The Medium Vanishes?

The recent AOL/Time-Warner merger invites us to re-think therelationships amongst content producers, distributors, and audiences. Worth an estimated $300 billion (US), the largest Internet transaction ofall time, the deal is 45 times larger than the AOL/Netscape merger ofNovember 1998 (Ledbetter). Additionally, the Time Warner/EMI merger, whichfollowed hard on the heels of the AOL/Time-Warner deal and is itself worth$28 billion (US), created the largest content rights organisation in themusic industry. The joining of the Internet giant (AOL) with what wasalready the world's largest media corporation (Time-Warner-EMI) hasinspired some exuberant reactions. An Infoworld column proclaimed:The AOL/Time-Warner merger signals the demise of traditional media companies and the ascendancy of 'new economy' media companies that will force any industry hesitant to adopt a complete electronic-commerce strategy to rethink and put itself on Internet time. (Saap & Schwarrtz)This comment identifies the distribution channel as the dominantcomponent of the "new economy" media. But this might not really be much ofan innovation. Indeed, the assumption of all industry observers is thatTime-Warner will provide broadband distribution (through its extensivecable holdings) as well as proprietary content for AOL. It is alsoexpected that Time-Warner will adopt AOL's strategy of seeking sponsorshipfor development projects as well as for content. However, both of thesephenomena -- merger and sponsorship -- are at least as old as radio. Itseems that the Internet is merely repeating an old industrial strategy. Nonetheless, one important difference distinguishes the Internet fromearlier media: its characterisation of the audience. Internet companiessuch as AOL and Microsoft tend towards a simple and simplistic media-centred view of the audience as market. I will show, however, that as theInternet assumes more of the traditional mass media functions, it will beforced to adopt a more sophisticated notion of the mass audience. Indeed, the Internet is currently the site in which audience definitionsborrowed from broadcasting are encountering and merging with definitionsborrowed from marketing. The Internet apparently lends itself to bothmodels. As a result, definitions of what the Internet does or is, and ofhow we should understand the audience, are suitably confused and opaque. And the behaviour of big Internet players, such as AOL and MSN, perfectlyreflects this confusion as they seem to careen between a view of theInternet as the new television and a contrasting view of the Internet asthe new shopping mall. Meanwhile, Internet users move in ways that mostobservers fail to capture. For example, Baran and Davis characterise mass communication as a processinvolving (1) an organized sender, (2) engaged in the distribution ofmessages, (3) directed toward a large audience. They argue thatbroadcasting fits this model whereas a LISTSERV does not because, eventhough the LISTSERV may have very many subscribers, its content isfiltered through a single person or Webmaster. But why is the Webmastersuddenly more determining than a network programmer or magazine editor? The distinction seems to grow out of the Internet's technologicalcharacteristics: it is an interactive pipeline, therefore its usenecessarily excludes the possibility of "broadcasting" which in turncauses us to reject "traditional" notions of the audience. However, if amedia organisation were to establish an AOL discussion group in order topromote Warner TV shows, for example, would not the resultingcommunication suddenly fall under the definition as set out by Baran andDavis? It was precisely the confusion around such definitions that caused theCRTC (Canada's broadcasting and telecommunications regulator) to holdhearings in 1999 to determine what kind of medium the Internet is. Unlike traditional broadcasting, Internet communication does indeedinclude the possibility of interactivity and niche communities. In thissense, it is closer to narrowcasting than to broadcasting even whilemaintaining the possibility of broadcasting. Hence, the nature of theaudience using the Internet quickly becomes muddy. While such muddinessmight have led us to sharpen our definitions of the audience, it seemsinstead to have led many to focus on the medium itself. For example,Morris & Ogan define the Internet as a mass medium because it addresses amass audience mediated through technology (Morris & Ogan 39). They divideproducers and audiences on the Internet into four groups: One-to-one asynchronous communication (e-mail);Many-to-many asynchronous communication (Usenet and News Groups);One-to-one, one-to-few, and one-to-many synchronous communication(topic groups, construction of an object, role-playing games, IRC chats,chat rooms);Asynchronous communication (searches, many-to-one, one-to-one, one to-many, source-receiver relations (Morris & Ogan 42-3) Thus, some Internet communication qualifies as mass communication whilesome does not. However, the focus remains firmly anchored on either thesender or the medium because the receiver --the audience -- is apparentlytoo slippery to define. When definitions do address the content distributed over the Net, theymake a distinction between passive reception and interactiveparticipation. As the World Wide