Biggest Shift in History of Media Obscured

[goinghome]

One or two of you might find this interesting, as I did; it's mainly about how people mix up the nuts and bolts of what's going on with the switch-over to the internet n' such from 'hard' media.

"...We live amid the greatest change in the history of media. The nature and magnitude of this epochal change are so enormous that most media executives and media scholars fail or refuse to recognize it and that the others who do claim to see it instead mistake its traits or characteristics as the change itself.

The media executives and media scholars who fail or refuse to recognize the change do so because major aspects of it contravene beliefs or theories they cherish or upon which their careers or businesses had been built. For the past ten years, this group was the most responsible for the continuing failure of media industries to adapt to the change.

However, the bulk of culpability recently shifted to another group: the media executives and media scholars who claim to see the change yet mistake a trait or characteristic as the change itself. They, not those who refuse or fail to recognize the change, are now most responsible for their industries’ failure to adapt to the change.

Indeed, the most pernicious misperception in the media industries today is that the greatest change is consumers are switching their media consumption from analog to digital. In reality, this switch is merely a characteristic or side-effect of something far larger underway. Yet the misperception that this simply switch in consumption is the greatest change has led most media companies to think that all they need do to survive and prosper is transplant their traditional business models, traditional content packaging, and traditional content (with the addition of hyperlinks, audio, video, animation, and other multimedia) into online. [A recent example of such thinking]

Despite more than ten years of implementations, this mistaken strategy, called convergence or multimedia by proponents and shovelware by critics, has demonstrably failed in virtually every example to bring media companies revenues near those that the companies earn from analog media operations. The strategy’s failure flummoxes the executives and scholars who think the greatest change is consumers are switching their media consumption from analog to digital. Moreover, they can’t understand why the media industries in the most prosperous of the world’s countries have been effected the worst by the change. Nevertheless, these executives and scholars doggedly continue to pursue the convergence strategy, rather than question the strategy’s basic assumption.

Their stunning conceptual myopia– they figuratively can’t see the forest for the trees –is leading most media industries into catastrophe. Their fault has already caused hundreds of thousands of media workers worldwide to become unemployed, including tens of thousands of journalists whose investigative and expository reporting is necessary for democracy to function properly in their countries.

As I’ve been writing since 2004, the greatest change in the history of media is that, within the span of a single human generation, people’s access to information has shifted from relative scarcity to surfeit. Billions of people whose access a generation ago to daily changing information was at most one or two or three locally-distributed printed newspapers, one, two, three, four television channels, and one or two dozen radio stations, can now access virtually all of the world’s news and information instantly at home, office, or wherever they go. The economic, historical, and societal ramifications of this epochal change in media will be far more profound than Gutenberg’s invention of moveable type, Tesla’s and Marconi’s invention of broadcasting, or any other past development in media...
http://www.digitaldeliverance.com/2010/06/08/the-greatest-change-in-the-history-of-media/

 

[Worm]

One or two of you might find this interesting, as I did; it's mainly about how people mix up the nuts and bolts of what's going on with the switch-over to the internet n' such from 'hard' media.


As I’ve been writing since 2004, the greatest change in the history of media is that, within the span of a single human generation, people’s access to information has shifted from relative scarcity to surfeit. Billions of people whose access a generation ago to daily changing information was at most one or two or three locally-distributed printed newspapers, one, two, three, four television channels, and one or two dozen radio stations, can now access virtually all of the world’s news and information instantly at home, office, or wherever they go. The economic, historical, and societal ramifications of this epochal change in media will be far more profound than Gutenberg’s invention of moveable type, Tesla’s and Marconi’s invention of broadcasting, or any other past development in media...
http://www.digitaldeliverance.com/2010/06/08/the-greatest-change-in-the-history-of-media/

Interesting, thanks.

What's missing is the role of communicative capitalism, to use Jodi Dean's term. "Executives" and "scholars" are missing the point, but so is the public, and for a very simple reason. There's too much money to be made for anyone to question whether or not the shift in media consumption is different than it appears. Consumers are encouraged to think of the shift in only the best way. The article thus gets a key point wrong. Not all media companies are suffering. Some are thriving. Newspapers will die even as Google booms. The fault lies not only with those who aren't telling us what we need to know about the shift, but those who are reaping big profits from keeping us ignorant.

