The absolute state of Modern Media

Media is no longer what was considered the old concept of having newspapers telling us what to believe in, what to support, and what information is valid and what is a conspiracy theory - which is actually a term coined by the traditional media outlets to completely invalidate other points of view and effectively rendering looney takes from bozos living on their mom's basement consuming noodles and chicken tenders.

Oh no, Media is so much more now, it actually has a completely different meaning nowadays.

The business model of traditional media is broken, newspapers and TV stations had to evolve or die. Most of them died, but a lot of them are still thriving and fully (yet poorly) adapted to the century we are actually living in, and not the one they are desperately - yet badly - trying to shape for us.

The news media is totally corrupted and has a bipartisan agenda, but the way people think and interact with news is slowly changing. Of course the majority of people still believe everything the traditional, mainstream news outlets tells them - and we saw that in practice during 2020-2022. It is the upper class the only ones who are impervious to the media's influence, the lower class doesn't have time to listen to crap, so it is the middle class who is being affected more by these behavioral changes in media.

But one thing is certain, no matter which political inclination people have, the truth is that the level of trust in mainstream media is dropping, and I don't see any hard stop on this trend.

Journalism nowadays is fucked up

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One piece of news may be about the war in Ukraine and how much of a bad player is Russia and Putin, and then the next section could be about the new haircut of Lady Gaga or about the latest trend in transexual style clothing in Sweden.

News are not about informing people or striving for the truth on any topic, they are only about clicks, attention spans, flashy headlines and well, basically making profit, like it always has been. We are still the victims on this equation that only changed the symbols, but the factors are still the same.

Those who completely left the TV and the radio and their spoonfeeding moved on to Twitter or Instagram, believing that hearing and reading stuff from their peers instead of some stupid, politically inclined, clown journalist would be the answer to getting the truth and evading the spoonfed. Well, think again. We live in a tech world that runs on algorithms based on behavior, inclinations, affiliations and most importantly, agendas. Every tech company is run by people, and these people follow their own agendas and thus, censorship, shadowbanning, and mostly the algorithm can bury stories, effectively spoonfeeding you the very same crap you want to avoid from traditional outlets, only this time since you believe you are getting the stories straight from the source from unbiased parties, you are more keen to believing everything and thinking there is no way you are being manipulated by propaganda and narratives.

Another problem is that people are not diversifying their sources and trying to get out of their own echo chamber. They follow the same people on Twitter, they browse the very same hashtags on Instagram without even realizing they are just seeing what the algorithm wants them to see.

And it is all for profit.

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Think about it. If you spend 15 seconds watching a story about how bad the democrats are, the instagram algorithm detects that and pushes that kind of stories to your feed, because that is what you like, and that is what will make you spend more time on Instagram and thus, you will watch more ads every 3-4 stories. You will continue watching stories because you crave that validation to your point of view, you wish for confirmation that what you believe in is the correct position regarding the democrats. Why would Instagram show you stories where people talk trash about conservatism if you might rage close the app or maybe even delete it from your apps?

They want to show you Ads. Advertisement makes these tech companies money

Advertising has been the main source of income for media outlets, it always has been and if the black mirror: fifteen million merits episode has any say on how the future looks, advertising will always be the wheel that turns the society's economic carriage.

The Internet completely changed how Media Outlets make money. Nowadays, for a republican politician it is not enough to just advertise on a TV channel that conservatives watch in order to reach his voters. On the interwebz times, he has to pay depending on what kind of audience he wants to reach, and the amount he pays depends on how many of these potential voters he wants to reach. Advertising is more measurable & more efficient because it uses a targeted model, but it is also more complicated to use effectively because there are so many, many channels you can use to reach your audience depending on the user behavior, market niche, and much more.

And now, the information business model is changing again.

People who haven't trusted the traditional media outlets and are also tired of the social media echo chambers, are turning their heads to subscription based models.

I think @jongolson will agree with me on this one - he's the founder of @listnerds, a subscription based newsletter. You should check it out.

