socialmedian: Mass Media Vs. Niche Media

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Mass Media Vs. Niche Media

Source: The Future Buzz

Sep 20, 2009

Summary

I rather like having discussions with Mitch Joel, he gives me good food-for-thought. That’s because we grew up in different times – I have only known a digital society, he has seen both a digital and analog. Due to this we tend to look at things through a different lens.

Previously when he argued print is not dead, I made the point that it may not be dead, but it’s on life support and that digital is now the master copy.

Mitch wrote something else that struck me recently. He made several different points so I’m going to respond to a few parts bit by bit:

Imagine a world without Mass Media (which is something that many “Social Media Experts” are talking about). The only way that you would find out about anything is through your own newsfeed or the people you are following in spaces like Twitter and Facebook. Can this be the best way to get a full perspective about anything?

Not sure this makes much sense – my newsfeed/reader is made up of a variety of forms of media, including “mass” media, whatever that means.

Twitter or Facebook are not what is replacing the

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Comments (2)

Marcel,

Sep 20, 2009

"That’s an opinion so take it as such, but as an independent artist I never saw the value of mass media to help music. If anything mass media as a rule plays/shares what is “safe” and doesn’t push the creative envelope. They want what the masses enjoy. It’s boring. Music fans will echo that statement.

This may be a personal example, but that’s the point. I’m interested in engaging with a culture that forms and organizes based on the opinions of individuals without agendas (AKA my peers) not because some editors have decided this is “good” or “bad”. That is the inherent flaw of “mass” media for people who can’t be grouped into masses. And those are the people you want to engage with as marketers. They are the “sneezers” Seth Godin talks about, the trendsetters Malcolm Gladwell likes to reference. They are what matter in a fragmented media society."