To touch on the author's big example in part three, he is correct to say the New York Times misinterpreted the market by failing to comprehend the surfeit of information. The additional dimension to consider is why the qualitative value of the vast array of information available to consumers was for some reason judged to be more or less equal. That is, the value of a New York Times article was, in the minds of apparently nearly all Internet users, equal to the value of any other news source on the web. This is a problem with roots outside corporate board rooms and university think-tanks.

 

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

The source of the article is a blog kept by a company that offers new-media consultancy services to corporations. Keep that point in mind.

The other part of the problem, beyond surfeit and perceived relative value, is ease of access--ease that strips information of context, and enables anyone to read (and misinterpret) anything they find. It costs nothing to bring misinformation to "market." It's not just that all useful and accurate information was made available, it's that it was made available without a framing structure to make sense of it all. It sounds like I'm leading to a point of intellectual snobbery, but I'm not--it's that information that is not understood is essentially the same as misinformation--if not worse.

An example of this is the anti-vaccine movement. Desperate parents of autistic children have seized on both valid medical studies (that were not necessarily relevant to their children's cases) and the rhetoric of snake-oil salesmen and patched together a created "reality" of misinformation. It used to be that medical information was not readily available to the keystrokes of the curious. You had to have admission to a university or hospital library to access these studies, and if you had admission you had some level of understanding of the uses and limitations of such information. Now, it's information anarchy.

Even well-meaning "scholars" and "executives" misunderstand the problem. The hierarchy that protects information and renders it useless to those who haven't put in the work to learn to interpret is gone. Do you really want doctors and professionals who Google your problem when you consult them? The concept of credibility is being gutted.

 

[Dave]

People will figure out that they can't accept everything they read as being the absolute truth.

The benefits of all the people having access to specialized information and immediate access to the world far outweigh any shift in power of intellectual authority.

 

[MILVA]

One or two of you might find this interesting, as I did; it's mainly about how people mix up the nuts and bolts of what's going on with the switch-over to the internet n' such from 'hard' media.

"...We live amid the greatest change in the history of media. The nature and magnitude of this epochal change are so enormous that most media executives and media scholars fail or refuse to recognize it and that the others who do claim to see it instead mistake its traits or characteristics as the change itself.

The media executives and media scholars who fail or refuse to recognize the change do so because major aspects of it contravene beliefs or theories they cherish or upon which their careers or businesses had been built. For the past ten years, this group was the most responsible for the continuing failure of media industries to adapt to the change.

However, the bulk of culpability recently shifted to another group: the media executives and media scholars who claim to see the change yet mistake a trait or characteristic as the change itself. They, not those who refuse or fail to recognize the change, are now most responsible for their industries’ failure to adapt to the change.

Indeed, the most pernicious misperception in the media industries today is that the greatest change is consumers are switching their media consumption from analog to digital. In reality, this switch is merely a characteristic or side-effect of something far larger underway. Yet the misperception that this simply switch in consumption is the greatest change has led most media companies to think that all they need do to survive and prosper is transplant their traditional business models, traditional content packaging, and traditional content (with the addition of hyperlinks, audio, video, animation, and other multimedia) into online. [A recent example of such thinking]

Despite more than ten years of implementations, this mistaken strategy, called convergence or multimedia by proponents and shovelware by critics, has demonstrably failed in virtually every example to bring media companies revenues near those that the companies earn from analog media operations. The strategy’s failure flummoxes the executives and scholars who think the greatest change is consumers are switching their media consumption from analog to digital. Moreover, they can’t understand why the media industries in the most prosperous of the world’s countries have been effected the worst by the change. Nevertheless, these executives and scholars doggedly continue to pursue the convergence strategy, rather than question the strategy’s basic assumption.

Their stunning conceptual myopia– they figuratively can’t see the forest for the trees –is leading most media industries into catastrophe. Their fault has already caused hundreds of thousands of media workers worldwide to become unemployed, including tens of thousands of journalists whose investigative and expository reporting is necessary for democracy to function properly in their countries.

