Skip to content

Internet’s Impact on Print Media Only Part of the Story

Internet’s Impact on Print Media Only Part of the Story

January 7, 2015 SVadmin Comments 3 comments

Playwright Alena Smith, describing the faded fortunes of American playwrights, notices that the impact of the Internet extends far beyond the print media:

This is what happens to “old media,” after all — new media rise up and displace them. We are clearly in the midst of such a conflict right now, as the internet has seized control of the global cultural economy, upending established industries and eroding formerly paramount institutions from book publishers to the music industry to print newspapers and magazines to now, finally, even the mighty television networks. Rough times lie ahead for the television industry, and these challenges will inevitably impact its writers.;

Side note: We’ve joined this revolution by dropping our cable service several years ago (saving ourselves over $100/mo). Now we do all of our “television” viewing online, Internet only.

Smith continues:

As internet pioneer turned techo-skeptic Jaron Lanier starkly puts it in his 2010 screed You Are Not a Gadget, “Once file sharing shrinks Hollywood as it is now shrinking the music companies, the option of selling a script for enough money to make a living will be gone.” Lanier’s warning may seem hyperbolic, but unrestricted file sharing is surely what undermined the music industry, and it’s what’s hurting the world of journalism, too. In a sense, the internet caused the unbundling of both the music album and the print newspaper — and in doing so, severely damaged both industries. The trouble comes down to simple economics of supply and demand in the digital age. When infinite copies of a work of art can be made and distributed globally in an instant, supply is limitless, and the value of an individual copy gets pushed down to zero. But of course, the original cost of creating a work of art in the first place, for the creator, does not change a bit. Writers still need to eat, pay rent, and feed their families. They just can’t necessarily rely on profits from their actual work to compensate them for that endeavor. This is how a profession gets demonetized. This is how a job — a living — gets reduced to a hobby.

Notice too Smith’s perspective on net neutrality:

The platform where nearly all of culture now takes place is, in fact, owned and controlled by a handful of incredibly powerful, borderline-monopolistic corporations. And these are the companies, like Amazon, now getting into “the scripted game.” We’ve already seen the types of problems that can arise under this new arrangement — for example, in the recent conflict between Amazon and the publishing company Hachette. In an era where Amazon is responsible for 65 percent of all online book sales, and 41 percent of book sales, period, their thuggish negotiation tactics can be potentially calamitous for a publishing company, and devastating for individual writers. If this is how Amazon treats the writers of books, how well can we expect them, as producers or distributors, to treat the writers of TV shows? Similar questions can be asked about any of the powerful new platform owners — in particular, the telecom companies that actually control the physical cables and routers through which all our media now travels. The fight for net neutrality is the fight to stop the internet from becoming a place where giant telecom companies are able to dictate terms to every creator who wishes to distribute content through their pipes. And screenwriters’ livelihoods depend on it.

Read the full article here: “You Can’t Make a Living: Digital Media, the End of TV’s Golden Age, and the Death Scene of the American Playwright“

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Blog, Economics

Post navigation

PREVIOUS
Best Headline in Today’s Union
NEXT
Je Suis Charlie

Join Our Mailing List

3 thoughts on “Internet’s Impact on Print Media Only Part of the Story”

  1. RL Crabb says:
    January 8, 2015 at 7:48 pm

    All true. The great unraveling has destroyed the ability to make a living under the rules we grew up with. I spent many years in the publishing business and never had a problem selling my work. After the turn of the century it had mostly dried up, and the last publisher I freelanced for dissolved his assets in 2006 because he knew it would be impossible to sell the business. This was also true of local book distributor Bud Plant. In the 80’s, Bud was the largest distributor of sci-fi, fantasy and comics in the US, but he sold off his stock a few years ago after the business had been for sale for over a year.
    When I attempted to find a publisher for my graphic novel last year, the friends I still have in the biz offered sympathy, but little else. I published through an online print on demand publisher and managed to sell enough to make my expenses back, but little else. (Which was okay with me. I never expected to get on the NY Times bestseller list.) This seems to be the norm with other artists I talk to. Some have done alright because they have built an audience. That was the case with my “Once Upon a Village” book. Having a strip in The Union really helped.

  2. RL Crabb says:
    January 9, 2015 at 8:24 am

    Here’s one of the new alternatives to traditional media… http://www.patreon.com/keefknight

  3. Don Pelton says:
    January 9, 2015 at 8:51 am

    RL: Thanks for your interesting comments. They reinforce the point of that article, which is a kind of eye-opener for me. Until recently I’ve been a sort of uncritical booster of all the changes wrought by the new Internet to the old media.

