46101491 role-of-editor-in-new-media

Role of Editor in New Media

Arpit Agarwal

Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management

IIT Bombay

April 2009

ii

Certificate

This is to certify that the project entitled ―Role of Editor in New Media‖ is the bona-fide work

of Mr. Arpit Agarwal (Roll No. 07927804) of Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management,

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, and has been completed in the partial fulfilment of

the requirements for the degree of ―Master of Management‖ to him.

Project Supervisor Prof. Shishir. K. Jha

...…………………….

Internal Examiner and Chairperson Prof. (Ms.) Sharmila

...…………………….

Date:

iii

Table of Contents

Certificate............................................................................................................................................ ii

Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................... iii

1. Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 1

2. Role of Editor in media ...................................................................................................... 2

2.1 Functions of media .................................................................................................................. 2

2.2 How does mass media work? .................................................................................................. 3

2.3 Public Sphere .......................................................................................................................... 5

2.4 Universal Intake ...................................................................................................................... 6

2.5 Need for filtering ..................................................................................................................... 6 2.5.1 Filtering for potential political relevance ...................................................................................... 7 2.5.2 Filtering for Accreditation ............................................................................................................. 8

2.6 Synthesis of public opinion ..................................................................................................... 8

3. Issues with traditional media: Opportunity for new media .............................................. 10

3.1.1 The traditional mass media model ............................................................................................... 10

3.2 Changing nature of media ..................................................................................................... 11 3.2.1 Response of political institutions ................................................................................................ 13

3.3 The role of journalism in a democracy .................................................................................. 13

3.4 Advantages of the mass media model ................................................................................... 15

3.5 Opportunity for New Media .................................................................................................. 16

3.6 Definition of New Media ...................................................................................................... 17

3.7 Characteristics of new media ................................................................................................ 19

3.8 How do new media work? ..................................................................................................... 21

3.9 Will new media replace traditional media? ........................................................................... 22

4. Gatekeeping and Agenda Setting in the New Media Era ................................................. 24

4.1 Gatekeeping ........................................................................................................................... 24 4.1.1 History and Orientation ............................................................................................................... 24 4.1.2 Core Assumptions and Statements .............................................................................................. 25 4.1.3 Scope and Application ................................................................................................................ 25 4.1.4 Example ...................................................................................................................................... 26

4.2 Agenda-Setting Theory ......................................................................................................... 26 4.2.1 History and Orientation ............................................................................................................... 26 4.2.2 Core Assumptions and Statements .............................................................................................. 26 4.2.3 Scope and Application ................................................................................................................ 26 4.2.4 Conceptual Model ....................................................................................................................... 27 4.2.5 Example ...................................................................................................................................... 27

4.3 Need of Gatekeeping in a democratic society ....................................................................... 27

4.4 The breakdown of gatekeeping in changing media environment .......................................... 29

4.5 Gatekeeping in the new media .............................................................................................. 31

iv

4.6 Agenda setting for the mass media........................................................................................ 33 4.6.1 Two-Step Flow ............................................................................................................................ 33

4.7 Agenda setting in media ........................................................................................................ 34 4.7.1 Two step flow in old media ......................................................................................................... 34 4.7.2 Two step flow in new media ....................................................................................................... 35

5. Digital Divide, Attention Scarcity and Media policy ....................................................... 37

5.1 Digital Divide ........................................................................................................................ 37

5.2 Digital Inequality................................................................................................................... 37

5.3 Digital Divide and Democracy .............................................................................................. 40

5.4 Attention Economy ............................................................................................................... 41

5.5 Attention in new media: Scarce or abundant? ....................................................................... 43 5.5.1 Policy implications of attention scarcity ..................................................................................... 46

5.6 The business of new media ................................................................................................... 46

5.7 Public policy in new media world ......................................................................................... 48

5.8 Public policy and digital divide ............................................................................................. 49

5.9 New media industry and public policy .................................................................................. 50

6. The New Media Paradigm ................................................................................................ 51

6.1 Response of traditional media ............................................................................................... 51 6.1.1 Convergence ................................................................................................................................ 51 6.1.2 The question of credibility .......................................................................................................... 53 6.1.3 Community Involvement ............................................................................................................. 54

6.2 Opportunity for businesses based on new media .................................................................. 55 6.2.1 New business models .................................................................................................................. 55 6.2.2 Death of advertising .................................................................................................................... 56 6.2.3 Online PR .................................................................................................................................... 56

6.3 Opportunity for other businesses to use new media .............................................................. 56

7. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 58

8. References ........................................................................................................................ 60

8.1 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................... 60

1

Abstract

1. Abstract

The motivation of this work came from Wisdom of Crowds (Suroweicki, 2004), which

challenged traditional wisdom by arguing that it is possible for averaged aggregates of fairly

diverse people to better the estimates of an expert consistently. This led to a curiosity as to

what happens to an ―expert‖ in a sphere where it will be possible for technology to aggregate

thousands of diverse opinions?

Mass media presents one sphere where such aggregates have been seen to be very common in

the form of new media. As a field, good amount of literature and commentary is available on

the topic as well. This work seeks to examine the role of an expert in this field where

aggregates are easily formed and an entirely new form of media has emerged with the advent

of internet.

This work explains the role of editor as an expert in a new media scenario. Mass media

synthesizes opinions within a public sphere through filtering of multiple sources under the

condition of universal intake. There are multiple reasons within traditional media why new

media founds itself to be widely preferred. Some of these are commercial nature of traditional

media and inherent concentration of media businesses. New media make an option of

―dialogue‖ available to the users in multiple forms of media (―multimedia‖) linked together

by a new language called ―Hypertext‖. This coupled with the fact that it is now possible to

produce media at almost zero marginal cost by anyone with basic language skills, has led to a

widespread proliferation of new media.

The work examines the paradigm shift in the role of gatekeeping and agenda setting functions

of mass media under the new media paradigm and illustrates how new media is appearing to

be a stronger alternative to traditional media, despite lack of a clear authority of an editor

(―expert‖). It then examines two of the biggest issues ahead of new media adoption, namely

digital divide and attention scarcity and suggests how public policy should tackle these to

enable society to take the maximum advantage of the power of new media.

In the end, the work summarizes various possible paradigms that new media has built, not just

for media businesses, but also for other forms of new and old businesses.

2

Role of Editor in media

2. Role of Editor in media

2.1 Functions of media

Sociologist Charles Wright directly applied functionalism to mass communication in his 1959

book Mass Communication: A Sociological Perspective. He noted the following "classic four

functions of the media" as the activities of communications specialists:

1. Surveillance of the environment

2. Correlation of the parts of society in responding to the environment, and

3. Transmission of the social heritage from one generation to the next

4. Entertainment.

For most communication scholars, these functions became synonymous with the aims or

goals of the media industries themselves. Surveillance of the environment refers to the

collection and distribution of information by the media. People know the fate of the

government appropriations bill because they saw it on the news. Correlation of parts of

society refers to the interpretive or analytical activities of the media. People know from the

newspaper that the bill‘s failure to pass means no raises for teachers this year. Transmission

of the social heritage refers to the ability of the media to communicate values, norms, and

styles across time and between groups. Finally, entertainment refers to the ability of the media

to amuse or entertain.

These are obvious aims of the media, but they may not necessarily be the functions served for

the people who consume those media. For example, a television network might air a violent

police drama with the aim of entertaining, but the actual function served for the audience

might be learning how to solve conflicts. In other words, the aim is not always the ultimate or

only function.

In their intention to survey the environment, the mass media devote significant resources to

the coverage and reporting of political campaigns. But if citizens ignore this coverage, the

intended function fails to occur—the environment has not been surveyed despite the efforts of

the media. But if citizens do consume the reports, then the intended function—surveillance of

the environment—does take place. For surveillance to occur, the transmission of news about

important events must be accompanied by audience activity that results in learning about and

3


understanding those events. Hence it becomes important to inform all citizens in some way

about the available source of information.

This need for informing citizens about the availability of a particular channel of media implies

that certain citizen‘s choice of channel would not just be based on its own merit but also on

the amount of visibility it carries in the public sphere. This fact, as we will see below has

ramifications on the quality of public sphere that gets created, gravitating towards the mass

media, against the basic tenets of media being an easily accessible medium. This is one of the

reasons why new media is preferred by some people. More on this discussion is in later part

of this chapter.

2.2 How does mass media work?

The news media can be broadly represented in the form of a system of collecting and

transmitting information with the functions as elicited above. Within the boundary conditions

of these functions, media in present day world behaves as:

1. A business

2. A system for public information, and

3. A way for people (businesses, political parties and individuals) to reach to their

audience

Broadly, the system of media can be represented by a three stage system of input, processing

and output of information in a broad public sphere:

Figure 1: A schematic representation of media business

Mass Media, as a business, is not always involved in creation (production) of all information.

It is also not involved in the transmitting all the information. The key role of a media is to

4


provide the filtering function for the society so that the society knows what it truly needs and

what it should, but in a way it can consume.

There are a number of issues in the above paragraph that need to be taken care of:

1. Media (business), usually, is involved in creation of this information, thus acting as a

source. For example, most TV new channels have their own production team and an

array of journalists on permanent role who are constantly scouting for information

worth being noticed by the society. In many cases, however, media is not involved in

directly creating this information and gets a feed from another entity, like a news

agency.

2. Media is usually involved, to some extent, in transmitting and distributing the

information. Even print newspapers exert control on the distribution channel. TV

channels, on the other hand, are even responsible for managing the entire distribution

of the content to a consumer. They do so by managing relationships with the cable

networks which take their content to the consumers.

3. If the above two functions are purely optional, the core role of any media authority

turns out then to be the filtering it provides. It is in this function that most value of

media is created and media (business) is made or broken. Examining the

editing/filtering function of the media is the key objective of this work. More details

on the need for filtering are discussed in the section below.

4. The role of information is such that unless someone knows the nature of it, she cannot

determine the value and use of this piece of information. It is here that the power of

media is truly felt. It is the media that determines and, to some extent, pre-empts what

a society truly needs.

5. Media is also responsible for determining what a society should get to hear about or

not. For example, it is within the power of media that a minor philanthropic act by a

common man gets noticed and disturbing pictures of heinous crime scenes never reach

mass audience. If media gives society elements to food for thought, this control over

what media chooses to pass or reject becomes a big power in the hands of media.

6. The society is often unable to deal with the amount of information. With the advent of

knowledge economy and competition in the news business, users are constantly being

bombarded with nearly infinite sources of information. Users are often at loss of the

choice of the sources information they should follow or reject. A discussion on

―Attention Economy‖ follows in Chapter 5.

5


7. As the technology advances, a number of new methods of consumption of information

have emerged which have changed the relation of many users to the sources of

information. For example, RSS feed is a technology that allows user to collect

information from millions of sources on to her desktop. Other services exist that

enable user to receive the information directly on her handheld/mobile. This has

further complicated the role of media in the present day world. New media has been

significantly comprehended thanks to these tools. A discussion on this is in Chapter 4.

2.3 Public Sphere

―Public Sphere‖ is used in reference to the set of practices that members of a society uses to

communicate about matters they understand to be of public concern and that potentially

require collective action or recognition. It defines a particular set of social practices that are

necessary for the functioning of any complex social system that includes elements of

governing human beings. Media, as a system, is one of the many ways in which a public

sphere functions. In this perspective, media can be held responsible for creation of a public

sphere which is in interest with the long term benefits of the society (Benkler, 2004).

All discussions in this work are assumed to be held within the above definition of public

sphere.

He continues further to say that the issue with the present form of public sphere is that

customers at the ends of these systems would treat the communications that filled the public

sphere as finished goods. These were treated not as moves in a conversation but as a

completed statements, whose addressees were understood to be passive, readers, listeners and

viewers.

The formation the entire new media movement is in the direction of making a participative

public sphere. Benkler says that the internet allows individuals to abandon the ideas of the

public sphere as primarily constructer of finished statements uttered by a small set of actors

socially understood to be ―the media‖ (whether state owned or commercial) and separated

from society, and to move towards a set of social practices that individuals as participating in

a debate. Statements in a public sphere can now be seen as invitations for a conversation, not

as finished goods (Benkler, 2004).

6


2.4 Universal Intake

A public sphere which stands for universal intake is a system of government committed to the

idea that, in principle, the concerns of all those governed by that system are equally respected

as potential proper subject for political action and that all those governed have a say in what

government should require a public sphere that can capture the observations of all

constituents. These include at least their observations of all constituents, about the state of the

world as they perceive and understand it, and their opinions of the relative desirability of

alternative courses of action with regard to their perceptions or those of theirs (Benkler,

2004).

It is important not to confuse ―Universal Intake‖ with more comprehensive ideas, such as

―every idea should be heard‖. If everyone speaks, no one would listen and the purpose of

forming a public sphere would be defeated. Hence, there is a need for a limited number of

sources of information. It is, indeed, the role of filtering and accreditation to whittle down

what the universal intake function drags in and make it into a manageable set of political

discussion topics and interventions (Benkler, 2004).

