Introduction 7
the rise of mass participation in democratic elections that its originators simply could not envisage, recent innovations in digital technologies
cannot be fully mapped out via any straightforward models of cause and
effect. One particular example has become evident to me while writing
this book. At the turn of the century, a wide range of commentators
believed that the widespread adoption of digital devices such as cameras, laptop computers, and mobile phones, along with newly emerging
platforms to effortlessly distribute information, would give rise to a new
generation of “citizen” journalists, breaking down the barriers between
professionals and amateurs that had grown up in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries as the means of production had become ever more
expensive. Dan Gillmor famously described this transition to a grassroots journalism as the shift “from journalism as lecture to journalism
as a conversation”
16
and I, like many, welcomed the opportunity that
new innovations presented to a variety of people who wished to get involved in reporting their own circumstances and communities. What
none of us realised was another effect of this breakdown of barriers
to publication, that the simplicity of communicating with millions via
Twitter and Facebook would be even more effective in the service of
automated bots and trolls seeking not to report facts but to disseminate
fake news as widely as possible. As such, Chapter 1 posits a much more
complex approach to the issue of a media ecology which must never
forget the law of unintended consequences, particularly as developments
in artificial intelligence (or, more accurately, automation) will certainly
ripple outwards far beyond their original purposes.
Chapter 2 explores a major shift that has taken place within the media
ecosystem within which journalism operates, whereby financial rewards
have moved from the producer to the distributor. How we get the news
has traditionally been a somewhat dry subject, and media producers
have always relied on complex (and usually expensive) systems of distribution. There are plenty of historical examples where such systems have
existed in a symbiotic relationship with media organisations, whether
it is train and transport networks for print or broadcast infrastructure
for television and radio. In the twenty-first century, however, the digital duopoly of Google and Facebook realised that the dissemination of
news online was ripe for disruption via its model of financing journalism through advertising. Using automation on a massive level, these two
companies were able to drive down the costs of advertising and thus
monopolise digital spend to a level never seen by the older media monopolies, in part because legacy corporations were still trying to maximise
the investments they had made in print and broadcast even as more and
more readers were shifting to purely digital platforms. The disruption
caused by big tech is another example of unintended consequences, in
that while frequently seeking to avoid being labelled as media companies (because of the additional regulations this will bring), sites such as
the rise of mass participation in democratic elections that its originators simply could not envisage, recent innovations in digital technologies
cannot be fully mapped out via any straightforward models of cause and
effect. One particular example has become evident to me while writing
this book. At the turn of the century, a wide range of commentators
believed that the widespread adoption of digital devices such as cameras, laptop computers, and mobile phones, along with newly emerging
platforms to effortlessly distribute information, would give rise to a new
generation of “citizen” journalists, breaking down the barriers between
professionals and amateurs that had grown up in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries as the means of production had become ever more
expensive. Dan Gillmor famously described this transition to a grassroots journalism as the shift “from journalism as lecture to journalism
as a conversation”
16
and I, like many, welcomed the opportunity that
new innovations presented to a variety of people who wished to get involved in reporting their own circumstances and communities. What
none of us realised was another effect of this breakdown of barriers
to publication, that the simplicity of communicating with millions via
Twitter and Facebook would be even more effective in the service of
automated bots and trolls seeking not to report facts but to disseminate
fake news as widely as possible. As such, Chapter 1 posits a much more
complex approach to the issue of a media ecology which must never
forget the law of unintended consequences, particularly as developments
in artificial intelligence (or, more accurately, automation) will certainly
ripple outwards far beyond their original purposes.
Chapter 2 explores a major shift that has taken place within the media
ecosystem within which journalism operates, whereby financial rewards
have moved from the producer to the distributor. How we get the news
has traditionally been a somewhat dry subject, and media producers
have always relied on complex (and usually expensive) systems of distribution. There are plenty of historical examples where such systems have
existed in a symbiotic relationship with media organisations, whether
it is train and transport networks for print or broadcast infrastructure
for television and radio. In the twenty-first century, however, the digital duopoly of Google and Facebook realised that the dissemination of
news online was ripe for disruption via its model of financing journalism through advertising. Using automation on a massive level, these two
companies were able to drive down the costs of advertising and thus
monopolise digital spend to a level never seen by the older media monopolies, in part because legacy corporations were still trying to maximise
the investments they had made in print and broadcast even as more and
more readers were shifting to purely digital platforms. The disruption
caused by big tech is another example of unintended consequences, in
that while frequently seeking to avoid being labelled as media companies (because of the additional regulations this will bring), sites such as