As I’ve been writing since 2004, the greatest change in the history of media is that, within the span of a single human generation, people’s access to information has shifted from relative scarcity to surfeit. Billions of people whose access a generation ago to daily changing information was at most one or two or three locally-distributed printed newspapers, one, two, three, four television channels, and one or two dozen radio stations, can now access virtually all of the world’s news and information instantly at home, office, or wherever they go. The economic, historical, and societal ramifications of this epochal change in media will be far more profound than Gutenberg’s invention of moveable type, Tesla’s and Marconi’s invention of broadcasting, or any other past development in media...
http://www.digitaldeliverance.com/2010/06/08/the-greatest-change-in-the-history-of-media/

I'd believe that the ubiquity of "news" enhances people's tendency to "individualise" news and information, thereby pushing media companies in a different relation that they used to have with their public (in a broad sense: readers and sponsors). The relation used to be "information", it tends to be "entertainment" with the ambition to please whatever readership (electronic or paper) they have.

 

[Anaesthesine]

The source of the article is a blog kept by a company that offers new-media consultancy services to corporations. Keep that point in mind.

The other part of the problem, beyond surfeit and perceived relative value, is ease of access--ease that strips information of context, and enables anyone to read (and misinterpret) anything they find. It costs nothing to bring misinformation to "market." It's not just that all useful and accurate information was made available, it's that it was made available without a framing structure to make sense of it all. It sounds like I'm leading to a point of intellectual snobbery, but I'm not--it's that information that is not understood is essentially the same as misinformation--if not worse.

An example of this is the anti-vaccine movement. Desperate parents of autistic children have seized on both valid medical studies (that were not necessarily relevant to their children's cases) and the rhetoric of snake-oil salesmen and patched together a created "reality" of misinformation. It used to be that medical information was not readily available to the keystrokes of the curious. You had to have admission to a university or hospital library to access these studies, and if you had admission you had some level of understanding of the uses and limitations of such information. Now, it's information anarchy.

Even well-meaning "scholars" and "executives" misunderstand the problem. The hierarchy that protects information and renders it useless to those who haven't put in the work to learn to interpret is gone. Do you really want doctors and professionals who Google your problem when you consult them?

Don't you mean "useful"?

Otherwise, I agree. Access does not equal comprehension. Like so many other things in this world, the revolution did not yield the hoped-for results. We have democratized information, but there's no way to democratize expertise; until we're all knowledgeable and wise enough to interpret the "facts" now before us, we'll drown in an oily sea of useless information and bogus conclusions.

The concept of credibility is being gutted.

Amen sister.

 

[Dave]

When was this golden era of ethical businessmen publishing for educated and discriminating readers?

What I see in this thread is a sense of distrust in humanity, people that could never make their own choices and decisions, and must have someone, presumably much wiser, to decide for them which information they may access.

 

[Black Cloud]

The biggest shift I've ever seen was in Macy's. It was a size 5x.

 

[not_me_not_I]

When was this golden era of ethical businessmen publishing for educated and discriminating readers?

What I see in this thread is a sense of distrust in humanity, people that could never make their own choices and decisions, and must have someone, presumably much wiser, to decide for them which information they may access.

Not necessarily wiser, just more educated.
Imagine being a doctor and having done 4 years of college, 4 years of med school, and how many years of practical experience, and having a patient come in demanding a completely ludicrous course of treatment based on what they read on the internet. Some patients refuse or delay effective medical care because of misinformation they've taken in via the web.
Doctors have the background to evaluate information based on their knowledge of physiology, chemistry, immunology, etc, and the research process. They can look at a website, read the claims, and be able to tell if what is being promoted is useful, harmless, or insane. Most lay people don't have the background to tell the difference.

There's a saying that "a little knowlege is a dangerous thing." Someone may have learned a few things about a subject, assume that they know everything about that subject, and end up drawing erroneous conclusions. In the case of medicine has harmful effects on their health and wellbeing, and potentially on the health and wellbeing of others that believe in the misinformation they start promoting.

The fact that there is a severe lack of critical thinking skills makes the correct use of raw information all the more unlikely.

Perhaps the answer isn't to limit availability of information, but to do a better job of educating people as to how to use and interpret information. Let me know when you've got a plan for this worked out...

 

[Dave]

Well the only way to educate people that I know of is to give them access to more information.

