Social media and the advertiser-funded internet encourages narrowcasting, to the detriment of users and society.
The main trend in western media for the last thirty-odd years is the narrowing of media target audience groups. It used to be that in a technological paradigm where spreading information was relatively more expensive and relatively slower compared to today meant that the most stable, and often most profitable, business plan in media was to appeal to a broad audience with balanced coverage and an ad supported sales model to subsidise the price for the consumers. The standard newspaper model of appealing to a national or local demographic and using ads to make the paper cheaper to buy at a newsstand, which was a more important source of revenue than subscriptions, is one where the business is incentivised to try to reach the broadest audience it can. The internet and social media has flipped that on its head; now the most stable model for a media business is to find a niche and build a hardcore following funded by subscribers.
Business models are to blame here, as the spying practically all our technology and all our platforms use to keep track of us enables sophisticated models of what a person might be interested in coupled with proxies for socio-economic status means that advertisers can tailor their ads to the consumers most likely to buy their products. Lots of social media advertising is either very specific, like an influencer’s own brand of cosmetics, or very broad, like VPNs. The reason is that the influencer is able to market directly to pre-existing fans, and that the marginal cost of selling another VPN subscription is virtually nil, respectively. The problem with these narrow bases formed by advertising incentives is how it discourages broad appeal, and a common narrative.
If you spend your time on modern social media then the trend du jour could differ greatly depending on your interests. Your football interested friend’s feed is all about the latest transfer news while your fashion interested friend’s feed is all about the Met gala. In an old newspaper your would have to go through the headline stories to get to sports and fashion, but today you can be well informed in one area without it meaning that you will be well informed in any other area. By atomising our source of information to appeal to advertisers, social media is undermining the social connection and connectivity it claims to foster.
The internet gives people access to more information than ever, but it has also perversely introduced an economic model where the most profitable move for platforms is to silo individuals and communities and discourage overlap so as to make advertising easier. The only real alternative to the ad-supported model is a subscription model, but that also encourages you to play to the base rather than to reach for a broader audience.
Misinformation and the growth of the conspiracy theory movements is not due to some metaphysical change, or some moral failing on the part of modern youth, it is a direct and preventable consequence of a haphazard system which sprang up before our societies had the chance to decide how we would want the internet to work. Societies are healthier when there is a common frame of reference, a common reality. Broadcasting media creates that whilst narrowcasting media undermines it.
If you liked this post you can read a previous post about here or the rest of my writings here. It'd mean a lot to me if you recommended the blog to a friend or coworker. Come back next Monday for a new post!
I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
Comments