Digitalwall: Media, Community, and Blog (5) The Power of Media

If we wish the Internet to bring forth a culture of diversity, we shouldn't expect it to grow into another kind of mass media. It should be a kind of demassified media.

[+] Starving media are capable of doing anything

I always hold the belief that "the birth of a new breed of media heralds the emergence of a new breed of media industry." What is a media industry? It is about the cost and income of the players, or the division of labor and revenue along the value chain. A business that is profitless for everyone can not become an industry. (The charity industry is of course an exception.) Even if we manage to grow it into an industry, the resource constraint will limit its development.

You must know as well as I do that what media will do when they are hungry. Starving media operators will sell the newspaper's first page to advertisers, or accept funds from the government (through buying advertisements), and they don't mind being tamed by those in power. You can always find a lot of such examples.

It's kind of naive to argue loudly that, since Blogs are not meant for making money, we can just talk about the cultural aspects and leave other things aside. The investors of these businesses are very serious when reading the financial statements. But if Blogs can't make money, why is that we can always hear announcements like "Company X will commit itself to the deployment of Blog services"?

Frankly in the beginning, the senior management of Internet companies know very little about how to deal with Blogs. They can't tell the difference between Blogs and the old services such as personal homepages, online communities, forums or group services in terms of cash inflow/outflow.

Yet when the mood of the society and media report favors one thing, it would not be very smart to criticize it. Besides, we've seen service providers throwing good money for services such as online forums and personal homepages. It doesn't seem to matter much to have one more money losing proposition.

[+] The power of Blogs as media has only weak support

The most fascinating fantasy about Blogs is the reversal of the power relationship between the audience and the media. Traditionally, the content published by media has to go through multiple check and refinements before finalized. But in the case of Blogs, writing is a personal business and Bloggers are free to express themselves. This is exactly why Blogs are called "grassroots media".

Yet such grassroots power held by ordinary people is not as strong as we think it is. First of all, when "everyone is free to express himself", the scenarios is usually "no one is listening or is able to listen to what others are trying to say". Ask yourself: how many readers or how much influence can a Blog article on the Internet have?

From the past experience, normally, an Internet incident would only turn into a nationwide issue when it is dug out and covered by some slack TV news reporters . The agenda setting power is an attribute of traditional media but not Blog. Exceptions are very few.

Secondly, any online community is basically "a group of homogeneous people who share mutual support and consolation". The paradox is that, as Bloggers can only receive support from those who share the same thoughts, their influence is virtually limited to the inner circle, or a part, not the whole, of the society.

It may sound harsh, but still I have to say that the reason why Bloggers are able to enjoy practically unlimited freedom of speech is their words are insignificant. The effects of these words are just not serious enough to demand the attention or action of governments, companies or organizations concerned as the cost to address those individuals is high.

Thirdly, Blogs are demassified media. We are now living in a world of diverse values where demassified media prevail and the over 100 cable TV channels are the evidence. The days when traditional mass media could dominate the audience market were gone. There are now multiple niche segments in the market where the room for mass media are shrinking.

Blogs are from the grassroots. People are expecting Blogs to contend with the traditional mass media, which however are no longer a leviathan. Before the emergence of Blogs, their power has been encroached as the audience is offered with an increasing number of options. Besides, isn't it strange to expect a demassified medium to take over a mass medium?

If we wish the Internet to bring forth a culture of diversity, we shouldn't expect it to grow into another kind of mass media. It should be a kind of demassified media. It is somewhat contradictory to expect demassified media to have anything to do with the mainstream opinion. In the era of decentralization, it is never easy to shape the mainstream opinion even for the mass media.

[+] A shocking experience of mine in running an individual medium

The Internet has an innate characteristic of decentralization, which makes the point of critical mass impossible to reach. This prevents it from being monopolized and inhibits the birth of a media hegemony. While we love this characteristic very much, it also confines the influence of Bloggers to a limited range of the society. Their power is thus weaker than that of TV news reporters.

In Taiwan, any magazine that has a readership of 100,000 is doing very well. However, for an Internet writer with the same size of readership, what kind of power will he have?

December 2001 I got an email from the lawyer of some portal based in Taiwan accusing that some article of mine contained improper descriptions which were detrimental to the reputation of that company. Well, I couldn't see anything improper though. I had stick to the principle to "talk about trends only and stay away from criticizing", having no intention to be offensive to anyone.

Later we encountered each other on the phone. I told the lawyer that I didn't see anything inappropriate, and asked her what would happen if I refused to withdraw that article. She replied that the company might resort to judicial processes if necessary. I asked her why they picked me out of so many Internet writers, and she answered, "Because you are too influential."

Headlines such as "Digitalwall.com owner sued by some portal" crossed my mind. It was a shortcut if f I intended to be a well-known figure nationwide. After two days of consideration, I asked the lawyer to send a formal written document, which was accepted immediately. Then I removed the article.

That is the only one article I took away during the eight years of writing on the Internet. I had thought to post the document I got from the portal's lawyer, but this only proves a writer in the virtual world has no media power at all. For them, the cost to sue me was insignificant; for me, the cost to go to court was high.

If the readership of an Internet writer reaches 500,000, will it make a difference and reverse the situation? Well, as the Internet was made to be decentralized, there is no way that an individual writer can have 500,000 readers, not to mention a readership big enough to be powerful in the real world. However, if many individual writers join together, it may be possible to accumulate some power. This is the most significant reason why Blogs should connect to each other.

[+] Yet the writing will not stop

I myself is a dreamer, or I wouldn't have devoted myself to Digitalwall.com for eight years, and spent some money every month to maintain the website, countless holidays on writing the website program and weekly commentaries, and even my own money to buy online advertisements to promote the website.

This article is not to persuade enthusiastic Bloggers to "stop dreaming", but to tell the dreamers that they need to figure out where the limits are. As Stockdale's Paradox tells us:

"You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end (which you can never afford to lose) with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."(From Good to Great by Jim Collins)

I put down the words on Digitalwall.com eight years ago that, "I will continue to write until I can no longer do it any more. I will share what I've seen, learned and experienced in my words with all those who are after their dreams." This promise is still valid now.

I know very clearly who I have influence on and how serious can this influence be, and I also know where the limit of this adventure is. I am not seeking to have pervasive influence but am looking for people who have shared thoughts and interests to support each other and accomplish some interesting things together. Dear Bloggers, let's carry on with the best wishes to each other. (
2005/04/03 - By Digitalwall.com - Way to
China Internet/Telecom )