2.5 Need for filtering

Benkler has taken a strongly political view of the role of public sphere. He believes that there

is only one objective of filtering – to create a political view of the information from across the

society (Benkler, 2004).

In a broad context, the major reason why we have an organized media is because this lends a

way to filter all the available information in the world in a form that can be read and

consumed in wholesome manner, in a context of creation of public sphere.

The filtering function, in a broad sense, is the raison d‘être of the media. It gains its

significance in all the dimensions of filtering:

1. Reduction in magnitude of sources information by compiling from different sources

2. Consciously putting a context around the information which is in general benefit of

the society in the long term

3. Create trust in the society by doing necessary journalistic research and establishing of

facts through its own sources

According to Benkler, there are two major objectives of filtering (Benkler, 2004):

7


1. Filtering for potential political relevance

2. Filtering for accreditation.

Below is a detailed description of these needs of filtering.

2.5.1 Filtering for potential political relevance

Benkler takes a markedly political view of the filtering. According to him ―Not everything

that someone considers to be proper concern for collective action, is perceived as such by

most other participants in the political debate. An overly restrictive filtering system is likely

to impoverish a public sphere and rob it of its capability to develop legitimate public

opinion‖1 (Benkler, 2004).

In a broader, non-political sense, filtering provides for the reduction in size of the content that

the readers/users assimilate. It, therefore, performs two functions:

1. It reduces the choice of the news that a user has in one particular channel. Since the

number of channels is also finite, there is a limit to the how much information is used

for creation of a public sphere.

2. It assures consumers that all the ―important‖ bits of information have been covered in

the fixed size of the channel, thereby giving value to the ―attention‖ of the user.

These two functions make traditional media a non-objective method of collection and

dissemination of information. Since the traditional media sees high concentration of audience,

this power of deciding what is relevant and what is not, plays a major role in deciding what

the society thinks and talks about (Benkler, 2004).

Given that most of these businesses are drive by commercial intentions, there is a tendency to

represent the lowest common denominator of news. This is not necessarily a useful

phenomenon as many issues and opinions are completely unheard, just because only a small

minority supports them. The greatest advantage of new media is the capacity to represent all

issues of worth for the formation of a public sphere.

1 The Wealth of Networks, Yochai Benkler (2004). Page 183

8


2.5.2 Filtering for Accreditation

Much of the function of journalistic professional norms is to create and preserve the

credibility of the professional press as a source of accreditation for the public at large. Parties

give credibility to persons, academia provides it to researchers; civil servants can be a source

of accreditation and so can be some large corporations and NGOs.

NGOs, very often intended precisely to pre-organize opinion that does not easily pass the

relevant public sphere‘s filters of relevance and accreditation and provide it with a voice that

will. Political discourse is very different from academic discourse, because the objective of

each system is different. In academic discourse, the fact that a large number of people hold a

particular opinion (―The universe was created in seven days‖) does not render that opinion

credible enough to warrant serious academic discussion.

While accreditation is important for formation of a public sphere based on valid facts, in

traditional media it finds itself highly correlated with the channel having biggest financial

strength or readership/viewership. What this does is that the public sphere gets loaded in

favour of financial muscle. Media businesses addressing the largest audience are often

capable of overriding otherwise strong journalistic evidence coming from a smaller player.

Filters, both for relevance and accreditation, provide a critical point of control over debate,

and hence are extremely important design elements. They are often the most important control

points and power centres of the media. We will see in the next chapter how they affect the

formation of public sphere.

2.6 Synthesis of public opinion

Benkler defined synthesis as ―the communications system that offers the platform for the

public sphere must also enable the synthesis of clusters of individual opinion that are

sufficiently close and articulated to form something more than private opinions held by some

number of individuals‖2 (Benkler, 2004).

Synthesis function of media is the capability of media to present their arguments in a way that

it becomes easier for the consumer to assimilate them. It is the synthesis function that takes

care of presentation of the content in a way that user finds it most convenient to access it. It


9


could be in a print form, a blog form, form of an e-book or simply snippets suitable for

consumption through mobile phones.

Synthesis function is involved also in advancing the arguments presented by other sources

such that a debate ensues on the topic under consideration. Synthesis function goes a step

ahead from filtering and builds a series of arguments-counter arguments that enrich the

discussion in the public sphere.

Benkler clarifies ―what counts as ―public opinion‖ seeks to peaceably clear competing

positions as to how we ought to act as a polity. The core role of the political public sphere is

to provide a platform for converting privately developed observations, intuitions, and

opinions into public opinions that can be brought to bear in the political system toward

determining collective action‖3 (Benkler, 2004).


10

Issues with traditional media: Opportunity for new media

3. Issues with traditional media: Opportunity for new

media

3.1.1 The traditional mass media model

The mass media model described in Chapter 1 has several issues which emanate mostly from

the commercial imperatives of the media as a business. The most successful form of

commercial media is an ad-supported media where the broadcaster inserts ads in the stream

and monetizes that. However, the trouble with this kind of a model is that there is a more-

than-necessary focus on creating numbers and the success of a media channel is measured

from the number of users/viewers it can command. This leads the broadcasters to move away

from producing content that is genuinely useful for the creation of a public sphere, giving in

to the ―lowest common denominator‖. As Benkler says, ―the advertising supported media

needs to attract large audiences, leading programming away from the genuinely politically

important, challenging, and engaging, and toward the titillating or the soothing an emphasis

on entertainment over news and analysis‖4 (Benkler, 2004).

Having large numbers in a media channel is not a very big problem, per se. But since numbers

become crucial for commercial success of all media channels, very few of them are able to

sustain. This means that there is only a limited amount of diversity possible. Even with these,

their intake is seen to be is too limited. This puts a significant limit on the viewpoints

explored by mass media, leaving many significant perspectives unexplored and

underrepresented because they are so far away from the cadres of professional journalists or

cannot afford to get significant attention.

Commercial nature of mass media implies that it is heavily dependent on providing attention

to the highest bidder, without any great regard to the whether it is of primary concern for the

public sphere or not. Because they represent a huge audience, mass media channels are able to

sway the public opinion in any arbitrary direction they choose to take. These directions could

be motivated by strictly commercial or political interests. In a democracy, media power is

therefore considered to be significant for success or failure of a particular political party.


11


Above is the traditional critique of the mass media model. Over past few years, several other

trends have appeared in mass media model, particularly since 1980s.

3.2 Changing nature of media

Over the period of last two decades there is seen to be a very significant shift in the choices

mass media has made. There is a significant decline seen in the importance of political

coverage, and a significant reduction in the number of correspondents covering the different

world regions in US Media. There is seen to be clear choice made by traditional media houses

to save cost by reducing the number of foreign editions.

What is even more intriguing is that the difference between broadsheet and tabloid papers has

been narrowed. As competition intensifies, the quality broadsheets co-opt a more

sensationalist veneer to the news product. ―The crisis is due to the competition for advertising

and more expensive newsprint, leading to a lack of interest in both foreign and investigative

journalism‖5 (Tumber, 1993).

With the advent of 24-hour news channels, there is an increasing trend towards making

journalism more of a process than a product. There is a stress on the creation of interesting

content sustainably, at a cheaper cost. Expose of Watergate scandal in US, and Bofors scandal

in India, is seen to the height of investigative journalism. These incidents brought a significant

attention to the power of media that resulted in changing the governments in both countries.

Tumber says that over a period of time, there has been a clear shift towards the journalism of

assertion from journalism of verification, also called ―gossip journalism‖. Initially the start of

is the allegation, and them a speculation until the counter-allegation is then issues. ―The

demand to keep up with this, to and fro, leaves journalists with less time to sort out what is

true and significant‖6 (Tumber, 1993). There is a growing proliferation of media scandals

across the global landscape.

The problem is not with media alone, several structural and macropolitical trends have

weakened political systems making them more vulnerable to turmoil. There is a breakdown of

5,

6 Democracy in the information age: Role of the fourth estate in cyberspace. Howard Tumber. Information

Communication and Society (2001). Page 96 and 98.

12


ideology in political parties, leaving the public more attuned to the reliability of parties and

personalities of candidates than to their professed positions on issues.

With the advent of personalities in politics, as is seen by clear projection of Prime ministerial

candidates in general elections, a culture of promotionalism has taken over many areas of

public life. With this, scandals have become big for tabloid newspapers. Almost daily in

tabloids of Mumbai, one can see expose of one or the other local scandal.

Overall, the trend is to move ahead of purely debate-investigative mode to a more

promotional and sensationalized version of news coverage by mass media. Most of the

journalists feel their careers can be made or break by exposing one or other scandal as that

would bring readership/viewership to the mass media.

What could be even more disturbing is the trend presently being seen in the India television

media – that of blurring boundaries between media and entertainment. Several Hindi news

channels, like India TV, focus on getting flimsy stories as news. They even go to an extent of

creation of news items that have no connection with reality, just to sensationalize the coverage

as that brings them more TRPs. Most other Hindi news channels have followed suit to follow

the India TV model. Their news coverage can be seen as far from truth and in most cases,

frivolous. What is even more disturbing is that even media houses whose English channels

(like NDTV 24x7 and CNN-IBN) are seen to be flag-bearers of serious news content, indulge

in the similar kind of news content on their Hindi channels.

Another major disadvantage of the concentrated mass media model is what is called as ―the

Berlusconi effect.‖ The Italian Prime Minister was seen as using his control over the media

channels to virtually storm his way to power as no concrete resistance could be mounted by

his opposition, in absence of support of mass media channels. This incident points to a threat

of mass media overriding the public debate by setting the public agenda as per its own wishes.

Benkler says that this alone does not outline the whole problem with mass media model. It is

actually broader and more subtle. The concern is about the degree of concentration in mass-

media markets, which manifests itself in two particular ways. ―The first is a lack of

competition in a market, to a degree sufficient to allow a firm to exercise power over its

pricing. This is the antitrust sense. The second, very different concern might be called

―mindshare.‖ That is, media is ―concentrated‖ when a small number of media firms play a

13


large role as the channel from and to a substantial majority of readers, viewers, and listeners

in a given politically relevant social unit‖7 (Benkler, 2004).

3.2.1 Response of political institutions

It is now possible for institutions and agencies to reach out to their viewers/target audience

directly through non-traditional media like internet and mobile. Also, there has been a clear

recognition of manipulative tendencies in mass media towards a public message of

importance.

With increasing recognition of the fact that traditional media may not be able to carry the

information from government to public in the manner the government wants, there is a clear

trend towards usage of alternate news channels in the US and the UK. The trend is to bypass

the news organization filters. Tony Blair attempted to spread his messages through regular

internet broadcasts since early 2000. There was even an online consultation paper on British

Government‘s Freedom to Information white paper which laid the foundation of a mechanism

by which government can use the internet for delivery of information messages.

The elections 2008 in US were seen as the first with full-fledged exploitation of usage of

internet and other non-traditional media. Both, Obama and McCain had their own internet

strategies with focus on releasing key information online and putting all their discussion

details up there. What this enabled was a direct dissemination of information from the

candidates directly to the public, something which was heavily dependent on TV channels

earlier. The power of online media is so strong, that it is believed that the election debate

videos were viewed by more people online than on TV.

3.3 The role of journalism in a democracy

As listed above, the traditional media is facing a ―crisis‖ on two fronts: the first is an

increasing trend of concentration and its consequent increased commercial pressures and the

second is the development of new electronic communications. There is a growing

disillusionment existing not only among the general public, but also within the journalistic

professionals, about the economic structures that support journalism. There is a decline in


14


journalism that maps the decline in public life. It is seen that journalism is a major contributor

to the malaise in the public life.

The failure of the profession is leading to calls for new forms of reporting requiring a change

in the profession necessary for journalism once again to be a primary force in the

revitalization of public life. The public journalism movement believe that journalism is

suffering a fundamental loss of authority and regaining the authority must be journalism‘s

first step towards revitalizing itself. There is an increasing threat the professional idea of

objectivity in journalism – a view that there has to be a balance that provides an element of

conflict.

The public discourse is not meant to be consumed only by journalists and other professionals,

but for the general public. There is a growing need to be focussed on involving citizens in the

formation of the public discourse. For example, the electorate needs to be invited to expand

the scope of political coverage beyond politicians. Such public journalism would invite

community at large, reporters and readers alike. The idea of good/public journalism is

theorized to enhance a newspaper‘s standing in the marketplace by attracting more and better

readers. Although controversial as most commentators do not believe that such a platform

would be able to keep its objectivity, this does provide a motivation for working towards a

healthy public sphere (Glasser, 1998).

There is a lack of understanding of the relationship of journalism to the news technologies

that are emerging in the information society. There is a lot of speculation on the role of

journalists in the unmediated landscape. The position of journalism as a unified profession is

no longer seen as tenable (Bardoel, 1996). The new media formats would lead to two types of

journalism. First, orientating journalism where background commentary and explanation are

given to the general public and, second, instrumental journalism that provides functional and

specialized information to interested customers.

