about a product/situation as opposed to what the news agencies say. I believe the news agencies have their own agenda, which can sometimes skew the facts.
I think that you give two important points: the first one is that people like sharing and Internet connects with people with simmilar likes.
the second, is that we can’t believe everything that is online, we have to check that the information is true.
It is so rewarding to know how to connect with people. It is true that people are the most important asset. Poet and author Ralph Waldo Emerson, asserted, “Assets make things possible, people make things happen.”