The Media in 2014

Alexandre Van de Sande writes "Robin Sloan made a flash video as a "documentary" of how big enterprises like google and amazon converged medias and changed the way we see news by 2014. It's a vision of what could be (or will be) the world with personalized media, made by peers, and the guy knows what's going on on those big heads. It ends with a sad view on which, althought some people get their news in a way they could never before, most of them just get a bunch of untrue gossip and sensasionalist trivia. And that's exactly what they wanted." This will take a few minutes to watch, but stick it out to the end. I think there's a lot in there that you really should think about.

Comments

Already there?

[Anonymous Coward]

"most of them just get a bunch of untrue gossip and sensasionalist trivia"

Isn't this already true for the American "real press"?

Re:Already there?

[Greslin]

Hasn't it always?

Seriously, anyone who thinks that this is anything new - or something whipped up by this newfangled Internet thing - needs to go grab a book called "The Image: A Guide To Psuedo-Events In America", by historian Daniel Boorstin. Written in 1961, it examines the history of public relations in America during the twentieth century. The book is mainly about how folks discovered that you don't actually need a real event in order to have news. Just create a *reaction*, regardless of whether it was justified by reality, and then report on the reaction.

Boorstin predicted that if things didn't change, the American entertainment and news gathering industries would eventually merge. Rather than accurately reporting the facts, the overriding goal would be to capture and maintain an audience.

Funny part is, when the book came out in 1962, Boorstin was traveling in Europe. Time magazine (IIRC) called him a traitor for suggesting that Americans would be so stupid to allow such a thing to happen.