There is an increasing realization of the fact that the days of a journalist‘s role of a gatekeeper

in a society is over. The new role that journalism will don is that of a ―trusted guide‖. The

journalists need to broaden their definition of public service to include other areas alongside

investigative journalism and the coverage of breaking news. Being a servant on the internet

means engaging in what we‘re beginning to be called as ―service journalism‖.

15


There is a talk of a revolution in journalism in which the public are telling their own stories on

the Internet (Yelvington, 2009). This ―People‘s Journalism‖, as Yelvington coins it,

communicates through email, Usenet discussion forums and personal web pages. He cites an

example of Slashdot where all the contents come from participants who discuss and criticize

references to news elsewhere on the web. The Sun Herald, a weekly in Florida, has built

Sunline as a place where all its readers can engage with one another providing a community

resource. In essence, they become participants and not just consumers. Contrary to popular

fears, Yelvington also believes that such individual empowerment does not imply end of

organization of the state.

In this light it is interesting to observe how the profession of journalism has undergone sea

change. Journalists now need to see themselves as the facilitators of responsible public

discussion not the guardians of public knowledge. Journalists are seen as the people who help

us make the connections between pieces of information that we are too busy to make for

ourselves (Aufderheide, 1998). Whether they do so by hyperlink or snail mail doesn‘t matter

as long as the basic task is sustained.

According to the ―journalistic theory of democracy‖, the journalist has three roles: one, to

inform citizens. The more informed the citizens are, the more actively they will participate in

political process. Three, the more they participate, the more democratic the country is apt to

be.

Gans argues that the basic assumption of this theory is that if journalists do their regular job,

the citizens will be informed or will inform themselves. It is still not clear if informed citizens

will be obliged to participate any better in the process of democracy. There is a case of several

people being very politically active, but still not at all informed at the level one would expect.

Another assumption is that all participation in a political process necessarily enriches the

process of democracy. Gans argues that it in these assumptions that originates the need for

journalism even in the presence of widespread new media. Or, in other words, it is here that

new media will play the most important role.

3.4 Advantages of the mass media model

According to Benkler, there are three primary defences or advantages have also been seen in

these media (Benkler, 2004):

16


1. Their independence from government, party, or upper-class largesse, particularly

against the background of the state-owned media in authoritarian

2. The professionalism and large newsrooms that commercial mass media can afford to

support to perform the watchdog function in complex societies.

3. Their near-universal visibility and independence enable them to identify important

issues percolating in society

3.5 Opportunity for New Media

The greatest shift with the advent of internet and a connected world, is the emergence of

computer becoming a device to simulate new forums for social activities. This has given rise

to much of the phenomenal expansion on the Internet of so-called ―Communities of Interest‖.

As a result of phenomenal increase in the capabilities of both, computers and telecom

networks, there is a threat to the mass dominant model of the media: one-to-many model. The

Internet has increasingly been defined by what the users themselves put on it, do with it and

express to each other through it. The Internet is arguably the first mass media form in history

to become the product of its audience. This is a new paradigm.

There is a great transition from evolution of a reader from passive consumer to an active

collaborator. This appears to be a revolutionary concept with consumers sharing their

experiences through their own creative imaginations in a collaborative manner. This is almost

a re-discovery of primary form of entertainment of children where each would assume the

role of a first person acting-out of dramatic stories. Although the social inhibitions force us to

keep our latent dramatic potential under wraps, the desire to explore our creative side is

fundamental to human nature.

The key to unlocking this dramatic participation tendency is referred to as the ―anonymity

factor‖. This release people of their inhibitions which normally keep them constrained, and

allows them to rediscover their innate ability to share in the creation of dramatic situations.

What is even more enriching is that the nature of entertainment experience itself as it evolved

from a locked-off, fully authored and predetermined experience, to one that is generated in

real-time, through the collaboration of the participating individuals. Such an experience is

dynamic, real-time and supremely engaging.

17


According to Benkler, the structure of mass media as a mode of communications imposes a

certain set of basic characteristics on the kind of public conversation it makes possible

(Benkler, 2004):

1. It is always communication from a small number of people, organized into an even

smaller number of distinct outlets, to an audience several orders of magnitude larger,

unlimited in principle in its membership except by the production capacity of the

media itself

2. The vast difference between the number of speakers and the number of listeners, and

the finished-goods style of mass-media products, imposes significant constraints on

the extent to which these media can be open to feedback

3. The immense and very loosely defined audience of mass media affects the filtering

and synthesis functions of the mass media as a platform for the public sphere.

With the new media, it is possible for alleviate all the three of these limitations. Let us first

define new media.

3.6 Definition of New Media

The new digital age arrive with a set of big communication challenges for traditional

mainstream media: new relations with audience (Interactivity), new languages (Multimedia)

and a new grammar (Hypertext). But this media revolution not only changes the

communication landscape for the usual players, most importantly, it opens up the mass

communication system for a wide range of new players, including individuals.

Benkler believe that new media represents a basic shift in the way media functions in our

society: ―The first element is the shift from a hub-and-spoke architecture with unidirectional

links to the end points in the mass media, to distributed architecture with multidirectional

connections among all nodes in the networked information environment‖8 (Benkler, 2004)

This implies that what we are now stepping into is a time where network is the media. There

is not just a unidirectional flow of information from certain ―experts‖ to others who are not

considered to be such experts, but rather giving a chance for everyone in the society a role in

creation, dissemination and consumption of information. What changes fundamentally is to

8 The Wealth of Networks, Yochai Benkler (2004). 2

18


give the power of certain ―experts‖ (media businesses, news editors or journalists) to

everyone who can connect to the network of resources, creating a rich, interactive and

interconnected structure of a giant information processing engine that never existed in past.

This results in a fundamental change about the roles of speakers and listeners and the whole

act of speaking/writing about a certain issue. For one, the cost of creating your own content

on a blog is nearly zero. This means that anyone with access to internet can become a

publisher and, by virtue, an editor. Journalists and columnists have to now give space to their

readers for contribution in a discussion. They also have the power to use hypertext to link to

several other resources where the reader can refer directly in search for more information.

The biggest change is experienced by the listeners/readers. With the advent of new media

technologies, it is possible for them to be participating in the process of creation and not just

act as passive receivers of content. Newspapers are increasingly seeing competition from

blogs. Anyone with an online free account on a popular blogging website can now publish his

views. These views could range from plain reporting or reproduction of news to deeply

analytical topics with authentic and ―ahead-of-the-curve‖ content. Practically anyone can

become a publisher and will have a space to interact with others on the topics they way. Not

just this, increasingly, more citizens are involved in creation of news content that is near real-

time, wider in reach and covers a bigger variety of issues than mainstream media can carry.

For example, the first pictures of Mumbai Terror attack on 26th

November 2008 were broken

by a hobby photographer Vinukumar Ranganathan on micro-blogging website Twitter. For

next 60 hours, he and his friends on Twitter were the fastest and the most reliable source of

information on the incident that shook entire world. Several mainstream journalists also

followed their updates and, later, gave them due credit too. Never before in Indian history

have citizen groups been so empowered that they create news ahead of the mainstream media,

so much that mainstream media find them as the most reliable source of information.

The best part of their coverage was that having realized the value of information they were

churning, they were not only sourcing content from their own sources, but also worked very

effectively towards quelling rumours and avoiding misinformation, in a truly responsible

manner.

Another example around the same incident was about a blogger whose single post on the state

of affairs elicited a huge viral movement and thousands of people came around Taj Mahal

19


Hotel on 29th

November 2008 to peacefully protest against the terror attack and security crisis

in India.

3.7 Characteristics of new media

The blurring limits between journalism and blogging, between data and knowledge, between

news agencies and semantic search engines, between readers and writers and between old and

new media, reveals the need for a set of intellectual tools that contribute to understand by

rethinking the changing nature of media and communication in the digital age (Orihuela,

2003).

He then goes on to explain 10 paradigms of new communication platforms that he thinks

would change the media as we know it:

1. From audience to User: This is the biggest and most visible shift in the new

communication scenario - the unidirectional way of media consumption is replaced by

the concept of active user seeking for content, exploring and navigating info-spaces.

Users also become content producers. He devises a new name ―Thin Media‖ for users

who wish to engage in a more active by low profile media activity.

2. From media to content: The focus shifts from industrial production constraints to

content authority. Brands which represent more value and authority are followed by

more people. There is an essential de-coupling of the process of communication from

its underlying technical process, enabling people who are well-versed with media and

its process to create content too.

3. From Monomedia to Multimedia: With the advent of interconnected networks and

processing power, the distinctions of language (audio, visual, text) are blurring.

Increasingly we see all the three media being used at the same time to effectively

communicate with the listener. But these are normally skills intensive issues, hence

there is a huge market for video templates and blog designs.

4. From Periodicity to Real-time: When participants of media creation increase by two

to three order of magnitudes, there is a possibility of creation of content on all the

possible topics, from all possible places in the world, at all points in time. To add to

the blogging revolution, there is the micro-blogging revolution which has swept the

whole world off its feet. Millions of people around the world, including 13,000 from

India. Some of the most respected people like Obama, Oprah and Bill Gates are also

regulars on Twitter.

20


Because they are real-time, it is possible to draw a story from blogs which are

written about a topic (or tag, as they are called in the language of new media). A

number of recent issues of common interest, like Mumbai terror strike were closely

followed by bloggers, thereby creating a well-documented chronicle of the story. Such

a flexibility was absent in old media scenario

5. From Scarcity to Abundance: As one of the side-effects of all readers becoming

writers, there is an increasing proliferation of online information without clear

attribution of source authority and heterogeneity of content quality. There is often so

much content on the subject that time becomes the only limited resource.

6. From editor-mediated to non-mediated: The media editors are not the only

gatekeepers in deciding what should be the agenda of the public sphere. Worldwide

publishing without editors, but with a close peer group review daily process and in

most cases open to comments from readers. This builds the credibility and trust among

the readers.

7. From Distribution to access: The broadcasting paradigm of new media means that

the communication now becomes a many-to-many mode. The only issue then is to

increase access to more people.

8. From one-way to interactivity: Interactive nature of new media implies that the

audience could now be engaged in a conversation and the readers can contribute to the

process of news creation itself. There are three levels of interactivity: First, where the

user chooses the format of information display, second, where the user produces input

for a system, and third, where the user communicates with other users of the system,

creating a community of users.

9. From linear to hypertext: Hypertext linkages provide backward and forward

linkages to the content being displayed on a website. It almost provides a temporal

dimension to media content. By hyperlinks, blogs allow their users to look up to other

sources of the same information. Also they are useful to give a way ahead of user to

look for more information or go deeper in a thought.

10. From Data to Knowledge: The crucial role of human knowledge is to identify,

comment, link and discuss the data available online, turning it into valuable and usable

knowledge. In this sense, the emergence of a semantic web looks very promising as it

would now be able to model to debate in a much more organized manner.

21


3.8 How do new media work?

One special form of new media that is widely understood is blogging. Blogging has existed

ever since the first emergence of public internet. Hence, it has often been seen as the most

mature form of new media. There are several different forms of blogs that exist on the internet

today – practically covering all interest areas – and running under different business models,

ranging from a pure hobby to an ad supported full-time business.

Benkler describes the network of blogs as a collection of millions of news sources. He says

―the networked public sphere allows hundreds of millions of people to publish whatever and

whenever they please without disintegrating into an unusable cacophony, as the first-

generation critics argued, and it filters and focuses attention without re-creating the highly

concentrated model of the mass media that concerned the second-generation critique‖9

(Benkler, 2004).

Figure 2: A schematic representation of media business.

Source: The Wealth of Networks (Benkler, 2004)


22


The network of blogs is highly regarded by him as the one offering some semblance of

understanding the new media.

In the figure above, there is:

1. A strongly connected core: This forms the basis of most information processing

needs of a blogging network. It forms the core of the blogging world which essentially

does the mainstream editor‘s job. All information is usually passed regulations that

they can simply get a computer and that would open up multiple things with you.

2. An “In” Function: This the group of bloggers with feet on ground experience. These

people make sure that enough information is channelled into the system each day.

3. An “Out” Function: The outwards looking function represents the people who

absorb information.

4. A lot of Tendrils: Some blogs work their way out of the blogging circle by not

belonging to any one platform. These are irregular visitors/writers who get sold on

idea of a particular blog but do not care much about continuing to express their

opinions.

5. A lot of tubes: They open up alternate channels of information to flow from input to

output.

6. Disconnected Components: These are the participants of the blogging world who are

not a part of the network

Benkler goes ahead to say that each issue and school of thought has a similar system of

interconnected blogs. The above model is thus replicated into thousands of such model to

represent the new media on the internet (Benkler, 2004).

