Middle Media

For years, Old Media dismissed electronic competitors as frivolous and temporal. Then New Media appeared to be burying its predecessors for good. It appears both notions may have been wrong. The boundaries between new and old media are getting fuzzy, as a hybrid Middle Media emerges between the two. (Read more.)

Since the rise of electronic media like TV and the Net, the idea of New and Old media has become entrenched in the culture. Conventional wisdom says that the former will ultimately and completely replace the latter.

That doesn't seem to be happening, though interactive media are ascending rapidly, and the influence and monopoly of traditional media have diminished. But there are signs all over of a new, hybrid, and probably permanent Middle Media.

Old media are generally defined as newspapers, magazines, publishing and network TV, controlled by small groups of gatekeepers who make decisions about what's news and what's not. New media, by contrast, are interactive, with choices made by their consumers, and they're digitally or electronically transmitted. In general, they are much freer and more opinionated.

But technology and the way people use it is so inherently unpredictable that that rigid distinctions between the two are becoming less useful each day. Most "old" media now have "new" appendages, adjuncts and outlets, especially on the Web. And the people using new media still acquire information and use culture in traditional forms - they go to megaplexes, read magazines, follow books.

The idea of "new" or "old" media may not hold too much longer, just Middle Media that combine elements of both, giving information-seekers many more options.

One small but telling example was reported in American Demographic magazine's March issue, which reported that dot.com companies - Garden.com, Wine.com, Tavolo.com and jewelry retailer Miadora.com, among others -- are successfully experimenting with print catalogues. People buy online, but they want to see some paper and pictures first.

"There's something about flipping through a catalog that can't be replaced by the online experience," says Rich Fazekas, research director at W.A. Dean & Associates, a San Francisco catalog consulting firm that's just completed an informal study of e-commerce players launching catalogs. "If [e-tailers] want to grow as a sales channel, catalogs can be a vital part of their business."

Another indication of an emerging Middle Media is the fact that the journalistic move from paper to e-news has gone from a trickle to a flood. Reporters are leaving newsrooms all over the country to work for online information sites. These reporters, leaving papers like the Wall Street Journal and New York Times and smaller papers in chains like Gannett, are bringing traditional journalistic sensibilities to e-news, which until now has been much more free and raucous than the offline press.

Just a few years ago, most retailers thought catalogs would disappear as consumers browsed through graphically - advanced online displays.

The rise in catalogs in conjunction with dot.coms is interesting because it demonstrates again that people are often less absolute in their technological choices than the techno-pundits and seers predict.

The music industry is hysterical about online music distribution, but there is little or no evidence that their "property" is being hi-jacked en masse by digital thieves. Last week, the industry announced it earned a record $14+ billion in l999. Some newspapers - USA Today, the New York Times, the Washington Post - are belatedly realizing that the Net doesn't necessarily replace them, but can often offer new venues for breaking news, new vehicles for identifying and acquiring subscribers, and can generally promote interest in their existing formats. They may no longer hold monopolies on news and information, but they still have a significant slice of the pie.

In a Slashdot discussion last week about the future of newspapers, it was obvious that many people here, for example, valued print news in certain circumstances, particularly if papers would offer more focused and in-depth information on subjects like technology and culture, as well as local news.

Publishers approaching meltdown about the future of books can visit any Borders or Barnes & Noble, where salespeople constantly suggest that customers find books online, and where it's also clear that people aren't even close to giving up reading words on paper even if they also read words on computer screens. Although online book sales are growing on sites like Fatbrain, Amazon and BN.com, so are the sales of books in stores. The technological absolutism invoked by the rise of the Net - everything will go digital - is not coming to pass.

Certain information formats can offer a sensual, contextual appeal that's impossible to quantify, and was not predicted. Consumers have fiercely resisted getting newspapers or books via digitized tablets. Convenience and speed are critical measures, but not the only ones. People enjoy browsing through catalogs they can see and hold, it seems, rather than simply buying everything online. They cling to the experience of congregating at malls and in bookstores, even when many of the items sold there are readily available on the Net and the Web. Movie admissions were up sharply last year, along with music revenues, and chain bookstores made huge profits.

The symbiotic boom in catalogs and online shopping may foreshadow the way future media will work. Media may not, in fact, be old-fashioned or new-fangled, but co-dependent. E-news and information can feed off print news and information, one stimulating interest in the other.

And the form of media might vary in terms of content as well. Information about politics, for example, might always be centered around print publications -- a handful of newspapers and magazines -- which are to many people better vehicles for presenting complex issues. Music distribution seems sure to move almost completely onto the Web, along with elements of radio and TV. But even though DVDs are booming, it seems unlikely people will forego the experience of going to theaters, which are also booming. Breaking news is clearly moving exclusively to e-media, as it is fast and tailor-made for hypertext.

Other kinds of coverage -- pop culture, health, investigative reporting, strong writing -- might always remain popular to consumers on paper.

Even though that pattern seems to be emerging, the truth is, nobody knows for sure. Interactivity has become one of the most powerful ideas in media history, no longer a fad but an expectation. As much as gatekeepers, politicians and journalists hate it, it isn't going away.

People expect to contribute to and participate in their information media, and to hold pundits, columnists and other information-givers accountable for what they report, think and write.

But as Garden.com's sweet-smelling catalogs show, the boundaries between old and new media are getting tougher to find. What is visible is a new and hybrid information structure, a new media species all its own.

Comments

Aside

[Foogle]

Aside from the (cough cough) interesting ASCII art posted here, I don't see anything interesting about this article. This isn't a Anti-Katz comment -- I just don't get the significance of what he's saying.

Is there any? What kind of a genius does it take to figure out that people don't like to change things overnight? People like to smooth things over with gradual change. I know I do, and I know most businesses do too. This isn't a "middle media", it's just two medias in one.

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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

Books will stay on paper

[spiralx]

Publishers approaching meltdown about the future of books can visit any Borders or Barnes & Noble, where salespeople constantly suggest that customers find books online, and where it's also clear that people aren't even close to giving up reading words on paper even if they also read words on computer screens. Although online book sales are growing on sites like Fatbrain, Amazon and BN.com, so are the sales of books in stores. The technological absolutism invoked by the rise of the Net - everything will go digital - is not coming to pass.

I doubt very much that books will become obsolete for quite a long time, even when the E-book finally becomes a reality for consumers. While some texts, particularly scientific textbooks, could do with the concept of hyperlinked sections, the majority of books would gain no real benefit to being digitised. Yes, it might be nice to search a book for a particular passge, but it's hardly essential for the enjoyment of the book.

While I love computers, there's nothing more frustrating than trying to read something that's more than 100 or so lines on a monitor. It just doesn't feel right and hurts your eyes, even on this brand-new 19" monitor. And I don't think curling up on your bed with your E-book will take off.

And I'm not even going to go in to the phenomenon of toilet books - you know, those books full of easily digestible sections which sit in the bathroom for when you need a quick read :)