    But now — and especially with this article and your comments — I’m concerned about the downside.

    It’s important for creative types such as yourself to continue to do what you love. It’s worrisome if your only choice is between pursuing your craft as a “mere” hobby on the one hand, or seeking patrons (as in that link you just added) on the other.

    I suppose it’s not bad (in principle) to find new ways to “monetize” artistic creations, but if these new ways tend toward making artists slaves of monopolists, then we should all be worried.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

CLICK IMAGE BELOW FOR MORE INFORMATION

DONATE TO THE FOOD BANK OF NEVADA COUNTY

(CLICK IMAGE)

DONATE TO NEVADA COUNTY RELIEF FUND (click image below)

Subscribe to Sierra Voices Journal

Jack Kornfield: A Steady Heart in Time of Corona Virus (Part I)

Erika Lewis, Shaye Cohn, Craig Flory – Got A Mind To Ramble

“Everlasting Arms”

Tara Brach: A Steady Heart in Time of Corona Virus (Part II)

Recent Posts

  • Where to get abortion pills and how to use them
  • In Ukraine, Diplomacy Has Been Ruled Out
  • Why Am I Obsessed With Ukraine?
  • Is “Ukraine Losing Badly” ?
  • Bill Clinton Makes a Pathetic Attempt to Retroactively Justify His Decision to Expand NATO

Recent Comments

  • Putin in Media Myth and Reality: Which is Which? on Ukraine War: A Bonanza for the Arms Industry
  • SVadmin on Countdown to World War III?
  • Pratima Basu on Scenes From Our Weekend at Lake Tahoe
  • IN PRAISE OF WARRIORS, NOT WAR on Celebrated to Death: Memorial Day Is Killing Us
  • SVadmin on How Suzanne Simard changed our relationship to trees

Archives

  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • November 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • December 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • January 2014
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009

Categories

  • Abortion
  • Afghanistan
  • Aging
  • American Empire
  • Anti-Depressant
  • Arms Sales
  • Articles
  • Atlas Obscura
  • Authoritarianism
  • Black Lives
  • Black Lives Matter
  • Blog
  • Buddhism
  • Budget
  • Buskers
  • Capitalism
  • Carbon Offsets
  • Cartoon
  • China
  • Climate Change
  • Compassion
  • Constitution
  • Corona Virus
  • Corruption
  • Cosmology
  • Coup
  • COVID-19
  • Democracy
  • Depression
  • Disenfranchisement
  • Drought
  • Economics
  • Education
  • Election Fraud
  • Empire
  • Environment
  • Extinction
  • Farming
  • Fascism
  • Filibuster
  • Fire!
  • Food Insecurity
  • Foreign Policy
  • Forest Ecology
  • Forest Management
  • Fracking
  • Gardening
  • Gender
  • GOP
  • Great Movies
  • Groundwater
  • Halloween
  • Health Care
  • High Country News
  • History
  • Humor
  • Hunger
  • Idaho-Maryland Mine
  • Ignorance
  • Immigration
  • Indigenous Peoples' Day
  • Insects
  • Israel
  • Labor
  • Lobbying
  • Local
  • Lunar Influence
  • Marijuana
  • Masks
  • Medical Care
  • Men
  • Men's Issues
  • Mental Health
  • Middle Class
  • Military Industrial Complex
  • Mining
  • MMT
  • Modern Monetary Theory
  • Moral Obligations
  • Music
  • Native Americans
  • NATO
  • Neoliberalism
  • New Cold War
  • Nuclear War
  • Nutrition
  • Oligarchy
  • Palestine
  • Pandemic
  • Parenting
  • Peace
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Physics
  • Poetry
  • Police
  • Politics
  • Populism
  • Press
  • Race
  • Religion
  • Republican Derangement
  • Reviews
  • Revolution
  • Right-wing terrorism
  • Rights of Nature
  • Rise Gold
  • Rivers
  • Romance
  • Russia
  • Russiagate
  • Science
  • Slavery
  • Sleep
  • Smoke Inhalation
  • Student Debt
  • Summer
  • Technology
  • The Hartmann Report
  • Trump Virus
  • Tuba Skinny
  • Tyranny
  • Ukraine
  • Uncategorized
  • Unipolar vs. Multipolar
  • Vaccine Refusal
  • Vaccine Safety
  • Voting
  • War
  • War on Government
  • Water
  • Watersheds
  • Wells
  • Wildfires
  • Winter
  • Women's Issues
  • Work
  • Yemen

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
© 2022   All Rights Reserved.