3.9 Will new media replace traditional media?

If new media offers such revolutionary advantages, is it possible for new media to completely

replace traditional form of media? Perhaps, not in near future. Success of a media is driven by

society. With respect to the world of traditional media, new media offers many non-linear

characteristics. Whether useful or not, these intricacies are not completely understood by the

society. Despite having the potential of being capable of being the primary mode of formation

of the public sphere, until it is fully understood, it would be difficult to say if new media is

sufficient to carry the primary function of creation of a public sphere.

23


The beauty of new media is in being a network of ideas – ideas which cater to all tastes. It

allows communities to produce participatory journalism, grassroots reporting, annotative

reporting, commentary and fact-checking, which the mainstream media feed upon, developing

them as s pool of tips, sources and story ideas. What people often fail to understand the idea

of new media is much different from the traditional media, as here the internet itself acts as an

editing mechanism.

Another reason why traditional media cannot be completely replaced is because bloggers do

not have to adhere to the ―established principles of fairness, accuracy and truth‖. While its

strength is definitely in bringing out a breadth of topics of the world, it is definitely not a

replacement of the depth of analysis provided by a professional journalist. The best

perspective is to view them as complementary to each other. Widespread blogging has made

the news media to be more accessible and interactive. At the same time, blogging itself has

taken a serious note with many people earning their livelihood through this media alone.

24

Gatekeeping and Agenda Setting in the New Media Era

4. Gatekeeping and Agenda Setting in the New

Media Era

Continuing with the discussion at the end of chapter 2 on the possibility of new media

replacing the traditional media, we examine some critical function of mass media in this

chapter and evaluate the critical roles played by the mass media in formation of a public

sphere. Some of the most important roles played by the mass media are:

1. Gatekeeping: Controlling the flow of information in and out of the public sphere

2. Agenda Setting: Setting the tone of the discussion that takes place between

individuals in a society

The following two sections build these concepts. The sections following them explain how

the new media has changed the way society applies gatekeeping and agenda setting.

4.1 Gatekeeping

Gatekeeping refers to the control over the flow of information in and out of a public sphere.

Traditionally, mass media is responsible of regulation of information in and out of the public

sphere, that is, collective consciousness of the society.

4.1.1 History and Orientation

Kurt Lewin was apparently the first one to use the term "gatekeeping," which he used to

describe a wife or mother as the person who decides which foods end up on the family‘s

dinner table (Lewin, 1947). The gatekeeper is the person who decides what shall pass through

each gate section, of which, in any process, there are several. Although he applied it originally

to the food chain, he then added that the gating process can include a news item winding

through communication channels in a group. This is the point from which most gatekeeper

studies in communication are launched. Lewin‘s comments were then picked up and turned it

solidly toward journalism in 1950 (White, 1964). Then the role of gatekeepers was seen as

taking a a different direction. They found the audience learns how much importance to attach

to a news item from the emphasis the media place on it. McCombs and Shaw pointed out that

the gatekeeping concept is related to the newer concept, agenda-setting (McCombs M. ,

1997). The gatekeeper concept is now 50 years old and has slipped into the language of many

disciplines, including gatekeeping in organizations.

25


4.1.2 Core Assumptions and Statements

The gatekeeper decides which information will go forward, and which will not. In other

words a gatekeeper in a social system decides which of a certain commodity – materials,

goods, and information – may enter the system. Important to realize is that gatekeepers are

able to control the public‘s knowledge of the actual events by letting some stories pass

through the system but keeping others out. Gatekeepers can also be seen as institutions or

organizations. In a political system there are gatekeepers, individuals or institutions which

control access to positions of power and regulate the flow of information and political

influence. Gatekeepers exist in many jobs, and their choices hold the potential to colour

mental pictures that are subsequently created in peoples‘ understanding of what is happening

in the world around them. Media gatekeeping showed that decision making is based on

principles of news values, organizational routines, input structure and common sense.

Gatekeeping is vital in communication planning and almost al communication planning roles

include some aspect of gatekeeping.

The gatekeeper‘s choices are a complex web of influences, preferences, motives and common

values. Gatekeeping is inevitable and in some circumstances it can be useful. Gatekeeping can

also be dangerous, since it can lead to an abuse of power by deciding what information to

discard and what to let pass. Nevertheless, gatekeeping is often a routine, guided by some set

of standard questions.

Figure 3: Schematic representation of a gatekeeping function.

Source: The ‗Gatekeeper‘: A case study in the selection of news (White, 1964)

4.1.3 Scope and Application

This theory is related to the mass media and organizations. In the mass media the focus is on

the organizational structure of newsrooms and events. Gatekeeping is also an important in

organizations, since employees and management are using ways of influence.

26


4.1.4 Example

A wire service editor decides alone what news audiences will receive from another continent.

The idea is that if the gatekeeper‘s selections are biased, the readers‘ understanding will

therefore be a little biased.

4.2 Agenda-Setting Theory

4.2.1 History and Orientation

The growth of agenda setting from a parsimonious hypothesis about the transfer of issue

salience from the media‘s agenda to the public‘s agenda in presidential election settings is

easily summarised to one that now encompasses several broad traditions across geography,

culture, and disciplines (McCombs M. , 1997). Agenda setting was born in a mass

communication climate dominated by the prevailing sentiment that the mass media had

limited effects and that people were more prone to selectively pay attention to content based

on their preferences (Klapper, 1960). The debunking of the minimal role of media and

selective perception was one of the most significant accomplishments of the early theorizing

of agenda setting, which re-established the significance of the mass media in shaping public

opinion at the cognitive level.

4.2.2 Core Assumptions and Statements

Core: Agenda-setting is the creation of public awareness and concern of salient issues by the

news media. Two basis assumptions underlie most research on agenda-setting: (1) the press

and the media do not reflect reality; they filter and shape it; (2) media concentration on a few

issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than other

issues. One of the most critical aspects in the concept of an agenda-setting role of mass

communication is the time frame for this phenomenon. In addition, different media have

different agenda-setting potential. Agenda-setting theory seems quite appropriate to help us

understand the pervasive role of the media (for example on political communication systems).

4.2.3 Scope and Application

Just as McCombs and Shaw expanded their focus, other researchers have extended

investigations of agenda setting to issues including history, advertising, foreign, and medical

news.

27


4.2.4 Conceptual Model

Figure 4: Agenda-setting.

Source: Communication models for mass communications (McQuail & Windahl, 1993)

4.2.5 Example

McCombs and Shaw focused on the two elements: awareness and information. Investigating

the agenda-setting function of the mass media in the 1968 presidential campaign, they

attempted to assess the relationship between what voters in one community said were

important issues and the actual content of media messages used during the campaign.

McCombs and Shaw concluded that the mass media exerted a significant influence on what

voters considered to be the major issues of the campaign.

4.3 Need of Gatekeeping in a democratic society

According to the social responsibility theory was formulated by Theodore Peterson (1956)

(Peterson, 1956) sought to reconcile the growing centralization of ownership and decreasing

competition in the printed press, the rise of an inherently centralized and expensive electronic

media, and social science research and real-world events that raised concerns regarding the

stability of democratic systems and the civic capacity of democratic citizens (Williams &

Carpini, 2004).

28


Continuing further, they said ―this new theory introduced (or reinforced) three significant

conceptual distinctions:

1. The news media was separated from entertainment media, with the former viewed as

most directly responsible for fulfilling the media‘s civic functions.

2. Within the news media, fact would be distinguished from opinion and news reporting

would strive to be accurate, objective, and balanced.

3. The public was distinguished from media elites and policy experts, with the former

viewed as generally passive, easily manipulated consumers of information and the

latter as information gatekeepers who represented the public‘s interest in the

construction of political and social reality.‖10

In essence, the social responsibility theory conceded the inevitability of both a centralized,

privately owned media and of a less-than-engaged public and transferred much of the civic

responsibility of the latter to a new class of information elites. The "truth" about the social and

political world was no longer (if indeed it had ever been) constructed out of enlightened

public discourse but instead emerged from a more managed and limited exchange among

experts in the news media. Citizens were redefined as unsophisticated consumers of

information, and the public was redefined as an audience.

The ability to maintain these distinctions and institutionalize professional journalists as

political gatekeepers was aided from the 1950s through the early 1980s by the relative lack of

competition that had led to the development of the social responsibility theory in the first

place. For example, during this period, television viewers had the choice of watching one to

five channels, most or all of which broadcast news at the same time. Readers of prestige news

magazines and newspapers and viewers of public affairs broadcasting were a self-selected

segment of the population, a more elite social, economic, and political strata of citizens. This

elite audience signalled the serious nature of the content, distinguishing it from "popular"

media. What developed were distinctions between the politically important and the politically

insignificant based not on analyses of the actual political content and aesthetic worth of media

10 Monica and Bill All the Time and Everywhere: The Collapse of Gatekeeping and Agenda Setting in the New

Media Environment. Bruce A Williams; Michael X Delli Carpini. The American Behavioral Scientist (May

2004). Page 1214.

29


programming but rather on the organization of producing institutions and the make-up of the

audience.

It has been found that consistent with social responsibility theories of the press, the political

agenda has been shaped by the symbiotic relationship that has developed between mainstream

political actors and major news outlets (Bennett, 1988). In this relationship, the mainstream

news media acted as a monolithic gatekeeper while a limited set of political elites vied with

each other to shape this agenda and how it was framed. Within this system, the public was

often reduced to a passive consumer whose own attention to and interpretation of events was

constrained by this limited information environment.

4.4 The breakdown of gatekeeping in changing media

environment

The following events have been responsible for the changing media environment of the world

over past two decades:

1. The expansion of cable and satellite television,

2. The growth of the Internet and World Wide Web,

3. The horizontal and vertical integration of the media through conglomerates, and

4. The general availability of VCRs and remote television controls

The new media environment is distinctive in several ways (Abramson, 1988):

1. The increased volume of information that is available

2. The increased speed with which information can be gathered, retrieved, and

transmitted,

3. The increased control given to consumers of the media,

4. The fragmentation of media audiences and the resulting greater ability to target media

messages to particular audiences,

5. The greater decentralization of certain aspects of the media, and

6. The greater interactive capacity between consumers and producers of media messages

All told, these changes constitute a reshaping of the media environment that easily rivals those

leading to the creation of the social responsibility theory and the structural development of the

media as gatekeeper.

30


The aforementioned changes have made it difficult to maintain the always artificial distinction

between public affairs and "mere" entertainment, thereby making the social responsibility

theory invalid. In addition there has been a convergence of sort between the two for of media.

The distinction between fact and opinion or analysis is much less clearly identified by simple

rules such as where it appears, who is saying it, or how it is labelled. Public affairs time slots

have become overwhelmed by the range of options open to citizens: Traditional news can be

gotten any time of the day through cable or the World Wide Web or equally ignored at any

time of the day. Even the informal standard operating procedures, routines, and beats that

determined newsworthiness have come under serious rethinking both from within and outside

the journalistic profession. As audiences themselves absorb these changes and the erosion of

formerly commonsense distinctions, they too begin to move freely between genres, eroding

the gatekeeping ability of any single group of elites (e.g., ‗serious‘ journalists or political

leaders) (Rosen, 1999).

The mainstream press in its gatekeeping role operates along a single axis of influence

determined by the interaction between political elites and journalists. The new media

environment disrupts the single axis system in three ways:

1. The expansion of politically relevant media and the blurring of genres lead to a

struggle within the media itself for the role of authoritative gatekeeper.

2. The expansion of media outlets and the obliterating of the normal news cycle have

created new opportunities for nonmainstream political actors to influence the setting

and framing of the political agenda (Kurtz, 1998).

3. This changed media environment has created new opportunities and pitfalls for the

public to enter and interpret the political world.

It was noted during Gulf War that 24-hour cable news outlets not only gathered news as

rapidly as possible but also broadcast it as rapidly as possible, effectively eliminating the role

of editors in the news production process. This left viewers themselves to try to sort out what

was "really" happening as the war progressed (Katz J. , 1997).

In short, the new media environment creates a multiplicity of gates through which information

passes to the public both in terms of the sheer number of sources of information (i.e., Internet,

cable television, radio), the speed with which information is transmitted, and the types of

genres the public uses for political information (i.e., movies, music, docudramas, talk shows).

31


These changes create what is called a multiaxiality that "transforms any stability of categories

into the fluidities of power" (Fiske, 1996). So, in this new media environment, myriad gates

through which information passes create multiple axes of power to influence public opinion.

At one level, the collapse of gatekeeping represents a direct attack on the elites (journalists,

policy experts, public officials and, academics.) who have served as the arbiters of social and

political meaning under the social responsibility theory. To some extent, this responsibility is

returning to the public, like they did in old 19th

century models of media, as they play a more

active role in constructing social and political meaning out of the mix of mediated narratives

with which they are presented. But in other ways, the media remains elite dominated, creating

new venues through which traditional political elites attempt to shape the political agenda in

new ways.

Clinton-Lewinsky scandal is taken as one example to illustrate the tension and the pressing

need for a new theory of press (Williams & Carpini, 2004).

