The Evolution of Media

Will everyone be a journalist, filmmaker and author by the end of this new decade?

Before I begin writing this piece I would like to apologise for the lack of activity on the blog. December has been a busy month for reasons which I shall not delve into for fear of this slowly evolving, or rather devolving, into a "My day was good, this is my cat, I like cookie dough ice cream" length of tripe. I understand little why people feel the need to write what are essentially extended Twitter feeds every week. I understand even less the people who read these former people's blogs.

Another thing which this article will not be is a round up of 2009 that will be drowned in the sea of similar pieces with only those on mainstream channels and websites clambering upon a rock before expelling their opinions with megaphones to the rest of the indifferent victims who are washed away forever.

To avoid this is a pointless exercise, some of you may highlight, because that is the nature of the blogosphere in general, not solely for reviews of the year. The Daily Warp is among a million other diaries, thoughts, opinions and news pieces. Again, the published papers and popular websites are on pedestals with their amplifiers whilst the rest of us amass in a gigantic, noisy crowd in the general arena. However, the highest of us, the one whose attention is depended on for self-satisfaction and indeed existence, is you, the consumer.

In our metaphor you are the gods in the sky who we are shouting to and whilst the pedastalees are confident that you can hear them the best, the rest of us are doing our damnedest to say "pick me!" in a matter of more complex and articulated words. We are the white noise in the background and you are trying to get a clear signal.

So what is the point of all this analogous talk? Well I would like to look forward whilst the rest look backwards. The new decade (which arguably does not start until 2011), will it bring the so called "democratic media", that is the YouTubes, blogosphere and FunnyOrDies to the forefront? Will they overtake mainstream media? Will there even be a mainstream media by 2020? Will the sea of wannabes envelop the individuals and rip their plinths apart?

It is a familiar argument that many are suggesting will be realised in the near future. For it is undeniable that the naughties was the coming of age for this "democratic media" - the consumer is now boss. Something which has been demonstrated ever so vividly at the very end of the decade with Rage Against the Machine's nineteen year old track Killing in the Name hijacking the charts and becoming Christmas number one. A digital protest; we are the top dog now, we make the decisions, not Simon Cowell.

However, there are holes in the the theory that we will all abandon our newspapers for blogspots and our television networks for viral videos - gaping holes.

Firstly, the masses are the deciders of what's hot and what's not but the people they choose are still receiving exposure due to tremendous amounts of luck. Just like in the corporation fuelled market you have to be good (though actually not always) and have a break. There are millions of great bloggers and amatuer filmmakers out there who are not getting a hundred thousand hits a day just as there are millions of undiscovered bands who do not have a record deal. The end result is therefore much the same. The key difference is that the big break in this "democratic" world is simply to have people like your "product" and tell others about it where as in the commercial world it is to be chosen by a huge company with many contacts and be spoon fed to the general public.

The second problem is that the mainstream media is reliable. Out of "Dave's News Blog" and the BBC website which are you going to trust? Yes, we can don our probably-correct-to-an-extent-media-conspiracy-hats and claim that the mainstream media have ulterior motives and does not always tell the truth. But it will always be more accurate than some guy slapping away on his laptop and uploading the finished article to Digg. Some of you may say I have just shot myself in the foot because I am one of those people. Well, yes I am but I write my opinions...which just so happen to be true...and informative - so I am different in that respect.

Finally, we all still want our mega blockbusters that cost the average GDP of a small country to make, the recent Avatar smashing box office records proves this. This is something which a YouTuber cannot deliver unless he is the son of a Mafia boss who loves him very much. And even then the film will have to be under 9 minutes 59 seconds.

2020 will not see us completely replacing our televisions with laptops and our newspapers with blogs just as it will not see us in flying cars - they will come later, the dominance of the blogosphere will never.