The Transition of Media

Submitted by E. Rich (GraphicSilence.com)

In part of Andrew Keen’s book, The Cult of the Amateur, he discusses how web 2.0 is killing traditional media and businesses by all of the “free” user generated content on the internet.  These traditional outlets of media cannot sustain themselves when the internet provides the same services for free.   Keen believes that

“perhaps the biggest casualties of the Web 2.0 revolution are real businesses with real products, real employees, and real shareholders…. Every defunct record label, or laid off newspaper reporter, or bankrupt independent bookstore is a consequence of “free” user generated internet content – from Craiglist’s free advertising, to YouTube’s free music videos, to Wikipedia’s free information.”

The biggest casualty for me is the dwindling number of newspapers in the country.   I grew up reading the newspaper with my parents every morning and this is very disheartening.  Local newspapers are filing for bankruptcy all over the country.  For instance in late 2008, the Tribune Company, who owns the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune,  filed for bankruptcy due to debt and falling ad revenue. This is just one of many companies that have filed for bankruptcy in the past two years.  Advertisers and readers are increasingly turning to online alternatives for ad revenue and news.

This is troubling for us all in that real journalists and newspapers are not receiving the attention that they deserve.  The internet has dubious amounts of information and questionable authors/bloggers, depending on who you read and what you read and I believe there can be a discrepancy in reliable information.  Now of course, my instinct is to proclaim that newspapers and traditional media must get with the times and adapt to technological evolution in regards to media so they won’t die, but it doesn’t seem that easy.  Providing their news source online is a step in that direction, but the majority of newspapers have not made a big transformation yet online.  Some sites, like the Houston Chronicle, are hard to navigate intentionally so their readers will be forced to by the hard copy.

The internet is distracting people from traditional media and it’s hard to tell if this is a positive or negative thing.  I enjoy reading the newspaper as opposed to reading articles online.  Mainly, because it’s easier to read and to navigate.  I can spend time looking over the newspaper versus clicking a bunch of links and skimming.  I also read a wider range of news from a local newspaper versus cherry picking online articles.

The internet is transforming our society and how we receive our news.  It’s important to me that the information on the internet that people read is credible.  It’s important that we have established journalists or at least good objective writers and accurate information.  With so many people turning to the internet for news, we will all have different versions of news by who we read and where are affiliations and beliefs lie.  Plus, we will have a perpetual amount of slush of bad information.  This phenomenon happens in traditional media too, but it’s maximized on the internet by an infinite amount of content that may or may not be truthful, objective, credible, or reliable.  My only hope is that a consequence of the internet is not having traded quality for misinformation, but then again, it all depends on the user.