consumer revolution in media

"That emphasis on giving readers what they want to read, as opposed to what lofty notions of civic responsibility suggest they ought to read, is part of a global trend."

An efficient economic system is putting the power in the hands of consumer.. The technology is enabling those changes by reducing information asymmetry .making it easily available to people. This is supposed to do better price discovery and hence a more efficient system,

The current changes in media where newspaper and TV news media are succumbing to perverse form of free media, focussing on what is popular taste rather than the real issues can be seen in enabling more powers to consumers rather than intellectuals who used to suggest what shall be read as part of civic responsibility.

The argument against such an efficient system will lead to a "Race to the bottom". The news media will compete against each other to cater to the shot term needs of consumer and in process affecting the long term future.

Media in a democracy are supposed to be the guardian of opinions and enabling check against government power. Even now media has in crisis taken the responsibility of delivering second objective but first have taken a beating due to inability of doing a deeper analysis of the situation.

Newspaper like leaders need to be leading the curve of public opinion and not always following it.High competition in short term will make newspapers following the public opinion curve, catering to instant needs.

So is everything dark out there. Ford, Apple and many other corporate examples have proved to be forming opinion and these are result of efficient economic systems. We shall expect to see similar revolution in media where some agencies will form a niche and cater to intellectual taste rather than crash public taste.