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The Information Hunter-Gatherers
By Patrick Ruffini
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Will print newspapers even exist twenty years from now? Judging by the pile of newspapers that stack up in my recycling bin in mint condition each week, the odds can't be good.
Slowly but surely, the marketplace is coming to be dominated by a rising generation unaccustomed to the touch of newsprint at their fingerprints. It's not just that everything is moving to the Web. It's that the notion of broadcasting to the masses is dying. The audience used to passively consume content; now they're information hunter-gatherers, cobbling together a customized diet of information from the Web and their TiVo. To succeed in this environment, your media has to be interesting every time out or the viewer will time-shift to something else. That's different than the days when your name had to be Dan, Peter, or Tom, and the 6:30 time slot was your megaphone.
Blogs and personal media outlets from YouTube to MySpace are breaking from under the yoke of mass media. And the new medium is versatile enough that old media isn't always the loser -- more often than not, it's mainstream news clips us political junkies like to pass around. The difference is that MSM content is being passed around in 2-minute increments, not tidily packaged 42-minute programming blocs. And there's just as much "juice" in that audience of 10,000 that watches the clip on YouTube as there is in the 300,000 who watched in on TV. Why? Because those 10,000 are invested enough to seek out the clip and make sure it's remembered; for most of the 300,000, it's just background noise.
In the new media world, you don't need big numbers so much as you need to generate passion and interest with the right audience. An old adage seems adept: "Sure, I have just one reader, but he's the President of the United States."
...
Sure too much of what they've served up has been biased and pointless, the real problem however, has been their underestimation of what their real 'base' is both interested in and capable of:
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/PatrickRuffini/2007/03/10/the_information_hunter-gatherers
I also think they tend to under estimate their audience's intelligence. Prior to the internet, soundbites were taken pretty much as fact; with all the internet surfing going on, every comment comes under scrutiny. Some are more persistent than others but eventually it all comes out....the exact wording, the entire quote, the context, the environment in which it was said, who was there....everything. Plausable deniability disappears. Propaganda becomes glaringly obvious. All this makes it even harder for the individual to feel comfortable about their chosen political party for example....they WANT to be loyal BUT .... or international governments and organizations can now be viewed with skepticism; skepticism that with enough digging can be substantiated without the necessity of waiting for history to sort it all out.
Please note that I started my comments with "I also think..." that means its my opinion.
I also think they tend to under estimate their audience's intelligence. Prior to the internet, soundbites were taken pretty much as fact; with all the internet surfing going on, every comment comes under scrutiny. Some are more persistent than others but eventually it all comes out....the exact wording, the entire quote, the context, the environment in which it was said, who was there....everything. Plausable deniability disappears. Propaganda becomes glaringly obvious. All this makes it even harder for the individual to feel comfortable about their chosen political party for example....they WANT to be loyal BUT .... or international governments and organizations can now be viewed with skepticism; skepticism that with enough digging can be substantiated without the necessity of waiting for history to sort it all out.
Please note that I started my comments with "I also think..." that means its my opinion.
I also think they tend to under estimate their audience's intelligence. Prior to the internet, soundbites were taken pretty much as fact; with all the internet surfing going on, every comment comes under scrutiny. Some are more persistent than others but eventually it all comes out....the exact wording, the entire quote, the context, the environment in which it was said, who was there....everything. Plausable deniability disappears. Propaganda becomes glaringly obvious.
Good points here. I love the idea of a loss of grip by the MSM, but it can be overestimated. They are still the primary source for news. Blogs, the Internet, USMB and other chatboards are great, but they don't call up government officials and interview them or attend meetings and hearings as professional journalists do (for the most part). So original reporting remains. It can just be spun harder and faster nowadays.
Truly breaking the MSM would involve original reporting by alternative news sources on a more regular and vigorous level, IMO.
