Media: An Abundance of Money, A Scarcity of Meaning

I have been following the media industry for a while now.  I claim no expertise, just an opinion. First, I think there are two critical reforms necessary for America to find its way: 1) voting reform. 2) campaign finance reform, 3) media reform.

1. Media is not just entertainment.
2. We need to fight the censorship of the center.
3. Youth Media is not paternalism.
4. Participatory and p2p media is the disruptive technology in media. 
5. We need a new infrastructure to support effective information systems.
6. Effective information systems can do more.

Media is not just entertainment.

It is far more important than that.  Media is the system by which we, humans, inform ourselves. We have been taught that media is to be consumed.  That we are to look to the airwaves to find information.  In a best case scenario, we are finding a broad range of opinion that we can mix with our own knowledge and experience to help us make sense of the world.  However, this is far from the truth.  What we find in traditional media outlets is information that has been heavily filtered.  Media is business and media companies will not do anything to anger their sponsors or upset their owners.  What's worse, is they will actually craft their message to appeal to a particular audience, a very broad, bland and base audience.  While that is fine for a sitcom, it is troubling when it is the "fair and balanced" efforts of Fox News or even the hyperbolic rhetoric of Keith Olberman.  Essentially, what the media company thinks is what the consumer wants to hear.  If they are right, they make money.  It's business, right?  The problem here is that we are not talking about selling tennis shoes or buying real estate, we are talking about our ability to be informed citizens.  The free market expressed this way distorts the information flow.  However, a marketplace of information is an entirely appropriate metaphore, we just need a lot more information.

We need to fight the censorship of the center

One way to get more information is to remove governors or filters.  Media consolidation is justified as an economy of scale; however, it essentially forces all of our information though a universal filter, profit.  This tends to filter out content in several areas; 1) the content that is intended for niche audiences where the appeal is not broad enough to justify air time or the content never comes to the attention of major media outlets at all, 2) the content is not sensational enough to create resonance with broad audiences, 3) the content is introspective or self-critical or in some way considered to be not in the best interests of the media corporation.   Because of these filters we don't get proper or timely perspective on a variety of issues.

Participatory and p2p media is the disruptive technology in media

The adage "Content is King" argues, intuitively, that  with out something to say media is useless.  From the perspective of big media, this means that they need to find the most resonant content for the broadest possible audience to capture the most eyes at any one moment. This only makes sense because it relies on a false scarcity, a scarcity of content diversity.  However, content diversity is very high, it is just not "published".  This brings us to the other great media adage, "The medium is the message" (Marshal McLuhan).  McLuhan argued that, more important than content was the medium that delivered the content. He used the example of a light bulb and states that the environment that a light bulb creates is far more influential than a written text message.

McLuhan states that "a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence."^[2] Likewise, the message of a newscast about a heinous crime may be less the individual news story itself — the content — and more the change in public attitude towards crime that the newscast engenders by the fact that such crimes are in effect being brought into the home to watch over dinner.^[3]
                                                    -Wikipedia

With peer to peer media you are 1) employing a medium that emulates community, peer to peer and 2) providing content that is immediate, intimate and resonate to massive networks of individuals.  This topic is deserving of entire books, and some have been written.  My favorites are Wealth of Nations by Yochai Benchler, Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky and Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. So, I will move away from content and move on to infrastructure, specifically the concepts of Scale-Free networks and Network Coding.

As with all systems characterized by a power law distribution, the most notable characteristic in a scale-free network is the relative commonness of vertices with a degree that greatly exceeds the average. The highest-degree nodes are often called "hubs", and are thought to serve specific purposes in their networks, although this depends greatly on the domain.
                                                        -Wikipedia

So what? Big media operates under the assumption that it can be the One True Node.  That is its reason for being.  Peer2Peer media, is far more organic.  Peer2Peer simply means the ability for an individual to publish content that is available (intended for) any one or more individuals.  If you have something to say, if your message resonates, you will be heard/read.  That is a scale-free network.  The popular nodes change over time but the basic structure remains the same. We can see this happen with popular blogs or, possibly more dynamically, with followers on Twitter.

