It is interesting that as public affairs concentrate on an issue, specialists in that area from the citizenry are drawn to the forefront. In the recent Australian and American elections it was psephologists that became the digital media stars. Now with a new recession slash depression on the horizon; economists are rising as the new faces of citizen media.
This is a very good comment on the difficulties a commoditized market faces:
It's not the bureaucrats fault that the media market fundamentally changed. The big three stopped making a product Americans wanted to buy. The American media has never had more readers. People want what we make. They just consume it differently now. Creativity isn't the problem; finding a new way to make money off it is.Publishing platforms now approach a cost of zero. The barriers to competition that the old media had were largely ones of capitalization. To compete with a newspaper, tv station or radio required a lot of capital, and hence a large market, and consequent economies of scale to be economically viable. Today, a computer and an account on blogger is all that is needed to publish in a similar format and on the same distribution channel as the New York Times, the Sydney Morning Herald, NBC and 2MMM. Historically when a market has commoditized then labor costs have been reduced in some manner or form; usually through importing or out-sourcing. Today the media market is so effectively de-capitalized that people all over the world are giving their time away for free - or for the return of google ad-sense; say a couple of hundred dollars a year. It makes you wonder what the car market might be like if it under-went such a radical form of decapitalization and commoditization. Kids love cars, constantly draw them, render them, read about them; adults are not much different. If it was as cheap to make a car as it is a publishing platform then we might see great variation, creativity and expression on the roads. More likely however, most people will not change the default 'theme' and the standard car will be sky blue and white with sans-serif fonts - al-la wordpress.
Via politico: "Murdoch has never strayed from his free-market beliefs, but his exact political views have always been difficult to pin down. Among those politicians he's backed through the years: Thatcher, Reagan, Blair, Koch, and McCain."
Add to that list, Whitlam and Fraser. Yes, that Whitlam, but prior to the constitutional crisis. I think it is fair to say Murdoch backs the obvious winners. As goes the country, so goes the media - to warp Paul Keating's phrase. The media is ultimately a reflection of their demographics and market base.
Via RWW, "A survey of more than 3000 people performed in the two days after the US Presidential Election found that 37.6% of respondents considered the Internet the most reliable source of news, 20.3% consider national TV news most reliable and 16% said that radio is the most reliable source. ... It's quite striking, though, that we're at a point in history where the internet is trusted more than TV and the Radio!" (more)
Specialists and entertainment incompatible? (more)
No charges against Bill Henson. The persecution was political. (more)
Politicians have a choice to act morally and with individual conscience; however, it is rare. Caught as they are in-between the gnashing teeth of party discipline, media discipline, populism, and maybe pathological desires for power. Fareed Zakaria blamed too much democracy for that in his book Future of Freedom. Politicians could not act morally or as executive/legislative specialists as they were hemmed in by the demand to be re-elected. Ezra Klein points a finger at the mass media. (more)
I dont watch cable news as I have little faith in its quality of news reporting. I was at Dulles airport the other morning waiting for a plane and the monitors were all on CNN. This interview, or mpre accurately, piece of drama, ran as a news item on the morning CNN news. Basically Larry King trolled Jerry Seinfield with an outrageous and erroneous comment and Seinfield reacted emotionally. This is trolling. It is not discourse. (more)
An interesting study from the US which suggests that American voter interests match Australian voters in wanting policy discussed. The Trends in Australian Political Opinion discovered that 49% of Australian voters use policy to guide who they cast their ballot for.
Ars Technica in discussing how media commentary of politics is the same as sports coverage linked to an article on the Project for Journalistic Excellence which discussed how media coverage was at odds with what people want covered. A Pew Research poll shows that 77% of Americans wanted more coverage of the candidates positions on issues. (more)
Mainstream media, and in particular newspapers, have been facing increasing competition from low cost online news and information sources. The old monopoly that the print media had on op-ed articles has been broken by blogs already. The newspapers cannot compete with a medium whose cost matches its production - zero dollars. Newspapers, both print and online, have been trying to keep their viewers through tabloidisation. Cheap sensationalism is a valid marketing method, but not one which produces quality discourse.
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