CNN/Fortune: Extinction of mass culture leaves us poorer

[DeepModem Mom]

The extinction of mass culture
The advent of 300 channels and the Internet has fragmented audiences - and the explosion of choice has left us poorer
By Marc Gunther, Fortune senior writer
July 12 2006

....mass culture isn't so mass anymore. Instead, culture is evolving into a "mass of niches." So, at least, says Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, in "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More" (Hyperion, $24.95).

"We're leaving the watercooler era, when most of us listened, watched and read from the same relatively small pool of mostly hit content," Anderson writes. "And we're entering the microculture era, when we are all into different things."...Anderson's book is about business. He makes a persuasive case that the Internet is exploding the limits of bricks-and-mortar distribution channels, giving consumers vastly more choice and creating business opportunities that have been exploited by the likes of Amazon, Netflix, Apple's iTunes and Google.

Those online media businesses are all driven to a surprising degree, not by a handful of hits, but by the far larger number of books, DVDs, music and Web sites with narrow appeal....

***

Mass culture provides intangible benefits....Big stars, hit TV shows and even commercials help knit a society together. Think of the feeling that comes a few times a year - the morning after the Super Bowl or the Oscars - when tens of millions of Americans share a common experience.

Like Chris Anderson, I think we're better off with Amazon, Netflix, Google and the cacaphony of the blogosphere than we were with a neighborhood bookseller, Blockbuster video, Tom Brokaw and Life Magazine. But it's worth slowing down, now and then, to think about what we are losing as we retreat into that "mass of niches."

http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/11/news/economy/pluggedin_gunther.fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes

[Teaser]

1. cultures evolve

and we CAN'T stop it. We can, however, maximize what's right with every culture modality that does evolve.

[disgruntled_goat]

2. goddamn it, it's not a retreat

that has got to be the stupidest article i've seen all day.

people are beginning to wake up and design their own media, slowly but surely.

CNN et al are shitting their pants over this type of trending. and they would do anything to reverse it.


mass culture is dying? good! I'm dancing on the grave in my underwear!

p.s. culture is not your fscking friend.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. "mass culture"

is actually a relatively new phenomenom. When people were isolated, communication spotty at best, there were miriad cultures and subcultures. What we are seeing now really isn't a decline in the "mass culture" in that people can still find out about others quickly-what we-or rather advertisers and the like-are finding is that the world doesn't WANT everyone seeing and doing the same thing. That we have many choices, and the chance to find out about all of them, is, to my mind, better than what came before.

[Demeter]

4. Most Mass Culture Isn't Worth Preserving

Those artifacts that have come down to us from the past: music, art, story, recipies: those weren't universally treasured in their time, nor are they universally treasured today. Culture is not massive: Nazism was, and Communism, and Puritanism, and other -isms, and a lot of people fled from those as far and as fast as they could, so they could create Culture in Freedom.

It is this Freedom: freedom from commercials and commercialism, that the Powers that Be hate.

[last1standing]

5. Hooray for Vanilla!

Why have all these furrin' flavors when we got vanilla?

This is nothing more than a hit piece on diversity. The racism and xenophobia aren't even hidden in this article. Keep watching as the election grows closer for more propaganda like this to create paranoia in our society for anyone who isn't white. Nothing gets the masses to vote repub like some good old fashioned fear.