There is already a distrust of "the Internet" and the small number of people that are going to find some weird information online and believe that over their doctor, in the past would have had other sources for erroneous information.

There are going to be many more people that will, in addition to having the minimal interaction with their doctor that most get, be able to look at factual information on credible medical websites, find support groups, and yes possibly read about new experimental treatments that may not work. But doctors don't know everything or have time to research everything that is wrong with every patient they see and medicine is advancing rapidly.

It comes down to a basic argument. Are people capable of making their own decisions or are the majority too stupid? And we live in a society that claims to value democratic ideals, so if we really believe people can't govern their own lives there is a problem.

I trust that the bad information will be sorted. I choose to believe that people can govern themselves.

 

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

It isn't that people are "too stupid" or have no right to full access to information, it's that the process of research itself is useful and educational. I find it hard to articulate what I'm trying to say without resorting to weird little analogies.

I worry about a decay in the perceived value of structured learning. If everything is Googlable, why have librarians? Why have indices? Why bother to go to college when you can look up anything you need to know? I already know people who are studying to be high school English teachers who do not see the value in reading an entire paper text that has been assigned. Some of them bring Kindles to class--and immediately run into problems because they don't have page numbers to reference in discussions or papers. Others just go straight to Sparknotes--why buy the text or read it when they can have it summarized, for free?

Humans got to where we are by cataloging and receiving our knowledge through these:

They're not just talismanic artifacts. There is something about printed text on pages, bound into books, that is uniquely compatible with our cognitive processes. It is through reading, and writing books that we accomplished all that we have. I believe there may be serious consequences if we throw out paper books and embrace newer technologies with unproven effects on our cognition.

 

[not_me_not_I]

Well the only way to educate people that I know of is to give them access to more information.

There is already a distrust of "the Internet" and the small number of people that are going to find some weird information online and believe that over their doctor, in the past would have had other sources for erroneous information.

There are going to be many more people that will, in addition to having the minimal interaction with their doctor that most get, be able to look at factual information on credible medical websites, find support groups, and yes possibly read about new experimental treatments that may not work. But doctors don't know everything or have time to research everything that is wrong with every patient they see and medicine is advancing rapidly.

It comes down to a basic argument. Are people capable of making their own decisions or are the majority too stupid? And we live in a society that claims to value democratic ideals, so if we really believe people can't govern their own lives there is a problem.

I trust that the bad information will be sorted. I choose to believe that people can govern themselves.

Good point.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't have access to the information, I'm just pointing out problems that I think it can cause.
Doctors DO google information all the time. Who on earth can remember everything on every possible disease? They have a basic framework of knowledge to put it in, and have a better chance of using that knowledge appropriately than someone with no background in medicine.

I don't think it's a question of stupidity or intelligence; I think it's a question of learning how to evaluate information.
I don't feel it's insulting to say that there are a lot of people (a majority? I don't know) who haven't received the tools they need to evaluate raw information. With the plethora of random information available (more freely on the internet than was ever available to individuals from other sources), how will they know to track down information on how to use all that information? The more I consider it, the more I think that it should be something taught in elementary school right after learning how to read. "Evaluating and Using Information" Spend less time on having kids memorize boring details in social studies; instead, teach them broad concepts and how to learn more on their own.

 

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

Good point.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't have access to the information, I'm just pointing out problems that I think it can cause.
Doctors DO google information all the time. Who on earth can remember everything on every possible disease? They have a basic framework of knowledge to put it in, and have a better chance of using that knowledge appropriately than someone with no background in medicine.

I don't think it's a question of stupidity or intelligence; I think it's a question of learning how to evaluate information.
I don't feel it's insulting to say that there are a lot of people (a majority? I don't know) who haven't received the tools they need to evaluate raw information. With the plethora of random information available (more freely on the internet than was ever available to individuals from other sources), how will they know to track down information on how to use all that information? The more I consider it, the more I think that it should be something taught in elementary school right after learning how to read. "Evaluating and Using Information" Spend less time on having kids memorize boring details in social studies; instead, teach them broad concepts and how to learn more on their own.

