Old Media and Social Media

Isn't it all just about the conversation?

Traditional media, accustomed for so long to its singular access to a megaphone, has awakened to the conversational Babel called social media and feels…well, a little threatened. And so, to the trumpet’s-blare of “revolutionary change” we in the media now march, and who’s to say whether in the end we’ll prove to have under-reacted or overreacted?

Will social media convulse traditional media? Yes, I think so. To share your stage with your audience is difficult when your life’s focus and fulfillment have rotated around the control and wee bit of stardom journalism brings: bylines, top story placement, and discretion over who among your audience gets to respond and how and when.

It continues to be a bracing bit of reality as well to acknowledge that more and more of your online audience is tapping their own social networks rather you – the media, the historic gatekeeper – for information and context.

Conversely I hardly think social media – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, et al – will put traditional media out of business, and I cite the evolution of the social media king itself as evidence. Once upon a time Facebook was a nearly media-free sanctuary of birds-of-a-feather conversations, until…people began running out of things to talk about. Or started looking for more things to talk about. Enter “Share Link” and “Share Video,” which more often than not has become one more distribution channel for traditional media, albeit with the distinction of allowing the audience to place their own spin right along with the reporter's.In short, Facebook has not put media out of business; it has used media, to media’s mutual benefit.

Fact is, we in the traditional media could have turned over more “share of voice” to our audiences long ago. How many media outlets can you think of that give the same time and space to both staff and reader commentaries? But now that we have been suitably chastened in the Internet era, have seen our hegemony more than a little dinged, I think we can look for more cohabitation of the media space – more equal dollops of media-produced content and audience-produced content side by side. And when it comes to the public conversation, media and audience are in it together, and who’s to say where one begins and the other leaves off?