No one trying to understand the changing power structures between traditional media provider and and the new media consumer can consider themselves completely informed if they do not read Jeff Jarvis;
We are entering an open marketplace of influence. I think of this as a molecular era, when any of us are atoms that can attract and repel from other atoms around any common interests. The internet — read: Google — makes it possible for us to broadcast our interests and then to find, coalesce around, organize, and act in concert around them. One no longer need control institutions to control agendas, for the institutional structure is fading as are the institutions themselves: Haass chronicles the dilution of governments and other static bodies. I regularly follow the crumbling of the power of the fourth estate, the press. See also the fall of the firm. And add to that the long-ago decline of the first estate, the church. You could say that this is the day of the third estate — the rise of the people — which might otherwise be seen as anarchy except for the internet’s power to enable organization. But that organization is ad hoc; molecules can dissipate as quickly as they come together. We are still organized, only differently. We can organize ourselves even around old borders and rules.
Kate, it sounds like folks are FINALLY starting to get their heads around the ClueTrain Manifesto (http://www.cluetrain.com/)
Of course the influence of MSM is ebbing. The power of individual communication is growing with more enabling with (free) tools such as Blogger becoming available to more and more people. There are literally thousands of blogs like SDA coming online every day.
Communities grow around similar thoughts. The more astute politicians are beginning to see how public opinion is not only expressed in today’s internet media, but how it can be influenced by the power of individuals with ‘like minds’ banding together and expressing their thoughts.
Size no longer matters. The Internet has become the great tool for Davids to slay Goliaths. I’m still amused how a group of certain ‘brands’ are still pissed about the comments recorded against their firms in both Internet Articles and in comments…no amount of spend in PR will erase what’s been written by individuals.
Finally, Public Opinion that is becoming more indicative of what really IS public opinion – Ignore it at your peril. I see polarity occuring around issues more than I see organization occuring around ‘Political Party’ policy, and thankfully so.
Not surprisingly the “open market place of influence” Jarvis references, is one traditionally monopolized by an entrenched influence pandering establishment. Namely, patronage netwoked MSM, old line political party organizations and special interest NGOs and professional lobby groups.
These influence panderers must now share their monopoly of influence brokering with the denizens of the new media….and they deeply fear and resent this.
That’s why it’s no surprise to see the usual suspects from the influence peddling industry being the most vocal about shutting down internet freedom…to “tame the internet” is code for brining it under their sphere of influence and regulation.
We live in interesting times…the culture war has its front lines in cyber space.
Citizen information and opinion is starting to behave like a neural net. Like an organism which has multiple sensory inputs (citizen journalists) information is passing through nodes which can process, amplify and propagate those inputs (blogs), be interpreted, processed and generate a response (readers, commentors) thereby provoking a change in the search pattern for new information. Democratization of information is following the democratization of warfare and politics.
Should they so choose, traditional reporters could have a role in this new net akin to speciallized sense organs . They could develop a “beat”, develop heightened sensitivity and vigilance in that area and send the information to be processed by experts (real experts not talking heads) which could then go out into the net for further processing. Will they get it? Will they adapt? Or will they die wedded to the archaic hierarchical structure of the old information paradigm?
The best thing is the internet makes it easy for the masses to ‘swarm’ really, really dumb ideas floated by politicians, or anybody who gets out of line.
Like old Vapor Trails Suzuki, proud owner of one of the largest lifetime carbon footprints in Canada.
Notice how quiet he has become lately?
Or maybe he’s just too busy shovelling the 19 inches of global warming sunshine the Lower Mainland just got.
DrD – exactly, the new technology has transformed societies into CAS (complex adaptive systems).
The thing about a CAS is that it can’t be ‘owned’ by a set of controllers. The old MSM were and are, owned by a set. In Canada, the Liberals control the MSM and we see this in their overwhelming propagation of open misinformation and blatant manipulation of the population.
But in a CAS, information moves rapidly and freely from node to node; its movements can’t be controlled. Each node may add new information and analysis; may correct and refine that information. Propaganda as such, doesn’t have the power it does in the linear MSM, where a hierarchical Set of people alone control that information.
So, yes, our new information (and economic) system is quite similar to atoms/molecules grouping and interacting. And to cells doing the same. This most certainly doesn’t mean that the process is random. Far from it. A CAS develops both normative processes and stability, but above all, it is extremely sensitive to information.
A CAS, because it can connect to all information inputs, is very sensitive to that information. It can rapidly discover invalid data, false data and reject it (Swiftboat). It can equally rapidly disover valid data and inform a wide audience of that validity.
The establishment is fighting back against this freedom, this pure democracy that this technology has given to the average citizen.
