From mass media consumption to mass media production…

I’m rewriting a story I wrote back in the ’90s and it’s interesting how things have changed. I had a few oblique comments back then about the influence the mass media, particularly television, had on people, and the orthodoxies in television journalism. While this was pretty topical back then, it seems much less relevant now.

Now, especially since social media, anybody can put content out there. This web site demonstrates it too.

We have new commentaries and criticisms, new ‘problems’, perceived or otherwise, created by the completely re-written mass media landscape. Where we might have bemoaned a concentration of thought and influence, and the vacuousness and narrowness of journalism, lifestyle programming and entertainment then, just what have we gained from democratising the means of content production and dissemination?