The Blog Phenomenon and my deeper interest in (word-based) media

Although it doesn't say so in my profile, I am quite interested in media, particularly print media. I worked for a time at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which publishes one of the largest circulation newsletters around, Nutrition Action Healthletter, and there I learned about direct marketing and publishing (I managed the non-newsletter publishing of books, reports, posters, and computer software, and mail order sales).

After that, I and others attempted to create a cable television network devoted to enterprise computing. Although we established some successful relationships with the Adult Learning Satellite Service of PBS and Network World Magazine, and we broadcast a pilot live show called "Computer Workshop" on KUHT-TV and other PBS stations, we were under-capitalized and a bit ahead of our time. (I thought of what we were doing as "publishing on video", which made what we did a lot more palatable. One of our great successes was a live videoconference about the Internet in May 1994, which was a few months before the World Wide Web finally hit the New York Times Business Section, and then became a much more well-known phenomenon.)

A big interest of mine is how media and citizenship engagement interact, especially how newspapers and television stations (local news) cover community revitalization topics. (I.e., Philadelphia Daily News -- "Rethinking Philadelphia", Philadelphia Inquirer -- check out this special section about South Philly, Baltimore Sun = good; Washington Post = average or minus.) If people, particularly those in the suburbs, only hear negative stories (murders, etc.) how can we possibly expect them to have positive attitudes toward center cities?

Generally, television ignores everything except "murders, fires, accidents, sports, and weather" although morning shows and all-news cable television channels offer some occasional exceptions. Radio has possibilities but too often news on radio is syndicated, with little local content on most stations, except for independent stations serving minority communities, and the major "newsradio" station that most major markets seem to have at least one (DC has two, WTOP and WMAL). Plus of course, NPR and the local reports that some stations do (such as WAMU-FM in DC, particularly the local "Politics Hour" on Friday; and WPFW-FM, as DC is fortunate to have a Pacifica Radio Station in town).

One of the strengths of Internet-based publishing is it provides access and distribution for relatively low or no cost (other than time and occasionally a little money, i.e., a camera), and the weakness is the atomization of markets--think of this as moving from mass markets to micro-markets (which has been called niche marketing). When you need to reach a lot of people in a particular place, can the Internet or email work?

I just read part of an interview (really an excerpted speech) with Jeff Jarvis of www.advance.net, about blogs. He oversees the internet vision and strategy for Advance Publications, Inc. Products include CondéNet and Advance Internet, and the online sites for various company-owned newspapers such as the Cleveland Plain Dealer. (I don't think he is responsible for the master BizJournals website, which is an unsurpassed still free information tool.)

Jarvis has some interesting statistics about blogs: (1) 7% of Internet users (8 million people) have them; (2) 32 million people read them; and (3) 12% post comments.

His comments on distributed media are provocative:

"We all assume that media is about a centralized marketplace. This is a decentralized world. It is a distributed world. Craig’s List has burned up, according to one study, sixty-five million dollars on classified revenue, just in the San Francisco market [which really hurts the San Francisco Chronicle, which has a great online presence and full archives available without charge]. He didn’t move it. He destroyed it. Craig is having more impact on the news business than anybody. But, Craig is nothing but a cheaper marketplace, right? People went from the newspaper to Craig.

But, where it’s really going to go is beyond Craig. Craig is just a way station. What’s really happening now is that my resume can be online with the right tags on it; a job can be online with the right tags on it; and, there are now search engines that are out there to put those two together. Buyer and seller meet, with no centralized marketplace. It’s all distributed. It’s all decentralized. How you make money on that, I have no idea. And, that should kind of scare us all about how that operates.

But, we’re going to a world where things are distributed. You can’t go buy it all. You can’t bring it all in under your tent. You have got to find a way to create new networks and get yourself out there. That’s why you advertise in the top hundred gadget blogs or food blogs. That’s why you help underwrite them. That’s why you involve them. You don’t go try to create them yourself. It costs too much money. Think distributed."

Jarvis also talks about vlogs (video logs) (note: it's hard enough for me to add photographs, let alone make videos) and podcasts.

I am looking forward to tomorrow's piece. See the first two pieces here and here.

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Final comment. In the mid 1990s the Freedom Forum published a report entitled Changing Patterns: Latin America's Vital Media. One of the points that resonated with me then was how Latin American media consumers went from radio (aural) to visual (television) media consumption with not much print media in between. Granted, most major cities in Latin America have many more native-language newspapers than does the average U.S. city, of which only a handful have two in English* (NYC has three), although more cities have the free papers such as Metro or DC's Express, but these papers have little local coverage, certainly no editorial/op-ed section. (*NY, LA--if you count the Valley, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston, Washington, Denver, Wilkes-Barre, Seattle, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh.)

I think Mexico City has ten newspapers, but all have small circulations, and publish in part due to newsprint subsidies by the government (which isn't likely to encourage independent reporting). (Note: the increase in dominance of the Latino population in some markets means that in LA, the number one tv station is KMEX and La Opinion is a force. Did you know that there are three daily African-American newspapers? -- Chicago Defender, Atlanta Daily World, and the Brooklyn Challenge.)

In the U.S., media consumption is moving the same way, towards the visual, and print media, especially newspapers, are on the decline, particularly with younger demographics. Given that most television programming degrades toward the entertainment mean (all programs are entertainment, even news programs) what implications will that have for public participation? If people are anaesthesized by "Grand Theft Auto" or "Survivor" will there be any revolution to televise?

Newslink is a good website for media links.