An enormous amount of Public Mass Media has been created this year in this transitional period following thousands of years of State-Controlled Media (see: “Egypt”), and dogging the heels of a few hundred years of Personally-Controlled Mass Media (see: “Rupert Murdoch”). It presages a period that is much discussed and yet to be determined in type and form, and the impact of Public Mass Media is a matter of a great deal of current debate.
Four years ago the blogosphere had produced a set of individuals who had broken onto the public Media stage (see: “Drudge”) and public forums that set the precedents for places like Motley Moose (see: “MyDD” and “DailyKos”). Today there are many individual contributors who have gained a fairly wide audience (see: “Ben Smith”, “”, “”) and a broad gamut of forums where Public Media is created by significant numbers of contributors. Four years from now there will be a pervasive public understanding of how Public Media shapes our culture.
Now, we stand on a brink and often wonder “Does any of this make a difference to what happens in the world?”.
Yes, it does.