The Ongoing Revolution Of Mass Media

Communication technologies are rapidly changing society. Fragmentation. Globalization.  Segmentation. Fundamental change. This is a new age of communication. What once could be described as a mass audience, which was targeted by a mass media, might now be labeled as The Daily Me Society.

As the Big Three Television Networks used to be the dominant source of information, today’s media has become fragmented and it changes on a daily basis. Media has become a conglomerate of  markets with no boundaries. Mainstream media has become more concentrated in terms of ownership, and there seems to be pressure to consolidate more.

Cable television nationalized the media and the audience. Cable gave us variety, but not necessarily better content. We now have access to 265+ channels with coverage that runs around the clock. At the same time, it’s sometimes hard to find anything worth watching.

We also have broadband, which gives us an endless set of possibilities. We now live in a virtual world which combines TV, video, newspapers, radio, etc. When TV and broadband eventually merge, we’ll have broader possibilities.

Individuals can customize, personalize, and compartmentalize the content they absorb throughout the day. We have websites and corporations that determine what our interests really are. We have websites to send us our daily me dosages via email.

Our options are endless. We are no longer restricted to a local audience; we are global. We no longer have to patiently wait for information; we demand instant gratification. We are no longer confined to one structure; we can go mobile. We are no longer limited to pen and paper, we now have the capability of  blogging, podcasting, video blogging, and electronic publishing. Our ink supply is potentially unlimited.

Our narrative structure can emerge into whatever we want. We can self-publish, publish immediately, or even publish with automation. We do not have to find an audience; our audience finds us. We can even edit ourselves!

We are autonomous, yet we face a gauntlet of publicity. We have unlimited content available, yet we find it difficult to narrow our focus. We are mainstream, yet we seek individualism. We seek knowledge, yet we are saturated with a barrage of  trivial sound bites. We seek neutral information, yet we surround ourselves with people that share our own prejudices.

While we wrestle with the nature of the daily thread, we aspire to understand a culture reality, as we cope with The Daily Me Society. But maybe it always was a a Daily Me Society… Self-induced technology and corporatism have simply forwarded us to this realization.