4.5 Gatekeeping in the new media

A mechanism has already begun to play a role of the aggregate gatekeepers of all information

(and not just new media) on the internet (Hargittai E. , 2001). These are the information

intermediaries, which through various business models help the user locate the right

information. Although they are not free of their own commercial interests, yet they have

enabled a typical user to comprehend the web in a much more lucid way.

Such business models are that of portals like Yahoo! and search engines like Google.

Hargittai says, ―Due to the ease with which users could add content to the Web, thanks to the

rise in the number of users, and as a result of an increasing number of organizations

embracing the Web as a communication tool, the amount of content available online has risen

exponentially‖11

(Hargittai E. , 2001). By 2003 this number of websites had grown to more

than thirty-five million. Not surprisingly, services that help users find their way to content of

interest are crucial to the Web‘s ability to be a useful tool for people. As the amount of Web

content skyrocketed, search engines became increasingly important in sifting through online

material. The first search engines appeared in the mid-1990s and several of them came out of

11 The Changing Online Landscape: From Free-for-All To Commercial Gatekeeping. Eszter Hargittai. A chapter

in Community Practice in the Network Society: Local Actions/Global Interaction (2003).

32


research universities. In many cases, academic research settings sponsored their creation and

their one goal was to help people better navigate Web content.

Initially, these sites functioned in one of two ways. Some provided the option of openly

searching the Web‘s content (e.g. WebCrawler and Lycos) while others organized information

into Web directories and people could access content by clicking on categorized links (e.g.

Yahoo). The former relied on computer programs whereas the latter were manually compiled.

At this point the one goal seemed to be to feature interesting and high quality content. In time,

the ventures left academic settings and became profit-seeking commercial enterprises.

Another source of popular portal sites was the default home pages that came up during the use

of the most popular browsing software applications, Netscape Navigator and Internet

Explorer. At first, those sites offered little more than software upgrades, but soon they grew

into much more than a place to download an application. The public support was never

sufficient for media businesses. This left the burden of financing these online ventures to

other potential sources including individual subscription fees or funding by private

foundations. Most online services were funded through advertisements or by venture

capitalists. In order to legitimate funding, Web sites had to attract and keep visitors and

encourage them to stay and revisit frequently.

To achieve this, search engines and portal sites expanded their repertoire of services beyond

simply pointing people to content elsewhere on the Web. Instead, they changed their business

models to the goal of keeping users on their sites as long as possible. By contracting with

large content providers they offered sports information, entertainment news, current events

and many other services all under one roof. By 1999, search engines and portal sites

dominated the list of most popular Web sites garnering traffic from millions of unique visitors

each month, clearly indicating their arrival in the internet era. It was also determined that 85%

of users never go beyond the first search page of information.

This tendency of most users led to exploitation of commercial interests by search engines. It is

in favour of certain search engines to feature a particular website above others in their search

results. This has resulted in an entire industry around Search Engine Optimization which

helps websites being ranked higher than the others. In light of such an issue, non-profit

organizations would often find it difficult to be rated high enough to catch user attention.

Given the current state of online content organization and presentation, users must be

educated about the myriad of commercial incentives that influence search result listings and

33


directory placements. They have to be conscious of the fact that the most prominent results

are not necessarily the most – or the only – possible sources online in response to their query.

Users also have to learn how to do more refined searches and how to turn to a more diverse

set of resources online in order to avoid the sidetracks that result from commercial interests.

4.6 Agenda setting for the mass media

From its earliest beginnings, agenda setting has systematically sought to document the effects

of mass media on public opinion. Its basis exists in the simple fact that, for most issues, the

public lacks the ability to witness accounts firsthand and as such, must depend on the media

for a second- hand reality (Lippman, 1922). This second-hand reality is firmly based in a

pseudo-environment that is created by media attention to specific issues that may or may not

have a basis in real-world dynamics. By virtue of creating a shared, national pseudo-

environment, mass media fulfil the important function of building a public consensus on the

important issues of the day (McCombs M. , 1997).

Since its first appearance in 1972, agenda setting has now matured as a theory to include:

1. A second-level agenda setting component (attribute agenda setting),

2. A psychological component to explain individual-level agenda setting effects (need

for orientation),

3. An emphasis on how the media‘s agenda is shaped, and an explanation for the shared

news agenda among different media (intermedia agenda setting).

Both agenda setting and the competing theory of the two-step flow are significant when

discussing the relationship between mainstream media and political blog networks, as well as

the relationships that exist among blogs in the networked political blogosphere.

4.6.1 Two-Step Flow

The two-step flow theory injected interpersonal communications into how information

diffuses from mass media to the general public. The usefulness of this mass communication

theory to the political blogosphere is captured by the hyperlink, which is a symbolic

representation of an interpersonal connection between two blogs. The initial conceptualization

of the model was based on traditional media and face-to-face communications, occurring

before the revolution of online communications.

34


The audience as a mass is conceptualized into a vision of a society connected by a few more

knowledgeable people, who were dubbed the ―opinion leaders.‖ These opinion leaders were

responsible for shaping the opinions of those more susceptible to influence, called the

―followers.‖ This mediation of mass media messages by the opinion leader would be called

the ―two-step flow of communication‖ and this theory would form the basis of the law of

minimal consequences that relegated mass media effects to an inconsequential level (Klapper,

1960).

Although not much evidence is available in this favour, it can be noted that the opinion

leaders were identified by self designation than through an external selection process. From

its earliest beginnings, agenda setting has systematically sought to document the effects of

mass media on public opinion. Its basis exists in the simple fact that, for most issues, the

public lacks the ability to witness accounts firsthand and as such, must depend on the media

for a second- hand reality (Lippman, 1922).

While the opinion leaders had no role to play in the generation of content earlier, they are now

playing an effective role that rivals the media business – that of an influential blogger. The

political bloggers that write for these sites can be viewed as opinion leaders. But, what are the

characteristics of opinion leaders? Opinion leaders are identified based on three attributes

(Katz E. , 1957):

1. The personification of values (who one is),

2. Competence (what one knows), and

3. Strategic social location (whom one knows).

Opinion leaders are able to broker information both within and between groups by virtue of

their social capital, which allows them to fill the gaps in information and connection between

people, bridging what Burt calls ‗structural holes‘ (Burt, 1999). There is also a strong positive

relationship between opinion leadership and civic participation.

4.7 Agenda setting in media

4.7.1 Two step flow in old media

The agenda setting in traditional media has been largely unidirectional with the mass media

being at the top of the pyramid which conveys the issue and perspectives to an opinion leader.

35


The opinion leader, in turn, communicates it to the readers to make them aware of these

issues. The flow of information is much more predictable and straightforward.

As explained in the Figure 5 below, the agenda setting in traditional media world originates

from the mass media to the opinion leaders. These leaders then disseminate information to the

followers who are passive audience.

Figure 5: Agenda setting in traditional media.

Source: How does Agenda Setting happen in Blogosphere (Meraz, 2007)

4.7.2 Two step flow in new media

The new media changes the flow of information as described above in the agenda setting

mechanism of traditional media. Now that the ideas and issues can originate from multiple

sources, the interaction becomes bidirectional, interactive and complex. The salient features

of this model over the model above are:

1. No single owner of content and perspectives

2. Interactivity between the readers and content creator

36


3. Abundance of content

These are the unique scenarios under which new media works. Surprisingly the issue have

been seen to be set both from blogs to the mainstream media and vice versa (Meraz, 2007).

Figure 6: Agenda Setting in new media.

Source: How does Agenda Setting happen in Blogosphere (Meraz, 2007)

As explained in the Figure 6 above, the agenda setting in new world could originate from any

of the sources: followers, mass media or opinion leaders. The agenda setting takes no

particular predictable path and the entire agenda is set based on whatever the entire aggregate

of these players feel needs to be discussed. The interaction between various sources is bi-

directional and complex. There is no great need for opinion leaders to disseminate

information but they still play an important role in handling the complexity of this

information.

37

Digital Divide, Attention Scarcity and Media policy

5. Digital Divide, Attention Scarcity and Media policy

Although internet brings with it a promise of equality, commercial interests of most access

media on and off it have led to a slew of imperfections. Digital Divide and Attention Scarcity

are two of these imperfections that do not let new media take the revolutionary form that

Benkler promises. This chapter describes the prevalent digital divide among within different

sections of a society and between nations. It then links digital divide through another

commercial structures (Portals, Search Engines) around the internet to illustrate how attention

scarcity is also responsible to increase the digital divide. In the end a discussion on the

possible media policy alternatives would wrap up the chapter.

5.1 Digital Divide

With the rise of the Internet‘s importance in all spheres of life there has been an increasing

concern regarding the patterns of its diffusion across the population. Reports have

documented the presence of an Internet ―digital divide‖, i.e. inequalities in access to and use

of the medium, with lower levels of connectivity among women, racial and ethnic minorities,

people with lower incomes, rural residents and less educated people. Some have cautioned

that the differential spread of the Internet will lead to increasing inequalities benefiting those

who are already in advantageous positions and denying access to better resources to the

underprivileged. This is called the ―Matthew Effect‖ according to which ―unto everyone who

hath shall be given‖ whereby initial advantages translate into increasing returns over time

(Merton, 1973).

Mass media seem to reinforce knowledge gaps across the population. With respect to the

Web, the Matthew effect predicts that those having more experience with technologies and

more exposure to various communication media will benefit more from the Web by using it in

a more sophisticated manner and for more types of information retrieval.

5.2 Digital Inequality

As more people start using the Web for communication and information retrieval, it becomes

less useful to merely look at binary classifications of who is online when discussing questions

of inequality in relation to the Internet. Rather, we need to start looking at differences in how

those who are online access and use the medium. It is suggested that the term ―digital

inequality‖ better encompasses the various dimensions along which differences will exist

even after access to the medium is nearly universal (DiMaggio, 2001).

38


Some scholars have suggested ways in which we need to distinguish between different types

of Internet use. Divides can be distinguished at three levels:

1. The global divide which encompasses differences among industrialized and lesser

developed nations,

2. The social divide which points to inequalities among the population within one nation,

and

3. A democratic divide which refers to the differences among those who do and do not

use digital technologies to engage and participate in public life.

Further, there are four components of full social access:

1. Financial access which indicates whether users (individuals or whole communities)

can afford connectivity,

2. Cognitive access which considers whether people are trained to use the medium, and

find and evaluate the type of information for which they are looking

3. Production of content access which looks at whether there is enough material available

that suits users‘ needs; and

4. Political access which takes into account whether users have access to the institutions

that regulate the technologies they are using.

There are factors (skill) beyond mere connectivity that need to be considered when discussing

the potential implications of the Internet for inequality. In addition to relying on basic

measures of access to a medium, we need to consider the following more nuanced measures

of use (Hargittai E. , 2003):

1. Technical means (quality of the equipment): People who have access to top quality

computers with good and reliable Internet connections at home or at work are much

more likely to exhibit high levels of sophistication than those without access to such

technical resources.

2. Autonomy of use (location of access, freedom to use the medium for one‘s preferred

activities): Although theoretically many people have access to the Internet at a public

library, access remains easiest for those who are connected through home or work

computers.

3. Social support networks (availability of others one can turn to for assistance with use,

size of networks to encourage use): Although theoretically many people have access to

39


the Internet at a public library, access remains easiest for those who are connected

through home or work computers. There is an emphasis on the importance of social

support networks in the spread of new technologies. Those with exposure to

innovations in their surroundings are more likely to adopt new technologies such as

personal computers. The availability of friends and family who are also Internet users

provides support for problems encountered while using the medium and is also a

source of new knowledge via advice and recommendations.

4. Experience (number of years using the technology, types of use patterns): Experience

is a relevant dimension to consider because it tells us whether people are investing

time in a technology to become familiar enough with it for convenient and efficient

use.

These four factors together contribute to one‘s level of skill. Skill is defined as the ability to

efficiently and effectively use the new technology. When considering the potential

implications of the Internet for social inequality, we must focus on people‘s ability to use the

technology effectively and efficiently (in other words, skill). But how is it possible that skill is

a relevant factor when it comes to Internet use given that material posted online – all billions

of pages worth – is equally available to all users via the correct Web address? Once the

correct Web address is entered, the data are accessed and the information is readily available.

But how does a user find the particular Web site?

A large portion of these billions of Web pages is available on the Web for public use. Any

individual or organization with the know-how to create a site can contribute content to the

public Web. The technicalities of making such content as available to users as the most

popular Web sites are more or less the same. However, information abundance still leaves the

problem of attention scarcity.

Attention scarcity leads individual creators of content to rely on online gatekeepers to channel

their material toward users and leads users to rely on such services to find their way to content

on the Web. Web services, like Portal and Search Engines, that categorize online information

can be considered gatekeepers on the World Wide Web. As discussed in the previous chapter,

this gatekeeping capability of an internet user is not without influence of commercial interest.

