In his commentary on Time naming everyone who uses the Internet the Person of the Year, Jeff Jarvis proclaims the end to mass media’s control over the flow of information. It’s a line we’ve all heard many times before from futurists like Jarvis who want to believe the world is being dramatically altered by millions dancing on YouTube, but it’s not.
The fact he took the time to comment on an article produced by a mass media outlet demonstrates he, like the Internet and Web 2.0, is enabling mass media to spread even further. He’s giving legs to a story that would have been distributed to a finite number of people in the past. Now millions more are reading it.
So while Time’s print subscription rates may be going down, its readership is up in new markets across the world thanks to Jarvis and other bloggers like him.
When I lived in Japan a few years ago, I didn’t read or watch North American news because it was too expensive or unavailable. Now, thanks to broadband, more people in more places are listening to, reading and watching the content produced by corporations that have the money to employ journalists to write articles in magazines like Time.
And bloggers are helping spread the word by writing articles or column about articles.
The truth of the matter is, most of us aren’t industry observers like Jarvis, so we depend on traditional sources, which happen to be taking a different form on the Internet. Yes, some bloggers are quiet influential (but not necessary original), and they’ve encouraged millions to go online to share their lives and stories, but those people often tend to pass around mass media stories and content.
Like this fine video from Justin Timberlake, who I have a new found respect for.