Mention of listnerds not sponsored by Jongo

The subscription business it's different to the advertisement business traditional and social media uses. Newsletters do not care about opinions, feelings, or clicks. Most newsletter based business models base their success on the numbers of subscribers they have, and in order to have a big audience they must do things right, not flashy.

It's all about ideology. Journos write a clickbaity title such as Britney Spears shaved her head, this is what her husband did the morning after!!! whereas a subscription based writer would report on this in a very, very different way.

We are currently living through a transition on how Media outlets survive. It's all about the fight between disappearing and making money without loosing credibility.

People are being unconsciously divided in teams and subgroups depending their political ideology, race, gender, age and much more. The power groups - and I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist looney - have an agenda, and the mainstream social media outlets have a narrative to empower this agenda while making money the easiest way, both through funding from these power groups but also from the audience, which they are manipulating to levels I don't even begin to understand, and I am well versed in this topic.

But there are a lot of journalists and writers that are searching for healthier ecosystems to devolve their careers, places where they don't have to stick to a narrative or an agenda. These independent writers are sick of these places filled with wealthy people who are agenda-believers with elite backgrounds making all the decisions.

The problem is, the real problem is, there are no alternatives to these places.

But there is an alternative to this.

Creating their own newsletter

And then letting their audience fund the stories they want to hear.

These journalists and independent writers are creating their own healthier, unbiased, agenda-free ecosystems, and surrounding themselves with people with similar ideas and beliefs.

As independent writers, they can write about what they want, save some dignity and preserve their credibility.

The newsletters' readers pay the writer they trust, and they want the writer to deliver what it is expected from him. Follow that model and both parties will be happy. It is all about the credibility for them and sticking to their own values. Not accepting advertisement money because your main source of income is your subscribers, allows an independent writer to stay true to the facts and not compromise their ideals and thus, preserving their credibility.

I don't have to write about how cool Cillany Hlintor is because and I won't tell my audience otherwise because I don't need your money, Seorge Goros, I have my sub fam behind me supporting what I do. Take your shekels somewhere else.
This is just a fictional paragraph, any similarity with reality is just a coincidence.

Independent writers nowadays could make a killing money wise if they leveraged their audience and sold ad spaces, but the long term investment of being true and remain unbiased trumps any short term revenue.

Quality content is priceless

The fact that an independent writer can start a subscription based newsletter for free and start creating quality content striving for subscribers who are fed up of the bullshit from traditional media and social media, is also priceless. Some people might do it to give the people and alternative source of information, some others might do it for the extra income, some others might want to live off of this, and a few might do it for shits and giggles, but the fact that they have the option to do so is the main driver for the changes in the industry.

Now, Blockchain based newsletters, can that be a thing?

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I have no idea. @listnerds is already doing it but I have yet to get familiar with the project. I intend to, I just haven't had the time, but it is definitely on my to-dyor list.

On an extra note, did you know that LeoFinance has their own newsletter? Subscribe here!

Images created on dreamstudio.ai, you should check it out instead of using random images from the web

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That is the sad truth about media nowadays. Actually, it's getting harder to determine the fake and truth regarding about news since there are too many sites, people, and media streams releasing a publication. No wonder, youths today are basing info on the TikTok and such. Yeah, the original concept or the traditional concept has been long gone. Technically, it is because of the technological evolution and innovation.

 last year  

Well said man, I have something similar coming out in a few days. It boils down a lot of times to the intentional polarization of people into one side or the other. In everything else with life, we are all over the place! We can be in so many different camps being a normal person. These vile excuses of humans that are trying to destroy the global population and economy want us just in 2 camps. For or against something. No grey area or middle ground allowed. That I think is a significant travesty! We absolutely need grey areas and room to have multiple opinions on a topic and even change our opinions of a topic when we feel we need to based on new information.

With the media it's a lot easier to pander to those who are in much numbers of camps. Left or right. That's it and it's absolutely intentional. More polarization.

I'd like to hope that we are breaking out of that cycle of biased poison, what I think a lot of people are realizing is that they want to be the judge of something, not be told what it is.

What a nice write-up. I admire the fact that it is lengthy, it really shows that you put in alot of work in it.