Although the users are becoming smarter to avoid these, mot users still cannot differentiate

between a very well ‗search engine optimized‖ website and a site that genuinely provides

useful content.

40


There is, thus, a strong need to understand and regulate the commercial nature of new media

technologies in favour of creation of more inclusive policy environment. This makes a strong

case of new media policy by the governments of the world. It is in their interest as more

access to new media has generally led to better participatory democracy.

5.3 Digital Divide and Democracy

Digital divide debate started from the premise that the differential access to new media will

weaken the citizens‘ capacity to participate in the democratic process. There is a a strong case

of a communication entitlement for the deprived sections of the society. This entitlement

should then be drawn from the ultimate end of the public policy. One of these ends is

proposed by economist and philosopher Amartya Sen (Couldry, 2007).

Sen argues that economic goals and the value of market functioning must be subordinated to a

more fundamental value-the achievement of good for humanity. In determining what is good

for humanity, we must abstract from the many choices between rival goods that each person

must be free to make for herself. While some goods are absolute-such as food and housing-

others are matters of individual choice, so a good life is measured not by such goods‘ actual

distribution, but by whether people have the "capability," through their choices from among

such goods, to "achieve functionings that he or she has reason to value." Sen‘s concept of

"functionings" provides stability amid the diversity of possible goods by pointing to

underlying dimensions of human achievement that might generally be valued. These range

from bodily health to self-respect to making choices about the development of one‘s life to-

crucially, for the link to democracy-participation in the "life of the community," to use Sen‘s

phrase. These functionings, Sen argues, are "constitutive elements of human well-being"

(Amartya Sen, 1995).

Hence, we can argue that, in a typical modern society, some basic level of access to

communicative resources is part of these key functionings. As increasing volumes of

information and participative resources move online, the ability not merely to access but to

use and contribute to these resources effectively becomes crucial to participation in the life of

the community. That is, correcting for the digital divide does more than extend markets and

bring wider participation in the digital economy. By meeting citizens‘ communicative

entitlements, it contributes to a life that we have reason to value.

41


The concept of communicative entitlement to capture the basic level of access to

communicative resources needed for each of us to have any possibility of participating in the

decisions that affect us: if national citizens need their communicative entitlements fulfilled, so

too do potential global citizens. But the digital divide debate teaches us the difficulty of

specifying what level of communicative entitlement is sufficient to enhance people‘s

capacities to enable them to act as effective participants in the decisions that affect them.

Fortunately, the new media environment itself is a great stimulus for bold thinking about how

the political process might be reconfigured. New media offer an experimental zone for new

versions of the political on all scales, and I have offered some preliminary thoughts in this

direction.

The solution to the problem of digital divide involves more than fixing the communications

infrastructure; it involves governments recognizing as a vital part of the political process the

engagements that citizens make through their use of the communications resources available

to them. If governments fail to make that recognition, there is a risk that the horizon of

democratic politics-and its contribution (as Amartya Sen might put it) to a life that we can

value-will recede. And then, nothing could be done about it.

5.4 Attention Economy

Attentions scarcity due to regenerative capacity of the internet got its first attention only about

a decade back (Goldhaber, 1997). He says information, especially on the net, is not only

abundant, but overflowing. But more subtly, he argues ―there is something else that moves

through the Net, flowing in the opposite direction from information, namely attention. So

seeking attention could be the very incentive we are looking for (that can make an economy

run).‖12

He says further, ―Attention, at least the kind we care about, is an intrinsically scarce resource‖

(Goldhaber, 1997) . It is on the basis of getting attention that the entire new economy works.

It is argued that although socialization of material goods may be possible, but socialization of

attention and, hence, prominence if utterly impossible. He says that Prominence is an

essentially distinguishing quality. In contrast to material wealth, prominence cannot become a

mass phenomenon. And yet: never has there been so much prominence as today; never has

12 The Attention Economy and the Net, Michael Goldhaber, First Monday (April 1997), Page 2

42


there been such fussing with familiar faces. Today, not only those are prominent who are on

their way to the summits of fame and power. Today, one becomes prominent through a

standardised career. The first step consists of nothing but somehow finding one‘s way into the

media. Since media presence is the initial requirement, it is best to make one‘s appearance in

the form of a picture, or better, on television. The career has passed its first hurdle when the

impression one gives is commented upon, if one‘s appearance is being talked about.

At this point, a mechanism is set in motion which is needed for the rise, if that is to be

successful. For the new entry must in turn benefit the medium, he or she must promise to

increase its circulation figures or ratings. The prominence of a person would be very

important for the medium to be financially successful. This is why the income in attention

ranks higher than financial success, also with respect to the medium itself. This is why

anything that increases the medium‘s attention income will be promoted, published, cultivated

by it. Anything published, cultivated or promoted by a medium is by definition, prominent.

In addition, nothing seems to attract more attention that the accumulation of attention income.

Prominent individuals are needed en masse if cone wants to make the attraction of attention a

mass business. This seems to be becoming the reason for media business in the world today.

The media are by no means just shunting places of information. They are a system of channels

supplying information in order to gather attention in return. A television appearance means

much more than just the dissemination of information. Through it, it becomes technically

possible to multiply one‘s personal presence and to send one‘s reproductions into people‘s

living-rooms to collect donated attention. The media‘s power of producing prominent

individuals is only limited by the suggestive capacity of this collection service.

Being commercial enterprises, the media also have the choice of turning the attention they

catch into hard cash. They can rent out their territory as advertising space. It seems an

ingenious business idea of offering people information in order to get hold of their attention

and splitting up the returns in terms of financial and attention currency.

In a new media scenario, the sum total of attention remains the same but the number of

possible receivers of this attention has increased rapidly. What this results is a chronic

shortage of attention, and most people who are active in the new media scenario feel shortage

of attention, also referred to as Attention Scarcity.

43


5.5 Attention in new media: Scarce or abundant?

With the ever-increasing number of blogs and resources on and off the internet, there is

growing number of sources to which a person has to follow in order to understand the all the

aspects of the issue at hand. When mass media channels were the only possible ways, there

was no difficulty in finding out the right source of information. But, as the number of sources

increases, there will be a lot of uncertainty and anxiousness about the quality of aggregate

information one is receiving, because there is no authority that could certify genuineness and

complete coverage.

Although the above line of argument looks straightforward, there is a complex interaction

between various players that is often missed. There are a number of reasons why the media

industry cries for attention scarcity. Some of those are of mass media‘s own creation.

Blogger and writer, Umair Haque describes how scarcity of attention has been used by media

industry to gain prominence in the minds of people. He says that attention hasn‘t always been

scarce because over the past 20 years of mass media, the ad times have increased over the TV

and circulations have been increasing for print. The problem was that the relative loss of

attention was felt as the quality of content produced at the margins of media industry was

never good enough to be getting even more attention. And so, the marginal return for

investing in attention by an average user diminished over this period. He argues that the

relative loss of attention could have easily been beaten by mass media through investing in

infrastructure and production of high quality content (Haque).

The gain of attention could easily be demonstrated by emergence of several new media that

users have constantly flocked to – like blogs and video sharing sites like YouTube. In the

traditional media world, it is the downstream resources that are scarce, namely distribution

(transport/inventory/broadcasting), retail (spectrum scarcity/shelf space) and production

(infrastructure and human capital), while the upstream resources like attention have always

been abundant. If the real problem was the scarcity of attention by the media industry, new

media hasn‘t gotten so much prominence. Haque argues that attention has always been

relatively abundant.

He argues that the attention is actually a casualty in a world which is overly focussed on costs

and hence is looking for shortcuts to get attention of audience and marketers (ad world).

44


While the industry should have invested in attention seeking devices, it chose to invest in

profit maximisation strategy that resulted in poor quality content.

In absence of a driver strategy, the mass media is forced to use what is called as a blockbuster

strategy. Every time one issue or content is hit, all media start playing it to the extent that the

novelty in the content (movie, concert, video, song and news items) loses its touch. Hence,

blockbusters represent a strategy to keep the production cost under control and still getting

disproportionate attention.

Haque describes the ―micromedia‖ as the future. This would involve breaking down the

media sizes into smaller chunks that can easily be consumed and can be easily aggregated and

reconstructed in a super efficient way. All forms of new media, like blogs, twitter and

YouTube, are forms of micromedia. Haque says that due to technology (internet, unbundling

and ease of production), regulation (Creative Commons and Fair Use) and changing consumer

preferences (peer production and connected consumption), micromedia looks ahead to the

future of media industry (Haque).

But, as the question being put up above, how does one deal with the humungous amount of

content that is being developed across the world? Haque says that the world of internet has

resolved them by creating a new category of intermediaries: Aggregators. Aggregation is

defined as ―rebundling of content from fragmented platforms and formats, repurposing, and

delivery across new platforms and standards‖13

. RSS reader is one example of an old style

aggregator. But, he argues, they do not create any value in the process of ―dumb aggregation‖

as they do nothing except bringing multiple resources on to a single platform.

He, therefore, predicts that there is a space for smart aggregation around the new media world

– some mechanism which ―allows consumers to navigate complex media landscapes by

efficiently allocating scarce attention according to preferences and expectations‖14

(Haque).

These aggregators would be able to leverage deep information about content to predict utility

derived by consumers, slashing search and transaction costs of consumption. For example,

collaborative filters, recommendation and rating systems and similarity difference filters.

13,

14 The Economics of Media. Umair Haque. www.bubblegeneration.com/resources/mediaeconomics.ppt.

Retrieved on April 5, 2009.

45


Smart aggregation is aggregation of content plus ―aggregation of information, expectations,

and preferences about content‖ (Haque).

Some of the smart aggregators are: book recommendation engine by Amazon, Google News

and Twitter. While the former two are completely automated methods of aggregating news

and views, Twitter is unique in being completely collaborative and human powered. It is

possible, through a careful selection of ―tweets‖ (individuals and organizations) to follow to

replace all the recommendation engines a person ever uses, extending to replacement of all

the media and social networking that is desired by any person or organization.

The core idea behind a smart aggregator is ―rebundling of distribution with content aligned

with consumer preferences and expectations, efficiently allocating scarce attention‖15

. Both

Twitter and Google news leverages the consumer preferences in a particular manner to churn

out relevant feeds of information that is high contextualized and personal. In addition to the

above, other emerging forms of aggregation techniques are Micromedia platforms and

Reconstructors. A blog is a micromedia platform because, in its own way, it becomes an

entire ecosystem of content within a niche. A reconstructor creates even more complex task of

breaking the sources of information and then recombining all of them in a highly personalized

manner.

Haque also postulates that in future all new categories of aggregators would consolidate

horizontally and fragment vertically. They would take in multiple forms of media and would

specialized around one particular topic or industry. The best part about new media

aggregation is that the more a particular piece of content is consumed, the more value is added

by the users, and the content becomes even more worthy of their attention, implying an

unprecedented ―increasing returns to adoption‖, thereby inverting the old media logic.

Going ahead, Haque predicts that industry dynamic will evolve through 2 stages:

1. Shakeout: As micromedia (new media) expand, the business models of old era would

face strain.

2. Growth: Explosion of demand the new, more personalized media, roles giving out

increasing returns to scale.

15 The Economics of Media. Umair Haque. www.bubblegeneration.com/resources/mediaeconomics.ppt.

Retrieved on April 5, 2009.

46


5.5.1 Policy implications of attention scarcity

The body of knowledge about new media is relatively scarce. Very few, if any, research

groups have closely monitored the rapid development of new media and study its fundamental

drivers. This means that while the whole media industry landscape may be changing,

governments often have no clue about what is happening and how can they protect the

interests of all the players in the industry. The industry is being led by professionals who have

their own way to judge the fundamental drivers while no new theory is being developed.

This is not it. The fact that the media habits are changing rapidly implies that there is a strong

case of policies to drive the new change and enable more citizens to come and participate in

the formation of a public debate of several issues of importance.

5.6 The business of new media

Emerging trends in the new media industry also indicate that the concentration levels in new

media are also higher than expected. There is a clear concentration of power within the top

few portals or search engines. This monopolisation trend could lead to scarcity of rich debate.

On the other hand, there are competitive forces playing a strong role in media sources

becoming easy to produce and run. This interplay of competition and monopolisation

strategies persist in the new media markets as technological innovation gives rise to

increasingly abundant supplies of network capacity and digital information. While

technological innovations lead to price reductions on one hand, the innovative strategies of

suppliers lead to price increase and apparent scarcity in key segments of the market (Mansell,

1999).

Competition and increasing network capacity are forcing prices downwards and the profit

margins of firms in the traditional segments of the telecommunication industry are likely to

continue to be squeezed. There are two likely outcomes. First, incumbent telecommunication

companies will seek opportunities to enter potentially more profitable markets that are

complementary to their existing strengths. Second, existing and new firms will target the

newer segments of the new media marketplace in the hope of generating new sources of

revenues and profits. The emerging strategies of the new intermediary portal firms are

difficult to detect because there is considerable experimentation to discover viable ways of

commercialising the new electronic spaces.

