A QUT media scholar says as contemporary media industries have been thoroughly revolutionised by digitisation, our ways of thinking and talking about those industries must be transformed as well.
Professor Amanda Lotz from the QUT School of Communication and Digital Media Research Centre and Professor Timothy Havens from the University of Iowa are the authors of a new book - Media Industries in the Digital Age: How Media Businesses Work Today (Wiley) – which examines the current and future media landscape.
“The Internet has changed media as much as the invention of the printing press in the 15th Century, forever transforming the consumer experience and business models while bringing in a host of new players,” Professor Lotz said.
“Nothing in the media stays still for long but digital technologies that emerged at the beginning of this century have profoundly disrupted long-practiced norms of almost every media industry. However, the truly transformational changes that shifted playing fields are due to internet distribution by enabling new sectors to emerge and challenging established players.
“The ability to create media and self-publish or distribute those creations via platforms like YouTube, Spotify, Substack, Bandcamp, and app stores – without first earning funding and approval from a media organization – has profoundly changed opportunities for media makers and consumers.
“This fundamental shift, along with the increasing role of social media as ‘news’ platforms, has redirected the priorities of advertisers and where they put their money.
“Mass media reach of 20th Century levels can no longer be expected for traditional outlets and today’s hits can’t support the business in the way previously common.”
Professor Lotz said commercial media had long been dominated by complex-professional structures: large organisations that had strong gatekeeping powers due to technological and economic limits on distribution which gave them power through scarcity.
“That set up has been turned on its head and we now see what we call a simple-professional organization – single traders or very small enterprises building media outlets and brands outside of the large firms that have long dominated the sector,” she said.
“‘YouTubers’ or ‘influencers’ are the best known but only make up a component of the sector. Whether videos on YouTube, videogames on Steam or app stores, or newsletters/blogs on Substack or proprietary websites, much of the media consumed and monetised today is created outside of the legacy complex-professional structures.
“The ability to create media and self-publish or distribute those creations – without first earning funding and approval from a media organisation – has been a game changer. The media monetisation services like YouTube that distribute content without licensing it are unprecedented in our conceptualisation of media sector operations and wield considerable power over creators and society that require greater study and understanding.”
The authors also examine the impact of social media and its role in media industries of the digital age, especially how they now draw advertising funding out of sectors such as journalism and commercial television.
“Social media offer advertisers different tools for buying attention, and because social media services do not pay for the content that attracts the attention they sell, they have a much easier path to profitability,” Professor Lotz said.
“While some ‘old’ media have successfully adapted to internet disruption, we anticipate the implications of the emerging ‘metaverse’ media experiences and the key issues generative AI poses to the sector.
“Contemporary differences in media industry operation vary by sector, but meaningful patterns can be identified by considering how advertiser, consumer, or government funding sets different priorities.”
Media Industries in the Digital Age: How Media Businesses Work Today (Wiley) is available for purchase online.
Main image: Professor Amanda Lotz
Media contact:
Amanda Weaver
QUT Media
07 3138 2361 / 0407 585 901 (After Hours)
