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Fairweather and Rogerson: Politics and Society After De-Massification of the Media

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Fairweather and Rogerson: Politics and Society After De-Massification of the Media Info, Comm & Ethics in Society (2005) 3: 159-166 © 2005 Troubador Publishing Ltd. EDITORIAL Politics and Society after De-Massification of the Media N Ben Fairweather and Simon Rogerson Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK Email: [email protected] As Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) develop and are more widely adopted, news and current affairs media are moving away from being mass-media, with increasing audience fragmentation, and media targeting specific niche audiences. Patterns of opinion formation are changing with these changes. Broadcast mass-media had the potential to moderate the intensity of political disputes in a way which is being threatened by these changes. There is a danger that there will be a diminishing of the effectiveness of any remaining public space in which opposing views can be fully and fairly aired, and some balanced view of what is happening, and has happened, can be formed. If such a public space ceases to exist or ceases to be effective, key elements to the democratic process may be under severe threat in some polities. Keywords: Narrowcasting, Cleavage, Current Affairs, Audience Fragmentation, Opinion Formation INTRODUCTION al. 2002, 285). This editorial seeks to examine pos- sible consequences for politics and for society. For most of the last century, media have been mass- media, where the same message is broadcast to a large population, who thus to a significant extent NEWS SOURCES have a common understanding of what is happen- ing in the world around them. This has had both Professional good, and bad, effects. The age of the Internet, digital and cable televi- It has been judged that one of the hallmarks of a sion, has allowed ‘narrowcasting’ (Smith-Shomade, ‘free society’ has been the existence of varied and 2004, p70), where communication moves towards independent media sources (see, for example, being ‘many to many’, and two-way and away from Binyon, 2002, 461). A century ago, these were the broadcast model of ‘one to many’ communica- newspapers (hence variety and independence of tion which was essentially one-way. Novel “com- media sources has traditionally been spoken of as a munication formats, like the Internet and the tele- ‘free press’). With newspapers the fixed costs of phone, become incorporated into social relation- production (George & Waldfogel, 2003, 766) and ships, forming new infrastructures that enable dif- the costs of timely distribution combined to limit ferent patterns of opinion formation” (Robinson et the number of titles available to each reader. VOL 3 NO 3 JULY 2005 159 Fairweather and Rogerson: Editorial As the century progressed, sound and picture reach of the radio waves from their transmitter. broadcasting became more significant, (with mov- The fixed costs of production of newspapers ing pictures of news being distributed first through have fallen considerably, meaning that lower-circu- the proxy of cinema newsreels and then using radio lation newspapers are economic, but other changes waves). The marginal costs of distribution were have not meant that this has led to a significant even lower than for newspapers, but the fixed costs increase in the number of newspapers being pro- remained high (Bourreau et al., 2002)1 (notably – duced. Rather the number has been more-or-less but far from exclusively – the costs, financial or maintained in the face of greater competition from political, of obtaining permission to broadcast). radio, television and the Internet. This does not Thus the number of broadcasters in any place was mean, however, that changes in newspapers are very limited, and in many jurisdictions there was irrelevant to our consideration. Falling (paid-for) regulation to ensure concentrations of media own- readership is relevant, as is the proportion of news- ership did not undermine the desired variety of papers that make some (or all) of their content media sources (Harcourt, 1998, 373-4), since available on the Internet. Again, with newspaper “Politicians and their economic advisors … content available on the Internet the amount avail- assumed that the quality and diversity of media able to readers with Internet connections has products is best assured by means of competition.” increased out of all proportion. At the same time (Fog, 2004, 31). By contrast, where there wasn’t a falling paid-for readership means that newspapers ‘free press’, the limited number of media outlets need to retain the loyalty of a smaller, more dis- made it relatively easy for a determined regime to tinctive, readership. manipulate the media for propaganda purposes. Now, there is a new dynamic: it manifests itself in a variety of ways, but underlying them is a com- Alternative mon core of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). A hundred years ago, pamphlets and public meet- A combination of new technology and deregula- ings provided alternative media, where population tion have taken us from having television stations densities were sufficient to allow. However, the that could be numbered in single figures to a situa- costs of production and distribution of pamphlets tion where many viewers – and an increasing num- limited their size and effectiveness against the ber – have access to digital and cable television with newspapers, and travel times limited the reach of stations numbered in the hundreds. To some extent public meetings. the costs of production have limited the true num- The era of broadcasting impacted alternative ber of stations (duplicates broadcast at, say, an hour media, but did not transform them. There were displacement, cannot truly be classed as extra sta- unauthorised and cross-border broadcasts, but the tions). But at the same time, costs of production costs of transmission and enforcement actions were have fallen enormously, with cheaper and more for- significant inhibitors of the number and range of giving cameras, and material of far lower technical such broadcasts. In the other direction, mass enter- standards and production values being put on air. tainment (whether cinema or television) generally Television news has to a significant extent moved took away much of the audience of public meet- from being an item in the schedule of a channel that ings, and thus they declined in importance. sought broad appeal to being the subject to spe- Pamphlets remained part of the alternative media cialised channels (such as CNN, al-Jazeera or BBC scene, with production costs falling, but distribu- News 24, depending on the viewer’s taste). tion remained a major inhibitor. The Internet has not yet had a dramatic effect on Developments of the information age have, how- television, but it is having such an effect on radio, ever, transformed alternative media. No longer are where the more limited requirements for band- distribution costs such a significant barrier for width enable many listeners to download material alternative media. There have been developments in at least as fast as they can listen to it. This has text-based, audio and visual media. resulted both in an increase in the amount of audio The main developments in text-based alternative programming being produced, and more dramati- media have come in two phases: firstly textual web- cally in the amount of audio programming available sites and then later web logs – ‘blogs’. Both to any individual with a fast Internet connection, flavours of text- and web-based alternative media with radio stations making their output available have enabled a single individual or small group to via the Internet as well as over the airwaves. No publish writing, still photographs, and graphics longer is the reach of a radio station limited by the that can, potentially, be accessed by significant 160 INFORMATION, COMMUNICATION & ETHICS IN SOCIETY Fairweather and Rogerson: Editorial proportions of the electorate in countries anywhere their attention is interpreted against a background around the world. No longer are the problems for of what had previously come to their attention. But alternative media limited reach or costs of distribu- people’s understanding of the world is not solely tion2. The problems are attracting and retaining the determined by the media that they pay attention to. attention. Attention can, to some extent, be attract- Other influences include parenting, schooling and ed and especially be retained by having content that social circles. The understanding of the world of appeals to the worldview of the intended audience parents and social circles can itself also be influ- (see below). enced by various factors including the media Alternative audio has made use of two formats – (Barker & Knight, 2000, 151). By contrast, whether the audio file of limited length distributed using the media influence through schooling will depend on Internet; and Internet ‘radio’ stations with more- how teachers are trained and a multitude of other or-less continuous transmission. The costs factors. Thus while other factors have an influence, (whether financial or in terms of effort) of main- media can have a considerable impact on shaping taining continuous transmission have restricted, understandings of the world. and can be expected to restrict, this form of alterna- A shared understanding of the world implies tive audio, and may result in a blurring of the dis- some shared understanding of the nature of the tinction between professional and alternative audio. problems, and thus leaves open scope for a shared The audio file of limited length pre-dates the iPod, understanding of the possible and desirable solu- but has been rejuvenated as ‘pod-casting’, where tions to those problems. files are distributed over the web to be listened to In saying this, however, it must be remembered on personal audio players. As with text-based web- that the relevant media in shaping understandings sites and blogs, a major issue is attracting and of the world are wider media than the news/current retaining the attention of listeners.
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