47


Portal services are an example of the new intermediaries for virtual environments that are

locating themselves between other suppliers and the citizens and consumers who use the

Internet. Portal services personalise their services by collecting information about users.

Portals also function as marquees that play major roles in achieving brand recognition for

goods and services. Portal services are expected to evolve from the provision of simple

gateways into the Internet to become hubs or home bases for user access to information. To

secure this goal, these service providers must persuade site visitors to spend time at their sites

and to return to them, thus generating traffic and a potential basis for revenue generation.

Portal firms aggregate and amalgamate various kinds of information about products and

services in order to provide a basis for electronic commerce.

Despite strong trend of orienting themselves to the user preferences, it is felt that the

industry‘s self-regulation efforts to encourage voluntary adoption of the most basic fair

information practices have fallen short of what is needed to protect consumers. Instead, they

are trying out a variety of new approaches as they become more sophisticated at personalising

services. The newer models are described as selling ―prime real estate‖, targeted advertising,

sponsorship and, most recently, the introduction of service charges (subscription models).

There is, therefore, a delicate trade-off between increasing user choice, increasing traffic

flows and offering exclusive placements to advertisers.

Differentiation through strategies intended to achieve a degree of monopolisation of the

market is occurring on two fronts:

1. The measures taken to increase the commitment of users to a site through various

personalisation techniques.

2. The supply side of the portal market where technology and content partnerships as

well as mergers and acquisitions are providing a basis for generating increased traffic

and potential revenues.

If the forces contributing to monopolisation in the new markets are strong, then the absence of

effective policy and regulatory measures will give rise to new forms of economic

marginalisation and social exclusion as interactive communities become pervasive and more

central to citizens‘ and consumers‘ social and economic lives.

These would result in two major form of phenomenon: First, price-led market expansion is

expected as a result of liberalisation and privatisation, price reductions as a result of

48


competition and technological change, and highly elastic demand. Lower prices are expected

to bring substantial increases in the quantity of services leading to sustained abundance and

alleviating the need for policy to promote Internet access.

Second, demand which materialises ―just in time‖ is expected to ensure that any shortfall in

revenues available for investing in the new networks and services is compensated by the rapid

expansion of the market. This makes it necessary to assume that consumer (or advertiser)

spending will be sufficient to generate the necessary revenues for infrastructure construction

and content creation.

5.7 Public policy in new media world

Throughout the twentieth century, there was little need to distinguish the proactive from the

reactive in media policy theory because video content was scarce and audience attention was

abundant. A public hungry for content and captive to the schedules of three major broadcast

networks was likely to be exposed in significant numbers to all content on offer, even

programming that it did not initially demand.

Goodman writes, ―Today, the scarce resource is attention, not programming. The spread of

digital innovations, in the form of networks, production techniques, and consumer products,

has multiplied content and freed audiences from network schedules. Consumers now sit in the

eye of a storm of bits surging through cable and satellite channels, DVDs, video games, and

websites. Moreover, program guides and search engines (and aggregators) allow consumers to

construct their own media environment into which the unsought media experience seldom

strays.‖ 16

Under such conditions, the media policies designed to improve market reactions to

existing consumer demand (assuming scarcity of content) will not advance policy goals as

well (Goodman, 2004).

The key difference between the two contrasting scenario is that the old media policy was

about reactive media, where the content was being created as a reaction to an event while the

new media has made it possible to create content about an event, as it is happening. Hence the

old policies designed to impact a world with content scarcity will not work in a world with

inherent content abundance (or attention scarcity).

16 Media policy out of the box: Content Abundance, Attention Scarcity, and the failures of digital markets.

Berkeley Technology Law journal (2004). Page 1392.

49


In American context, Goodman argues further, ―Policymakers must resist the conclusion that

content abundance guarantees consumer satisfaction. Notwithstanding the explosion of media

distribution channels, there will remain demand that media producers fail to satisfy. What will

change is the degree to which traditional regulatory tools can be effective, particularly in

achieving proactive media policy goals.‖17

Media subsidies, as opposed to regulations, should

be the preferred instrument of proactive media policy under conditions of content abundance

and attention scarcity. Subsidies for a range of activities including video content production,

distribution, and marketing across digital platforms as well as community activities related to

the video programming, can achieve what regulations cannot: they can influence consumer

appetites constitutionally, without relying on the broadcast regulation (Goodman, 2004).

According to Goodman, the media policy objectives should be three-fold:

1. Diversity: Diversity should be looked at from the democratic free speech tradition in

such a way that results in an uninhibited, robust, and wide-open debate on issue

concerning public.

2. Location: There is as strong need to keep the media content and context strongly

local, sensitive to the local audience.

3. Non-commercial: Initially, the media policies of governments were strongly

commerce oriented. Now, with the possibility of non-commercial forms of production

in new media, the policy should be willing to give more space to it, given that this can

bring the marginalized opinions to the mainstream.

5.8 Public policy and digital divide

Democratic governments have yet another responsibility. It is to ensure that the citizens are

involved in a healthy debate on all issues concerning them. If new media is becoming the

dominant for of this public sphere, it is important for governments to focus on spreading the

digital revolution equally to all sections of the society.

17 Media policy out of the box: Content Abundance, Attention Scarcity, and the failures of digital markets.

Berkeley Technology Law journal (2004). Page 1393.

50


5.9 New media industry and public policy

Not just from the perspective of being a form of media, new media deserves attention from

the public to progress as an industry. As Backlund and Sandberg argue, there are a number of

obstacles facing the new media industry:

1. Lack of expertise and qualified personnel to employ

2. Lack of qualified knowledge among customers when commissioning new media

products

3. Lack of clear regulations and standards (for example, concerning copyright)

4. Lack of an effective articulation of needs and possibilities between regional authorities

and the industry

5. Lack of venture capital

6. Technological uncertainties (e.g. the continuous increase in the power and speed of

PCs and graphic cards, coupled with plethora of competing sound and video drivers).

51

The New Media Paradigm

6. The New Media Paradigm

As we saw in the previous chapters, new media acts on a paradigm shift from the traditional

modes of media production. It was initially thought that old media will remain to be preferred

source of information as it is bound to be more credible in an old economy sense (Boynton,

2000). However soon it was clear that readers have no qualms about adopting old media with

the same, in fact higher, credibility. It is found that blog readers, in fact, rate them higher than

traditional media on credibility (Kaye, 2004). In some ways, this movement in developed

societies is so strong that government supported traditional media powerhouses like BBC also

face strong competition from the army of millions of anonymous bloggers (Congdon, 2004).

This chapter focuses on three aspects of New Media:

1. Response of traditional media to growing prominence of new media

2. Response of the businesses to use new media for better productivity

3. Can new media completely replace old media?

6.1 Response of traditional media

Till very lately, the response of old media has been cynical about the new media. The few

lessons to be learnt about relationship between technology and journalism are (Boynton,

2000):

1. Events don‘t drive new media technology. Rather, new media technology succeeds by

finding ways to exploit events.

2. News coverage tends to focus on the sexy or "hot" aspects of new media technology,

which can obscure other trends that will be potentially more influential in the long run.

3. Old media portrays new media technologies as darlings, only to cynically then

dethrone them.

4. Traditional media‘s vulnerabilities to such upstarts aren‘t just technological but are

economic and psychological. Mainstream media believe new things might destroy,

result in unemployment, or make them obsolete; they don‘t know how to adapt.

5. The best response to blogs by television, radio and print is not to ape them but to

determine what blogs do and why they do it well or poorly.

6.1.1 Convergence

The new media phenomenon has become strong enough for commentators to predict a

convergence of new and old media, even predicting that printed word will be lost forever!

52


(Convington, 2006). The winds of change are so strong that it is predicted that new media

may actually be the saviour for the old media businesses. Increasingly more and more

traditional media houses will move towards adoption of new media technologies (Boynton,

2000). But the world is not so grim from the perspective of old media. Increasingly the

boundaries between media are blurring. For example, increasingly more TV is being produced

by newspapers like in case of news channels Times Now (Times Group), Aaj Tak (Today

Group) and IBN 7 (Jagran Group). It is just that there is widespread scepticism with regard to

change to a new media structure. There are several myths that are rejected by authors

(Convington, 2006):

1. Convergence is just a nice way of saying the organization wants to cut costs. The

truth is convergence costs money because usually it requires additional staff and more

technology. Convergence needs to be undertaken as a growth strategy, not a cost-

cutting measure.

2. News organizations are full of creative people with great ideas who will figure

this out. Sorry, a successful convergence strategy requires a strong vision and

commitment from the top. Someone at the highest level of the organization must

declare that convergence is important, set priorities, and then provide the resources to

make necessary steps happen.

3. Convergence requires technology, which is difficult and expensive. Not so. There

are several cheap and sometimes even free software programs. But, the learning curve

can be pretty steep for journalists who would prefer to be at their beloved Royal

typewriter.

4. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Au contraire! Even reporters who covet their

typewriter are capable of generating content to be used in new formats and for

different media. Some of the best performers are traditional print journalists with little

or no multimedia experience.

5. Every reporter should be a backpack journalist. The reporter who has the

governor‘s private phone number and can get a return call in the middle of the night

remains just as valuable, regardless of whether he or she is podcasting or doing slide

shows.

6. Print reporters do not have sufficient skills to do TV work. It is possible to print

reporters be successful by emphasizing their strengths (knowledge of the story) and

de-emphasizing their weaknesses (typically, their on camera performance).

53


7. Audio and video are easy. This statement is half true. Audio is relatively easy. It

usually takes just a few minutes to transform an inexperienced print journalist into a

podcaster. However, video is much more difficult to learn. Some newspapers are

hiring a core group of television or video professionals to produce this content.

8. Posting community-generated content will draw an audience. The most successful

examples of news organizations using community content include professional editing

and usually involve the integration of that material with work done by professionals.

OhMyNews in Seoul, with more than 40,000 citizen journalists and generally regarded

as the world‘s most successful community journalism initiative, has a professional

staff of 70.

9. We make most of our money in old media, so a significant commitment to new

media just doesn’t yet make sense. It is a given in the world of advertising that

money follows eyeballs. As those eyeballs increasingly shift to new media and

formats so, too, will revenues. For most U.S. news organizations, the percentage of

revenue coming from new media is still relatively small, but trends are clear. In

Norway, the news organization VG reports it now makes more money from new

media than its traditional newspaper. In fact, LA Times‘ online news business broke

even in early 2008, setting a trend for a profitable online media.

10. Our newsroom staff is already stretched too thin, how can we possibly be asked

to do more? A good convergence strategy requires setting priorities; for managers

who want it all, remember that if everything is a priority, then nothing is.

Although there is a strong case against print, it is due to the confusion of the content with the

container. The culture of print may be going out of fashion, but there is a strong case of print

coming online. In other words, print media starting web site. It is found that coming online

not only satisfies the existing users, but also brings a completely new audience to the original

newspaper as it was seen in the case of New York Times. In fact, the line between new and

old media may be blurring very soon with the advent of new technologies like E-Ink

(Motorola) and Kindle (Amazon). This not only opens up a new source of revenue through

online advertising but also benefits the print version (Boynton, 2000).

6.1.2 The question of credibility

Blogs traditionally have not been regarded as credible source of information but increasingly

more readers find them becoming at least as, if not more, credible than traditional media. It is

found that people who use media heavily rely very much on online news as that is seen as a

54


way to supplement news they get from offline media. Also, people who use internet as a new

medium tend to be more media literate than others (Kaye, 2004).

Figure 7: Cartoon on old media attitude on new media.

Source: ―Speed Bump" copyright Dave Coverly/Dist. by Creators Syndicate, Inc.

6.1.3 Community Involvement

The traditional response to the threat of a widespread collaborative media is to involve more

users in an attempt to create more new items for the masses by involving them in the process

of news generation. Active and non-active editors view their roles in ―Citizen Journalism‖ in a

different way. There appears to be a significant association between community involvement

and a desire to take a leadership role in local policymaking and reform. Although most editors

are involved in several community initiatives, they tend to be less involved in grassroots

organizations (Akhavan-Majid, 1995).

55


6.2 Opportunity for businesses based on new media

New Media brings with itself a wealth of fundamental changes that result in some of the most

far-reaching consequences for the future of the organization. The opportunity for the upstart

small businesses in this area is to capture a strong need for new tools that can harness the new

media paradigm.

6.2.1 New business models

When the industry is examined in terms of content source and device platforms, four different

kind of business models emerge (Saul J. Berman, 2007):

1. Traditional media – This model relies on branded content created by professionals

that is delivered through a ―walled, conditional-access environment and dedicated

devices‖. This is where most established media companies operate today. Examples

are Paramount Pictures, Times Group, Yash Raj Films or Warner Bros.

2. Walled communities – This model is based on distribution of user- and community-

generated content within a ―walled‖ or conditional access environment through

dedicated devices. Typically, these are traditional businesses that allow user

contributions and non-traditional features. For instance Microsoft‘s (or Adobe‘s)

Developer Network which has thousands of user and special interest communities, all

accessible via their service on their devices.

