Life in a Bubble

The threat of niche media channels is that people will tune into channels that let them hear what they want to hear. Beyond self-selecting into a specific demographic, media users will form small bubbles – groups of common interest and point of view. As Benkler’s devil’s advocate puts it, “Individuals will view the world through millions of personally customized windows.” Nature lovers will read about nature, gamers will read about video games, and so on. This generic sitcom will die and will be replaced by shows targeting to small, specific groups of people. The cynic in me tells me that housewives will only watch cooking shows, nerds will only watch shows about nerds, gays will only watch shows with a gay lead character.

The most frightening implication of the fragmentation of the mass media is that, as Benkler phrased the argument, “there will be no more public sphere.” Democrats will teach news from the left and Republicans news from the right – or more precisely, people will seek out opinions that match their own existing biases as exactly as possible, taking the path of least intellectual resistance. There will be no asking a friend, “Did you hear about so-and-so on the news last night?”, because what is on my news may be nothing like what is on my news.

I deeply hope that people will not be so narrow-minded as to put on blinders to all events outside a small horizon. The networks that were supposed to connect us all threaten to trap each of us in his or her little box. Of course, it is only natural to tend to gravitate towards topics of interest. I enjoy reading the “news” on Slashdot much more than I would from a generic news source, not only because the discussion, but because the site is technology-oriented (with motto “News For Nerds. Stuff that Matters”), and so delivers news I find more relevant and interesting. This doesn’t mean that I ignore events of global and political consequence in favor of reading a game review. Nevertheless, no matter how much I’d want to exit my box, I wouldn’t read art because I find them incredibly boring.

The sad truth is that few people want diverse, intellectually stimulating content. People want to be told what they already believe and know. Mass media told people what they wanted to hear through bland and inoffensive material that catered to the proverbial least common denominator. Now, the Internet revolution will one-up mass media by telling each person precisely what he or she wants to hear. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 predicted this:

“Don't step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, … all the minor minor minorities with their ears to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca.”

But is it a crime to give people what they want? What is it for a media conglomerate to tell a teenager that MTV is cultural rubbish and instead force him to watch a documentary on Bach? The viewer is happy, and the company gets ad revenue. Why rock the boat? The minority of people who want to think and be challenged and expand their interests will form their own niche. The short film EPIC predicted that the new generation of literati niche would news that was “deeper, broader, and more nuanced than anything before” while the rest of the world wallows in their own ignorance with content that is “a collection of trivia,” narrow and sensational.