As media fragmented, we lost the common notion of what America means. Now we have competing stories, one that focuses on White men, and one that includes everyone.
Well said. It's a simple concept. Public access to different news and perspectives. Monopolies harm business. Competition is healthy. Caps should be bipartisan. Instead, we are seeing a clear effort to take control of local and national media. They must have control to save us from Bad Bunny...
We lived through it. I wouldn’t be surprised if what you have written, weren’t a true revelation to those in college today studying broadcasting journalism and news. Like a frog in a pot of ever increasing hot water this media consolidation creep has turned up the noise over generations. Broadcast towers are still erected, but the babble that comes through them tumbles down and you don’t need an antenna to know which way the air blows.
The proliferation of choices is like saying the whole aisle in the 7-Eleven that is stocked by Frito lay products gives you a choice of so many different snacks all extruded out of the same machine.
Cable gave us HBO and Lee gave us XM, but that started as something only the wealthy could pay for. Now the subscription model is in everything.
But the real game changer, was Tivo.
Time shifting changed everything. And then streaming. Now it’s all stored and repeated anytime anywhere.
Of course, the danger is when the over the air companies also have streaming platforms and then verge with the tech, Giants and that’s just a matter of vertical integration of information and entertainment and the convenient babble of social media. If it happens today, it might be news to us, but to the news people it’s just another way of selling listeners to advertisers and shoveling profits to stockholders. We are solidly in the era where we don’t watch TV but the TV watches us.
A small parallel would be when the people that had the equipment made the movies and then owned the movie houses. They tore apart that Monopoly. But now the same kind of thing is happening again. It’s organic. Ideas start out small and then they went to organize and then they become organizations and then they become powerful organizations.
And we at the tail end no longer become observers or listeners or even audience. We become “consumers “because we use up what is being fed to us and spit it out again. Not even customers. That would make us human. Just numbers. Just consumers. Like a car, consumes gas until you pay to fill it up again. And we’re breathing our own exhaust.
Well said. It's a simple concept. Public access to different news and perspectives. Monopolies harm business. Competition is healthy. Caps should be bipartisan. Instead, we are seeing a clear effort to take control of local and national media. They must have control to save us from Bad Bunny...
We lived through it. I wouldn’t be surprised if what you have written, weren’t a true revelation to those in college today studying broadcasting journalism and news. Like a frog in a pot of ever increasing hot water this media consolidation creep has turned up the noise over generations. Broadcast towers are still erected, but the babble that comes through them tumbles down and you don’t need an antenna to know which way the air blows.
The proliferation of choices is like saying the whole aisle in the 7-Eleven that is stocked by Frito lay products gives you a choice of so many different snacks all extruded out of the same machine.
Cable gave us HBO and Lee gave us XM, but that started as something only the wealthy could pay for. Now the subscription model is in everything.
But the real game changer, was Tivo.
Time shifting changed everything. And then streaming. Now it’s all stored and repeated anytime anywhere.
Of course, the danger is when the over the air companies also have streaming platforms and then verge with the tech, Giants and that’s just a matter of vertical integration of information and entertainment and the convenient babble of social media. If it happens today, it might be news to us, but to the news people it’s just another way of selling listeners to advertisers and shoveling profits to stockholders. We are solidly in the era where we don’t watch TV but the TV watches us.
A small parallel would be when the people that had the equipment made the movies and then owned the movie houses. They tore apart that Monopoly. But now the same kind of thing is happening again. It’s organic. Ideas start out small and then they went to organize and then they become organizations and then they become powerful organizations.
And we at the tail end no longer become observers or listeners or even audience. We become “consumers “because we use up what is being fed to us and spit it out again. Not even customers. That would make us human. Just numbers. Just consumers. Like a car, consumes gas until you pay to fill it up again. And we’re breathing our own exhaust.
It’s truly Orwellian.