3. Content hyper-syndication – This model makes professionally produced content

available in open channels, without dedicated access providers or devices. Examples

here include the BBC with its My BBC interactive media service.

4. New platform aggregation – This more extreme model relies on both user-generated

content and open distribution platforms. It is arguably the most disruptive, as neither

incumbent studios nor distributors have legacy advantages here. This is where you

will find predominantly user-driven aggregators like YouTube, MySpace.com and

Second Life, as well as a host of less-publicized players, such as LiveJournal, Twitter,

Flickr and Facebook.

For the next three to five years at least, there may be no clear winner among these four

business models. Instead, different companies would pursue divergent models and unique

combinations that leverage their historical strengths and assets – and as a result, the market

overall will look extremely varied over next few years.

56


6.2.2 Death of advertising

As early as 1994, research predicted the death of advertising as it was known. It was predicted

that the metrics of advertising world would change very significantly through the advent of

new media and internet. Primarily, there would be a strong focus on advertising effectiveness

and ―engagement‖. This was to change the world of advertising (Rust & Oliver, 1994). As

expected, almost all major advertisers today have a strong online presence and most ad

agencies have transformed themselves into specialists in Social Media Marketing or Search

Engine Marketing, in addition to more regular form of advertising like online banner

advertisements. Google created another business model that enabled a long tail of advertisers

to come online and advertise.

This presents, in itself, a new opportunity for new businesses to emerge in this growing

market. It is predicted that online advertising spend will become 30% of the total advertising

spend by 2012.

6.2.3 Online PR

It is found that interactivity is a property of new media that can be easily exploited by public

relations companies for promotional purposes. There is a strong integration of online and

offline PR activities. This creates the need for alignment of PR as a integrated brand/image

management exercise, fitting into the overall promotional plan of the organization (Ashcroft

& Hoey, 2001).

6.3 Opportunity for other businesses to use new media

New media does not bodes well for new businesses, even old businesses have been reported

to have gained from implementing the new media practices in their organizations. The six

ways in which organizations may benefit by new media are (Anonymous, 2007):

1. Go online for certifications and training: Online is turning out to be a cheaper way

of training staff

2. Use online communities to get real-life, real-time answers: Thousands of online

communities provide free helping hands for business problems, especially in

technology.

3. Find information quickly: The best sites are the ones that are most linked to. Using

niche-based searches, it is possible to get to a result much faster.

57


4. Locate products with online directories: Often going online is the best solution to

find a product that exactly solves the need of the business.

5. Read breaking news: Online media, with the advent of micro-blogging is the fastest

method to stay in touch with the latest tips and trends.

6. Study in-depth for personal development and strategic planning: The web is good

for immediacy as well as in-depth resources.

58

Conclusion

7. Conclusion

New media bring with itself several path-breaking changes in the way media has worked

traditionally. It turns traditional wisdom on its head first by supporting generativity and then

trying to solve the problem of abundance that it creates (Zittrain, 2006). The internet reduces

the cost for anyone to come online and start publishing thoughts and perspectives on a topic

of her choice. It doesn‘t matter if the views are credible or not as in due course of time only

those writers who command sufficient credibility in the public sphere gain prominence

through a natural selection of social media.

An editor as an expert used to be a venerated personality in media environment. In the new

media environment, her ―expertise‖ is threatened very heavily in favour of what is emerging

as a ―distributed leadership‖ in the society. The power of an editor may now be strong

divested in an array of filtering mechanisms, which could be manual (leading bloggers,

authors, journalists or celebrities, or through a human network like Twitter) or automated

(aggregators, search engines, portals, re-bundlers or reconstructors). Although nowhere near

the ultimate aim of a world without experts, this does distribute the expertise across a

dynamic network of people and programs.

Such a dynamic network helps the society avoid the fallacies of traditional media: one, that it

is too static and too moderate, two, that it is strongly concentrated and three, that it is driven

by purely commercial interests. At the same time, there are threats too. Firstly, the new media

is not universal as yet and it typically favours ―young, white, male, Christian, English-

speaking people from higher income households of the west.‖ It faces strong resistance from

people who are used to old media and are technologically backwards. The other threat is in

the form of the new media itself. To most new users it appears that there is an overload of

information that they are unable to deal with (Toffler, 1980).

As the new media paradigm shatters several old and established business models, it presents

with itself opportunities for both new and old businesses to innovate and create value as the

entire market re-orients itself around this new paradigm.

The new media paradigm shows that the future of the world is going to be global and

collaborative. This presents an opportunity for people around the world to identify their roles.

With the increasing advent of aggregating technology, it could be possible to process large

swathes of subjective information and views in a way that wisdom of crowds (Suroweicki,

59

Conclusion

2004) is effectively exploited, not just on questions with an objective (yes/no or a number as

an) answer but with questions concerning public policy and culture of the society in future.

Still, wisdom of crowds is no panacea for the society. The wisdom of crowds works only

within three necessary conditions of diversity, independence, decentralization and

aggregation. Even if these conditions are satisfied it is found that the group (consider a

democratic nation) is unable to choose a better policy because of systematic errors and biases

that exist in the crowd. For example, the reason why as a democratic society chooses bad

economic policies is because it has strong anti-market, anti-foreign, make-work and

pessimistic biases (Caplan, 2007).

The replacement of expert with a distributed network may not always be in a position to

always reach to a conclusion that suits the society the best, it gives a chance for a healthier

debate and a chance to hear to the marginal opinions in a more inclusive manner than it was

done in past. The good news is that the new media is expanding rapidly introducing an

alternative to millions of people around the world to organize themselves and be responsible

for their own well being.

60

References

8. References

8.1 Bibliography

Abramson, J. A. (1988). The electronic commonwealth. Basic Books.

Agenda Setting. (n.d.). Retrieved March 31, 2009, from

http://www.cw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theoryclusters/Mass%20Media/Agenda-

Setting_Theory.doc/

Akhavan-Majid, R. (1995). How Community Involvement changes role of editor. Newspaper

Research Journal.

Amartya Sen, A. K. (1995). Inequality Reexamined. Oxford University Press.

Anonymous. (2007). Six ways new media will transform your business in '08. Quality.

Ashcroft, L., & Hoey, C. (2001). PR, marketing and the Internet: Implications for information

Professionals. Library Management.

Aufderheide, P. (1998). Niche-market culture, off- and online. The Electronic Grapevine:

Rumour, Reputation and Reporting in the New Online Environment.

Backlund, S. &. (2004). New media industry development regions networks and hierarchies.

Regional studies.

Bardoel, J. (1996). Beyond journalism. European Journal of Communication.

Benkler, Y. (2004). The Wealth of Networks: How social production transforms markets and

freedom. Yale University Press.

Bennett, L. (1988). The politics of illusion. Longman.

Berkowitz, D. (1990). Refining the gatekeeping metaphor for local television news. Journal

of Broadcasting & Electronic Media.

Boynton, R. (2000). New Media may be Old Media's Savior. Columbia Journalism Review.

Burt, R. (1999). The Social Capital of Opinion Leaders. The Annals of the American Academy

of Political and Social Science.

61

References

Caplan, B. (2007). The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why voters choose bad policies?

Coase, R. H. (1960). The Problem of Social Cost. Journal of Law and Economics.

Cohen, B. (1963). The Press and Foreign Policy. Princeton University Press.

Congdon, T. (2004). Bye Bye BBC. Economic Affairs . Institute of Economic Affairs.

Convington, R. (2006). Myths and Realities of Convergence. Nieman Reports.

Couldry, N. (2007). New Media for Global Citizens? The Future of the Digital Divide Debate.

The Brown Journal of World Affairs.

DiMaggio, P. a. (2001). From the 'digital divide' to 'digital inequality': Studying Internet use

as penetration increases. Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, Woodrow Wilson

School, Princeton University.

Duguid, J. S. (1998). Organizing Knowledge. California Management Review.

Fiske, J. (1996). Media matters. University of Minnesota Press.

Function of Media. (n.d.). Retrieved February 15, 2009, from

http://www.bookrags.com/research/functions-of-the-media-eci-01/

Gatekeeping. (n.d.). Retrieved March 31, 2009, from

http://www.cw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theoryclusters/Media%2C%20Culture%20and

%20Society/gatekeeping.doc/

Glasser, T. a. (1998). Public journalism and the search for democratic ideals. Media Ritual

and Identity.

Goldhaber, M. H. (1997). The Attention Economy and the Net. First Monday.

Goodman, E. P. (2004). Media policy out of the box: Content Abundance, attentiona scarcity

and failure of digital markets. Berkeley technology law Journal.

Hallin, D. (1986). The uncensored war. University of California Press.

Haque, U. (n.d.). Economics of Media. Retrieved April 5, 2009, from Bubble Generation:

http://www.bubblegeneration.com/resources/mediaeconomics.ppt

62

References

Hargittai, E. (2001). The Changing Online Landscape: From Free-for-All To Commercial

Gatekeeping.

Hargittai, E. (2003). The Digital Divide and What To Do About It. Princeton University.

J. Alborsa, J. R. (2008). New learning network paradigms: Communities of objectives,

crowdsourcing, wikis and open source. International Journal of Information Management.

JoAnne Yates, W. J. (2008). The Six Key Dimensions of Understanding Media. MIT Sloan

Management Review.

Jon Ippolito, J. B. (2009). New Criteria for New Media. ISAST.

Katz, E. (1957). The Two-Step Flow of Communication: An Up-To-Date Report on an

Hypothesis. The Public Opinion Quarterly.

Katz, J. (1997). Virtuous reality. Random House.

Kaye, T. J. (2004). Wag the blog: how reliance on traditional media and the internet influence

credibility perceptions ot weblogs among blog users. Journalism and Mass Communications

Quarterly.

Klapper, J. (1960). The Effects of Mass Communication. Free Press.

Kurtz, H. (1998). Spin cycle. Touchstone Books.

Levy, J. (2008). Beyond boxers or briefs: New Media brings youth to polictics like never

before. Phi Kappa Phi Forum .

Lewin, K. (1947). Frontiers in Group Dynamics. Human Relations.

Lippman, W. (1922). Public opinion. Macmillan.

Mansell, R. (1999). New media competition and access: the scarcity-abundance dialectic. New

media and society.

McCombs, M. &. (1972). The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media. Public Opinion

Quarterly.

McCombs, M. (1997). Building Consensus: The News Media‘s Agenda Setting Roles.

Political Communication.

63

References

McCombs, M. E. (1976). Structuring the unseen environment. Journal of Communication.

McCombs, M. (2004). Setting the Agenda: The Mass Media and Public Opinion. Policy

Press.

McQuail, D., & Windahl, S. (1993). Communication models for the study of mass

communications. Addison-Wesley Longman.

Meraz, S. (2007). The Networked Political Blogosphere and Mass Media: Understanding

How Agendas are Formed, Framed, and Transferred in the Emerging New Media

Environment. University of Texas at Austin.

Merton, R. (1973). The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations.

University of Chicago Press.

Norris, P. (2001). Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty and the Internet in

Democratic Societies. Cambridge University Press.

Orihuela, J. L. (2003). Blogging and the eCommunication Paradigms: 10 principles of the

new media scenario. Blogtalk - A European Weblog Conference.

Perlmutter, D. D., & McDaniel, M. (2005). The Ascent of Blogging. Nieman Reports.

Peterson, T. (1956). The social responsibility theory. Four theories of the press. University of

Illinois Press.

Pratt, A. C. (2000). New media, the new economy and new spaces. GeoForum.

Rayport, J. H. (2009). The new infomediaries. Harvard Business Review.

Rosen, J. (1999). What journalists are for. Yale University Press.

Rust, R. T., & Oliver, R. W. (1994). The death of advertising. Journal of Advertising.

Saul J. Berman, S. A. (2007). New business models for the new media world. Strategy and

Leadership.

Springel, S. (1998). The New Media Paradigm: Users as Creators of Content. SIGGRAPH.

64

References

Suroweicki, J. (2004). The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few

and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations. Random

House.

Toffler, A. (1980). The Third Wave. Bantam Books.

Tumber, H. (1993). Democracy in the information age: The role of the fourth estate in

Cyberspace. Information, Communication & Society.

Waterford, J. (1999). The changing role of a newspaper editor. Australian Studies in

Journalism.

White, D. M. (1964). The 'Gatekeeper': A Case Study In the Selection of News. People,

Society and Mass Communications.

Williams, B. A., & Carpini, M. X. (2004). Monica and Bill All the Time and Everywhere:

The Collapse of Gatekeeping and Agenda Setting in the New Media environment. The

American Behavioral Scientist.

Yelvington, S. (2009). What can journalists actually do for democracy? www.yelvington.com.

Zittrain, J. (2006). The generative Internet. Harvard Law Review.

46101491 role-of-editor-in-new-media

Documents