You are doing such a good job at this! Much better than I am. That's exactly right--it's not just information delivery that's changing, but cognitive processes and learning. We're throwing out long-standing, proven methods of information delivery without any idea what will replace them. We're just assuming that whatever's new will be better--and that may well be a dangerously faulty assumption.

 

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

Well the only way to educate people that I know of is to give them access to more information.

This is the faulty assumption. You're only half right--open access to more information is wonderful--as long as critical thinking and research skills are in place, first. Lock me in a Russian library for a year--how much am I really going to learn? I'd have free access to every fact and idea in that library. But, unable to decode them... what do I have?

 

[Black Cloud]

I'm a researcher, and I often have to present information to people with very low levels of formal education. It's not uncommon for them to have 6th grade educations, and many are immigrants with one or two years of formal schooling. Nobody ever taught them critical thinking or research skills, and yet the vast majority of them have no problem understanding my data, contributing usefully to a discussion about it, and deciding for themselves what the information means in their lives.

Common sense is all that's required, and you can't teach that in school.

 

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

I'm a researcher, and I often have to present information to people with very low levels of formal education. It's not uncommon for them to have 6th grade educations, and many are immigrants with one or two years of formal schooling. Nobody ever taught them critical thinking or research skills, and yet the vast majority of them have no problem understanding my data, contributing usefully to a discussion about it, and deciding for themselves what the information means in their lives.

Common sense is all that's required, and you can't teach that in school.

You're presenting the information in a structured way, with contextual explanations as necessary, right? You're not just dumping a random load of facts on them. I agree wholeheartedly that most people have no shortage of ability to understand, but if we accept universal access to all information and allow that to substitute for structured access, we soon won't have the ability to make use of the information. If a school district makes sure kids know how to find stuff on Google, but doesn't teach rhetorical skills, analytical skills, and quantitative evaluation, it has failed its students.

Open access is only useful if we still teach critical thinking skills. In fact, we need better critical thinking skills since access is so open.

 

[Black Cloud]

You're presenting the information in a structured way, with contextual explanations as necessary, right? You're not just dumping a random load of facts on them. I agree wholeheartedly that most people have no shortage of ability to understand, but if we accept universal access to all information and allow that to substitute for structured access, we soon won't have the ability to make use of the information. If a school district makes sure kids know how to find stuff on Google, but doesn't teach rhetorical skills, analytical skills, and quantitative evaluation, it has failed its students.

Open access is only useful if we still teach critical thinking skills. In fact, we need better critical thinking skills since access is so open.

No, actually, they are the ones who help choose the structure and the context. The meaning comes from them. If I imposed that upon them, then the information would be invalid. It might look more conventional, but it wouldn't be accurate. I don't think we have anything to fear as a society from free, open, and unrestricted access to information. I also think that people in general are much less silly than the elite imagine.

 

[not_me_not_I]

No, actually, they are the ones who help choose the structure and the context. The meaning comes from them. If I imposed that upon them, then the information would be invalid. It might look more conventional, but it wouldn't be accurate.

Now I'm very curious to hear what you do, what kind of information you are giving, and how you are presenting it!

 

[therightone]

Don't you mean "useful"?

Otherwise, I agree. Access does not equal comprehension. Like so many other things in this world, the revolution did not yield the hoped-for results. We have democratized information, but there's no way to democratize expertise; until we're all knowledgeable and wise enough to interpret the "facts" now before us, we'll drown in an oily sea of useless information and bogus conclusions.



Amen sister.

"no way to democratize expertise; until we're all knowledgeable and wise enough to interpret the "facts" now before us, we'll drown in an oily sea of useless information and bogus conclusions"

Like too many in this forum unfortunately. But I expect too much...even from those who are drawn to Morrissey...

 

[therightone]

You're presenting the information in a structured way, with contextual explanations as necessary, right? You're not just dumping a random load of facts on them. I agree wholeheartedly that most people have no shortage of ability to understand, but if we accept universal access to all information and allow that to substitute for structured access, we soon won't have the ability to make use of the information. If a school district makes sure kids know how to find stuff on Google, but doesn't teach rhetorical skills, analytical skills, and quantitative evaluation, it has failed its students.

Open access is only useful if we still teach critical thinking skills. In fact, we need better critical thinking skills since access is so open.

Exactly...many people in this forum should take note...