Far more Obtuse is the idea of Network Coding.  To be completely honest, I don't completely grok Network Coding but here is what I know.  The foundation of the Internet is built on the false metaphor of the Information Superhighway.  The problem with this metaphor is it treats the transmition of information as if each unit of data, each packet, were a car.  The reality is very different.  We do not need to move information as complete units from lane, to roads to highways.  Instead we can send a hint about the information in all directions and when it arrives, the hints can be followed back to solve the message.  I am sure that I have butchered the technical description but the point is that, the Internet backbone is not the most efficient way to move information.  However, it is the most efficient way for big media to control the information and big media has made major legal moves to ensure that if they own the pipe, they own the content.  (Specifically, take a look at the FCC designation of "Information Service Provider".) Network coding would create a foundational infrastructure that would undermine that control.  And, Network Coding is gaining converts.

So, an understanding of scale-free networks is a good way to understand how content is found and followed on the Internet and Network Coding as the best way to distribute that information leads us to yet another, So what?  Are we talking about more efficient porn delivery and faster Internet gaming?  No. We are talking about more efficient delivery of information, removing the filters mentioned previously as well as facilitating much needed new information efficiencies in areas like disaster relief, human rights and equity in general.

Youth Media is not paternalism

As a specific and maybe unexpected example of all of this, consider youth media.  Young people, particularly disenfranchised young people, create popular culture. They also critically and rapidly adopt new technologies.   Respecting this creates efficiencies; eliminates the middle man. The mythical 18 to 34 demographic are actually most effectively reached by letting them sell to themselves.  To take a short tangent, we tend to be either paternalistic to or afraid our young people.  This instinct means that we are unable to truly exploit their potential.  The great irony is that we can best exploit their potential through respect.  What if we assumed that young people were intelligent, resourceful and creative, and that the best way to access their buying power was not though extreme, neon, edgy new marketing but through respect.  Young people are creating the culture that they buy.  It is actually stupid for us to take what they create, push it through a filter and then sell it back to them.  We need to figure out how to provide the appropriate participatory media tools and then watch what happens.  The trick of bureaucracy is always to now how to get out of the way of the next opportunity. 

Effective information systems can do more. Disaster relief. Crowd sourcing. Democratizing insight. We have a structure that incourages monopoly and discourages innovation.  time to try something new.l

Comments

[Michael]

Steve, great post. I particularly resonate with the peer-production aspect - and think that is a fundamental aspect of a new mode of organization that is generally emerging from a shift in mindset from independence to interdependence. In that new mode/mindset, it is only meaning - deep, true meaning that moves things. Actions may seem meaningless but what is underneath them, compelling them gets a person to the core of who they are - if they keep looking.

And media is much more than content - it is conversation, connection, and the flow of meaning/life. The more that moves toward free-fluid interchange the more the new mindset and mode of organization will emerge.

I've wrestled with the role of policy and regulation in this - wondering if it really matters. I have a growing faith that this new mindset will take increasing hold through this new mode of organization that seems to adapt and evolve around what ever structures and barriers are put in place. And I'm not even sure that creating policies that encourage or support this new mode are important - some of the greatest advances come out around the greatest barriers or failures of restrictive policies and conventions. I don't know. I just feel we are in the midst of an extraordinary shift - and we all play a role whether we realize it or not.

Thanks for the post... provocative for me, much beyond the topic of your content.

[Conches]

Thanks for the comments.

I am unequivocal that we need policy change. Big media has a stranglehold on bandwidth and copyright. We have several models that have shown how this will work in the future but take the fossil fuel industry. they have had these models for many years and have continued to use their influence to hold back innovation until they can place themselves in a position to dominate new markets and continue to stifle innovation.

We can prove the model but we cannot scale without new policy.