Media is the Messenger

Media is all around us. Media informs, teaches, entertains and criticizes us. Media is our unconscious, it is omnipresent. It tells us who we are and how we need to live by stories in series or movies. Media is only the object of transport to deliver a message or feeling defined by someone.

First Media 1.0

Dutch X-Factor winner 2007

The first methods of communicating a message to undefined groups had a small reach but grew larger over time. You could hang posters, put something in the news paper, publish a book, and later tell something on the radio or show something on the television. These mediums where always controlled by someone who owned the wall, publisher or television station.

To own and run such a medium costs money and people asked something in return. The medium with the largest reach costs the most and could only be cost sustaining if you tried to reach as large as possible group of people as possible. But how could you make money of media consumers?

A large reach meant a large group of consumers were watching. Adds became successfull and more viewers meant more money. The medium became about attracting large numbers of people. Media became about generating feeling. About being moved by something so you kept on following the story/feeling. You needed to be touched by some new information, a warm or familior feeling, a shock, something to laugh, someone to look up to. With the popularity TV became escapism from everyday society. People became passive consumers and on that mindset the advertisers thrived by showing stuff to consume.

The media generated our heroes and foes. Celebrities became the new aristocracy which was talked about. Their good lifes were something to look up to, their bad lives where something to reflect our humanity on. The media made a person admired, but a too large following and to grow up in the media can make you a disturbed person that turns on society and shave your hair off as ultimate action of rebellion. It is just too difficult to be perfect and please.

Media creates or destroys people. The Media has its own sets of rules. Who controls it controls the masses. Think Berlusconi. We live in a mediacracy.

Media 2.0

ZeFrank from Zefrank.com

But internet changed everything. By creating a decentralized world wide web nobody controls there was freedom. Freedom to publish, advertise and be creative. Ok, lots of the internet is still about creating masses and ad revenue. But the internet is also about connecting people with obscure knowledge. Interests that could not thrive in a small community could thrive on a place that could be accessed anywhere. Online bookshops could put obscure books in their collection. People with special interests could find each other and thrive their knowledge to other minority groups all over the world. It became about fulfilling the long tail of interests.

Internet became the medium with the largest reach which was controlled by no one. It created the largest diversity ever. The open network structure created such a large bandwidth that anything could be send to anyone for free. Even TV begins to lose watchers to youtube and online downloadable content. Information became free and regulated entertainment begins to crumble. Idols are not as worshipped these days than in earlier times. People begin to watch through their facades. The fall of britney is just one sign of media 1.0s apocalypse.

When distribution became free the material based price of things like music and stories vanished. In a world were people values stuff on their touchable presence much intellectual property devalued. People began to distribute music, movies etc for free to satisfy needs. Why pay when many of the artists/actors ride in expensive Hummers with diamond jewelery? Centralized controlled creativity begins to crumble. People begin to avoid the locking in structure of mass mediums.

The end? The beginning!

Media 2.0 is not anymore about reach but about being unique. It is about what you like and your choice. It is about diversity instead of belonging to a larger whole. We don’t want to be targeted as a target group but as a unique individual. We don’t want role models but inspirators!

It is all about personality and authenticity these days. Be yourself, do something unique and different. Contribute to the world! Passive consuming is a sin. We can make the difference!

Related:

• Big changes ahead for us
• Politics 2.0
• Leadership 2.0
• Enemy 2.0