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I Overview paper | I Overview paper | ||
The Internet and the digital media age have revolutionized the delivery of information, slashing the costs of creating, reproducing and delivering text, photos, audio and video. Over the past decade, the swift spread of Internet use and broadband penetration, especially in developed countries, | The Internet and the digital media age generally have revolutionized the delivery of information, slashing the costs of creating, reproducing and delivering text, photos, audio and video. Over the past decade, the swift spread of Internet use and broadband penetration, especially in developed countries, means that media business models based on valuing limited access to the content are becoming rapidly less relevant. Just as the music industry was disrupted firt by the ease of copying music from digital media (CDs) with no loss of quality and then by Internet delivery and sharing of digital audio, other media industries are realizing that the basic tenets of their market position are less valid with each passing day. | ||
In the long term, this disruption will be true for all forms of media, as it becomes as easy to share a favorite TV program with friends as to send them a newspaper article by email. In the short term, the impact on different types of media is quite different. Because it requires the least bandwidth and the technology to distribute it is most ubiquitous, text-based media are hardest hit. Newspapers, whose subscription and advertising revenue was based on reaching a large, general audience with a combination of information, news and entertainment that was not available in other forms, are suffering the most. Over time, more and more of the elements of a local daily newspaper became available online, through news aggregators, the websites of national newspaper, and specialized sites with sports news, film reviews and other entertainment news. A core element of local newspaper revenues, the classified ad, moved to the Internet en masse, initially driven by the success of free classified models such as Craigslist and strengthened by companies like monster.com that used powerful search and other functiosn to make web-based classified advertising more effective. | |||
The threats to advertising-based TV and radio business modelas are real, but for technical reasons, broadcast audiences are migrating to Internet-based delivery far more slowly than audiences for text-based information. Meanwhile, broadcast television has been adapting to major changes in its competitive environment for decades: the spread of multi-channel cable systems, the appearance of 24-hour cable news channels,and the advent of digital video recorders were each very disruptive but ultimately survivable. Meanwhile, the commercial TV industry has show signs of taking the changes brought by the Internet more seriously earlier than publishers: "convergence" was the topic of broadcasters' conventions as early | |||
The networked media environment in the U.S. and other highly developed countries is still very young and there are still many unanswered questions about how it functions now and what that implies for the future. Media Re:public research suggests there are nonetheless, significant, observable changes in the overall news and information environment driven by the emergence of new media that point to real challenges to the role of media in supporting a democractic society and suggest a range of possible interventions. We propose that goals can be developed based on defining desirable functions and qualities of a media environment that serves democracy, rather than preserving or re-creating the technical or editorial system of any specific time or place. The methods for attaining these goals should be based on realistic possibilities for viability but not limited to existing business models. | The networked media environment in the U.S. and other highly developed countries is still very young and there are still many unanswered questions about how it functions now and what that implies for the future. Media Re:public research suggests there are nonetheless, significant, observable changes in the overall news and information environment driven by the emergence of new media that point to real challenges to the role of media in supporting a democractic society and suggest a range of possible interventions. We propose that goals can be developed based on defining desirable functions and qualities of a media environment that serves democracy, rather than preserving or re-creating the technical or editorial system of any specific time or place. The methods for attaining these goals should be based on realistic possibilities for viability but not limited to existing business models. | ||
Revision as of 09:12, 10 June 2008
Guiding Doc ⢠Case study format ⢠Rejected text
Candidates for at least one more author-centric one, chosen to contrast with Baristanet in one or more variables
Candidates for one more publisher model, contrasting with Global Voices and Ohmynews
Candidates for aggregator model, ideally but not necessarily one that includes at least some audience-contributed content
Candidates for agency OR explanation of why there are no small agencies and brief summaries of existing large agencies
Candidates for media that don't fit our models
Media Re:public
I Overview paper
The Internet and the digital media age generally have revolutionized the delivery of information, slashing the costs of creating, reproducing and delivering text, photos, audio and video. Over the past decade, the swift spread of Internet use and broadband penetration, especially in developed countries, means that media business models based on valuing limited access to the content are becoming rapidly less relevant. Just as the music industry was disrupted firt by the ease of copying music from digital media (CDs) with no loss of quality and then by Internet delivery and sharing of digital audio, other media industries are realizing that the basic tenets of their market position are less valid with each passing day.