We have a clear example of such a totalitarian reaction in the Ontario Human Rights Commission, under Barbara Hall, which is setting itself up as an unaccountable, unelected Censorship Board. This is a group of appointed bureaucrats which can, entirely within its own department, without any complaints from the public, without any due process – judge and censor our speech, thoughts, writing. Their attempt to retain the power, the hierarchy, requires that they reject the ability and the right of the citizen to use their own Reason. They reject freedom of speech. Above all, they reject the Right to Reason that is inherent in each of us.
“The best thing is the internet makes it easy for the masses to ‘swarm’ really, really dumb ideas floated by politicians, or anybody who gets out of line.”
That’s it !! That is why WK, maybe an otherwise ok guy, is acting in such strange ways !
Most people have good judgement when they are given good information. If the only information we have to work with is ‘dumbed-down’ we have a problem.
The paper media is a victim of specialization.
Once the MSM became a monopoly they began to push their narrow world view, the progressive view. They got lazy in their reporting, obvious in their bias and arrogant towards all who did not share their view. They created a small niche (despite claiming to speak for all) and attracted only customers who shared their bent. Those customers whose ideas were marginalized began to look for other sources for information and idea sharing. They found it in the Internet.
The Internet has room for an infinite number of views and ideas. It is a generalists. So now the MSM has not only lost non progressive customers but even their target group is attracted this new medium.
Now anyone that has studied evolution knows that during a big change, it is the specialist that are the most vulnerable. It is harder for them to “evolve” and meanwhile their rivals have already adapted and claimed the best of the new environment.
Kate’s dinosaur picture so aptly illustrates this point.
I think I may write about this. The problem with this new view of media consumption is that the stronghold the liberal media holds is being shifted – from purveyors of correct thought to gatekeepers. The new “New York Times” will be Google. Witness its complicity with China’s restrictive access to the internet and certain “banned” words. Witness how Google News aggregation works. Since the last federal election I have seen the Liberal Party’s website show up as “news” but have NEVER seen real right wing news sources aggregated like worldnetdaily.com or lifesitenews.com… let alone the Conservative party website.
No, the mainstream media will change shape. It will become the mainstream gatekeepers. Truly free expression on the internets will await a new search engine that is not beholden to the left.
Of course, then the ISP’s will ban access to it for permitting the viewing of “hate” content.
I like your point rockyt, the net has created the first quality control mechanism to which the old media has ever been exposed and they’re absolutely baffled.
ET, you make a good point about the HRCs. Nominally they claim they’re trying to eliminate “hate speech” but as Barbara Hall inadvertently revealed, they’ve got a much bigger agenda. Effectively they want to think for us. On the pretext of protecting the peasants from themselves, they’re attempting to reimpose a “thought aristocracy” which was possible under the ancien regime of information. Now the peasants are revolting 😉 and the HRCs’ foolishness is being exposed for all to see as they try to play “swat the gopher” with those who dare question their priviledged position. They’ve turned themselves into a parody of a Monty Python skit, “Nobody expects the Human Rights Commission”.
I don’t think that the gatekeeper idea would work very well. People would just go over, around or under it. The establishment just needs to accept that they are not able to control the flow of politically incorrect information on the internet. Attempting to police the exchange of ideas between adults is a waste of resources. Concentrate efforts on nobler goals like tracking and prosecuting real crimes like the exploitation of children instead.
This idea holds true as long as the internet remains relativly free of censorship, however that freedom is being quickly whittled away and within a decade I suspect that ideas will not be able flow easily from one region to another.
It’s an interesting POV … it only works if certain assumption and conditions are met. For one the assumption that everyone participates and the underlying implication that those who do not play in this environment do not matter.
Only those who play the game are considered.
I find the insular attitude of the geek at play here.
arvis may be adept at interpreting his own world ….. but not so much in the BIG one.
Good Journalists will prosper, the bad ones thankfully will wither. In time new institutions will appear as they always do in human society for this medium. As rules evolve to meet new software or avenues of communication.
In the mean time think on how the printing press started & what it produced. Now magnify it 1000 fold just two dimensionally. We have yet to se the full effect of the 3D nature of the Net.
As with the printing press they will try curtailing new information. It didn’t work than, it won’t now.
Just my opinion
The MSM and the good journalists aside – the important thing is that no longer are ordinary folk dependant of canned talk in shows and Letters to the Editor to express their opinion and outrage.
Like many others – I have a file full of rejection letters from the MSM for my Letter to the Editor.
Blogs and Bloggers here, and in Europe as well as Iraq and China, have broken the bounds of censorship (including self) and in reality have become the ’embedded’ and ‘on the ground’ real reporters.
There have been numerous instances of stories refuted and proven to be false simply by 1 or 2 blogs. Blogs have been proven to be able to sway large numbers of people to elections and in fact -as the case against LUCY et al., goes forward – to change significantly the tide of public opinion and create positive civil and political action.
It is for this reason I believe Blogs need to be considered Journalists with all the rights, privledges and protections offered to the MSM.