Customer comes first -- especially in media
There's so much debate in Australia about the future of our media landscape -- media laws, media regulation, media delivery platforms, media ownership and content production and consumption -- that it's hard to keep track of what decisions are being made about what.
But the media is not just going to be a new landscape, in fact, it won't be a landscape at all. The Australian media industry will no longer be analogised by planes of land and mountains and rivers -- this will no longer suit. Instead, the media will be like an entire continent, with governments, citizens, transport and communication networks, cities and oceans -- and complaints departments. What I mean is `media` will be everywhere, and incorporate everything, and central to that will be the Australian population.
However, within the political and commercial melee that is the Australian media debate, the most important aspect is being forgotten. That is, whatever decisions are made about content production, media ownership and technology, it is you and I -- the `consumers` -- who will ultimately determine how the media is received and used. Coonan can have her datacasting (whatever that is), Channel 9 can buy out Fairfax and we can be given Wolfmother concerts on our mobile phones until our eyeballs turn blue, but if there's one beauty in current media it is the choice citizens have to use or not to use what we're offered.
Newspapers can become so small and smutty they can fit into your iPod sleeve, but they will lose the core demographic of people who read newspapers for information. News broadcasting can become so fickle and shallow that the TV promo's feature nothing but topless Brazilian women and rabbits that make friends with lions (oh, I think that already happens at FoxNews) that people who actually want news will simply turn of and go elsewhere for their information. The real media-lovers will be able to identify disgraceful media content and will know where to get what they want and, as a result, merchants of poor quality content will suffer.
The mistake ACMA, the ACCC, the Minister for Communications, Austereo and PBL are making is they are still treating you and I like idiots. To them, we are still just numbers on a page that turn up on their desks at 8:00 every morning which are forwarded to advertisers as some kind of representation of marketing success. This is an old and ignorant view. Consumers of media (and I'm still calling us consumers for want of a better word -- `users` maybe) are the be all and end all for the media industry. If you can represent us, diversely and respectfully, in media content, then you will be more successful than if corporations just say `oh the Yanks liked that show so we'll buy it and it'll be a sure-fire winner over here`.
Without us, media content means nothing, and the sooner the Australian bourgeois realise this, the sooner they will resolve to the fact that a successful future in media requires, first and foremost, the priority of democracy and freedom of information. The citizens will take care of the rest.
But the media is not just going to be a new landscape, in fact, it won't be a landscape at all. The Australian media industry will no longer be analogised by planes of land and mountains and rivers -- this will no longer suit. Instead, the media will be like an entire continent, with governments, citizens, transport and communication networks, cities and oceans -- and complaints departments. What I mean is `media` will be everywhere, and incorporate everything, and central to that will be the Australian population.
However, within the political and commercial melee that is the Australian media debate, the most important aspect is being forgotten. That is, whatever decisions are made about content production, media ownership and technology, it is you and I -- the `consumers` -- who will ultimately determine how the media is received and used. Coonan can have her datacasting (whatever that is), Channel 9 can buy out Fairfax and we can be given Wolfmother concerts on our mobile phones until our eyeballs turn blue, but if there's one beauty in current media it is the choice citizens have to use or not to use what we're offered.
Newspapers can become so small and smutty they can fit into your iPod sleeve, but they will lose the core demographic of people who read newspapers for information. News broadcasting can become so fickle and shallow that the TV promo's feature nothing but topless Brazilian women and rabbits that make friends with lions (oh, I think that already happens at FoxNews) that people who actually want news will simply turn of and go elsewhere for their information. The real media-lovers will be able to identify disgraceful media content and will know where to get what they want and, as a result, merchants of poor quality content will suffer.
The mistake ACMA, the ACCC, the Minister for Communications, Austereo and PBL are making is they are still treating you and I like idiots. To them, we are still just numbers on a page that turn up on their desks at 8:00 every morning which are forwarded to advertisers as some kind of representation of marketing success. This is an old and ignorant view. Consumers of media (and I'm still calling us consumers for want of a better word -- `users` maybe) are the be all and end all for the media industry. If you can represent us, diversely and respectfully, in media content, then you will be more successful than if corporations just say `oh the Yanks liked that show so we'll buy it and it'll be a sure-fire winner over here`.
Without us, media content means nothing, and the sooner the Australian bourgeois realise this, the sooner they will resolve to the fact that a successful future in media requires, first and foremost, the priority of democracy and freedom of information. The citizens will take care of the rest.
posted by chris at 11:27 am
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