Communities, Networks and Niche Societies

One common area addressed in media studies is that of a move towards a more niche media, or rather one that focuses on many niche markets as opposed to one or a few mass ones. Television channels have branched off to cater for smaller markets with specified interests (the documentary channel, the news channel, the golf channel, etc). The Internet has never really operated in any other way, other than to cater for whatever niche exists, no matter how small the group it is catering to. With these disparate niche groups, networking becomes key in connecting those who are part of that niche but have not yet found it. This networking of niche groups s in turn creating different kinds of communities (which I will discuss further in a future post).

My point here really is to highlight the change not in user behaviour, but moreso in the way the media itself functions as a result of these shifts. Through user power (as gifted to us by the Internet and Web 2.0 in particular) and mass collaboration of interest groups we can start to see a move away from the traditional one-way flow of the media towards a new environment of “mediation” (Lievrouw & Livingstone, 2008), where information can be produced, distributed and consumed by anyone anywhere and the tools are there only to mediate. Taking this further, where television once talked at us from an external point of view, now, through the Internet, we can talk to each other. No longer satisfied with being addressed as one mass society, media users are now demanding, and are getting, new networked (niche) societies. This changes the ebbs and flows of the Internet at the same time as, “mediation […] enables, supports or facilitates communicative action and representation”.

The development of niche networks and niche media, however, does not spell the end for mainstream media, as pointed out by Henry Jenkins, because the niche media, at least for the moment, still needs to be validated by the mainstream media. For example, a blog may raise an issue but it is only when the mainstream media highlight this issue that change occurs. As Jenkins says, “[b]roadcasting provides the common culture, and the Web offers more localized channels for responding to that culture”. This is a very interesting point to me but I would like to hear some of your thoughts about it.