In the long term, this disruption will be true for all forms of media, as it becomes as easy to share a favorite TV program with friends as to send them a newspaper article by email. In the short term, the impact on different types of media is quite different. Because it requires the least bandwidth and the technology to distribute it is most ubiquitous, text-based media are hardest hit. Newspapers, whose subscription and advertising revenue was based on reaching a large, general audience with a combination of information, news and entertainment that was not available in other forms, are suffering the most. Over time, more and more of the elements of a local daily newspaper became available online, through news aggregators, the websites of national newspaper, and specialized sites with sports news, film reviews and other entertainment news. A core element of local newspaper revenues, the classified ad, moved to the Internet en masse, initially driven by the success of free classified models such as Craigslist and strengthened by companies like monster.com that used powerful search and other functiosn to make web-based classified advertising more effective.
The threats to advertising-based TV and radio business modelas are real, but for technical reasons, broadcast audiences are migrating to Internet-based delivery far more slowly than audiences for text-based information. Meanwhile, broadcast television has been adapting to major changes in its competitive environment for decades: the spread of multi-channel cable systems, the appearance of 24-hour cable news channels,and the advent of digital video recorders were each very disruptive but ultimately survivable. Meanwhile, the commercial TV industry has show signs of taking the changes brought by the Internet more seriously earlier than publishers: "convergence" was the topic of broadcasters' conventions as early
The networked media environment in the U.S. and other highly developed countries is still very young and there are still many unanswered questions about how it functions now and what that implies for the future. Media Re:public research suggests there are nonetheless, significant, observable changes in the overall news and information environment driven by the emergence of new media that point to real challenges to the role of media in supporting a democractic society and suggest a range of possible interventions. We propose that goals can be developed based on defining desirable functions and qualities of a media environment that serves democracy, rather than preserving or re-creating the technical or editorial system of any specific time or place. The methods for attaining these goals should be based on realistic possibilities for viability but not limited to existing business models.
In looking at the current and looming structural changes in individual media entities, the interplay among various types of media and the impact of these on the information environment, Media Re:public will identify critical junctures where the current trajectory of efforts by both commercial investment money and philanthropy are not meeting the needs for information or are missing opportunities to greatly enrich the environment.
The project considers the whole of the news and information environment, including new and traditional forms of news media as well as temporary or partial spaces where current events and social issues are reported or discussed within social or entertainment-focused media (e.g., bridge collapse photos on FaceBook and Flickr, political discussions on American Idol forums, etc.). In examining media forms, a functional typology is proposed to distinguish different structures that may exist in either traditional or new media. On top of this framework, the implications of the motivations and size of different media entities are also considered. The U.S. media system will be examined in light of the medium systems in other markets around the world with the aim of highlighting opportunities for creative solutions.
Amid the attention to new formats, new audiences and new authors, far less work has been devoted to new forms of content creation, especially content creation that uses the possibilities of the network. The paper will examine hypotheses for this gap, highlight some of the most promising work being done and put forward suggestions for encouraging innovation.
There is increasing evidence that developments in both traditional and new media are pushing both in the direction of ignoring some topics and some publics. There is still much research to be done to document these tendencies quantitatively and explore potential remedies. Each of the areas of inquiry described is deserving of further study, and the paper will present suggestions for fruitful areas of research to deepen the understanding of the processes underway. Cross-discipinary, internationally collaborative investigations are most needed.
Thematic Papers
Complementing the overview paper, a series of thematic papers will examine key themes in more detail:
In the age of digital media, the sad place of international news in the U.S. media diet is a demand problem: the world is talking and we are holding our hands over our ears Ethan Zuckerman
The credential horse has left the barn forever: why news literacy is the only way to ensure credibility in the news Dan Gillmor
Are American public media institutions addressing the digital challenge in ways that truly benefit the public? If not, what can we do about it? Sondra Russell, CPB
Gatekeepers, curators, curmudgeons â why the good old-fashioned editor remains critical Tom Stites, CPI
Mass media and the blogosphere â together 4ever? John Kelly, Morningside Analytics
Case Studies
Audience-generated content model
The Forum local, volunteer authors, nonprofit
Backfence (not in business) local, volunteer authors, commercial
- Vocalo
Public radio experiment, grant-supported, local, not focused on news
Author-centric model
Baristanet hyperlocal, hobbyist business model
one more Author-centric to come
Publisher model
Ohmynews
International, pro-am, unique and possibly non transferable business model
Global Voices Publisher (with elements of agency and audience-generated), nonprofit, successful in everything but commercial revenue and mass media reach on non-crisis stories) Lokman Tsui, Annenberg East, to write
Aggregator model
TBD
Agency model
TBD
Outliers STEP - (non-media nonprofit using online video for activism) Not a traditional case study, nor part of typology, but an example of non-media NGO. We have a 9-minute video produced by KSG class and a paper. Needs filling out, clean-up and tie into whatever our conclusion is about non-profits and new media.