Knowledge@Wharton presents its perspectives on the emerging media landscape: the tussle between user-generated content and 'professional' content in The Experts vs. the Amateurs: A Tug of War over the Future of Media
Whitehouse distinguishes professional content on the basis of its editorial process. "Carefully checked sources and consistent editorial guidelines are key differences between most professional and amateur content," he suggests, while noting that, "Both bring value. The latter brings quickness and a personal viewpoint and the former provides analysis and consistent quality. The world I want to live in includes healthy doses of both categories."
"Where the distinction between amateur and professional content matters is in business models," says Werbach. "For certain kinds of quality content, no blog can match The New York Times, but producing the Times is far more expensive than a blog. If users aren't willing to pay to support the kind of professional journalism the Times provides, something significant will be lost. And that's increasingly happening, because traditional business models for newspapers and TV rely on unrelated advertising revenues to fund quality content. The Internet is disintermediating those dollars."
1 comment:
The question is not about people willing to pay for quality journalism. But it is about, whether the people are willing to entrust all this money with a single person top-down management ? Whether the people are willing to empower a single person to edit the news to his own tastes ? Whether the people are willing to entitle a single person/group to rule over their entire attention span by selective reporting and news distortion ?
This is where the internet breaks down the prevailing dynamics. This is what brings shivers down the spines of the media barons.
Welcome to internet democracy.
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