Web makes pre-packaged content the norm,the Internet increasingly resembles a traditional mass medium. TimothyRoscoe argues that the main focus of the World Wide Web is not theproduction of content (and, hence, the fulfilment of the Internet'sdemocratic potential) but rather the presentation of already producedmaterial: "the dominant activity in relation to the Web is not producingyour own content but surfing for content" (Rosco 680). He concludes thatif the emphasis is on viewing material, the Internet will become a mediumsimilar to television. Within media studies, several models of the audience compete fordominance in the "new media" economy. Denis McQuail recalls howhistorically, the electronic media furthered the view of the audience as a"public". The audience was an aggregate of common interests. Withbroadcasting, the electronic audience was delocalised and sociallydecomposed (McQuail, Mass 212). According to McQuail, it was not a greatstep to move from understanding the audience as a dispersed "public" tothinking about the audience as itself a market, both for products and as acommodity to be sold to advertisers. McQuail defines this conception ofthe audience as an "aggregate of potential customers with a known social-economic profile at which a medium or message is directed" (McQuail, Mass221). Oddly though, in light of the emancipatory claims made for theInternet, this is precisely the dominant view of the audience in the "newmedia economy". Media Audience as MarketHow does the marketing model characterise the relationship betweenaudience and producer? According to McQuail, the marketing model linkssender and receiver in a cash transaction between producer and consumerrather than in a communicative relationship between equal interlocutors.Such a model ignores the relationships amongst consumers. Indeed, neitherthe effectiveness of the communication nor the quality of thecommunicative experience matters. This model, explicitly calculating andimplicitly manipulative, is characteristically a "view from the media"(McQuail, Audience 9). Some scholars, when discussing new media, no longer even refer toaudiences. They speak of users or consumers (Pavick & Dennis). The logicof the marketing model lies in the changing revenue base for mediaindustries. Advertising-supported media revenues have been dropping sincethe early 1990s while user-supported media such as cable, satellite,online services, and pay-per-view, have been steadily growing (Pavlik &Dennis 19). In the Internet-based media landscape, the audience is arevenue stream and a source of consumer information. As Bill Gates says,it is all about "eyeballs". In keeping with this view, AOL hopes toattract consumers with its "one-stop shopping and billing". And Internetproviders such as MSN do not even consider their subscribers as"audiences". Instead, they work from a consumer model derived from thecomputer software industry: individuals make purchases without the sellerproviding content or thematising the likely use of the software. Theanalogy extends well beyond the transactional moment. The common practiceof prototyping products and beta-testing software requires theparticipation of potential customers in the product development cycle notas a potential audience sharing meanings but as recalcitrant individualsable to uncover bugs. Hence, media companies like MTV now use the Internetas a source of sophisticated demographic research. Recently, MTV Asiaestablished a Website as a marketing tool to collect preferences andaudience profiles (Slater 50). The MTV audience is now part of the productdevelopment cycle. Another method for getting information involves the"cookie" file that automatically provides a Website with information aboutthe user who logs on to a site (Pavick & Dennis). Simultaneously, though, both Microsoft and AOL have consciously shiftedfrom user-subscription revenues to advertising in an effort to make onlineservices more like television (Gomery; Darlin). For example, AOL has longtried to produce content through its own studios to generate sufficientlyheavy traffic on its Internet service in order to garner profitableadvertising fees (Young). However, AOL and Microsoft have had littlesuccess in providing content (Krantz; Manes). In fact, faced with theAOL/Time-Warner merger, Microsoft declared that it was in the softwarerather than the content business (Trott). In short, they are caughtbetween a broadcasting model and a consumer model and their behaviour ischaracteristically erratic. Similarly, media companies such as Time-Warner have failed to establishtheir own portals. Indeed, Time-Warner even abandoned attempts to createlarge Websites to compete with other Internet services when it shut downits Pathfinder site (Egan). Instead it refocussed its Websites so as toblur the line between pitching products and covering them (Reid; Lyons).Since one strategy for gaining large audiences is the creation of portals -- large Websites that keep surfers within the confines of a singlecompany's site by providing content -- this is the logic behind theAOL/Time-Warner merger though both companies have clearly beenunsuccessful at precisely such attempts. AOL seems to hope that Time-Warner will act as its content specialist, providing the type ofcompelling material that will make users want to use AOL, whereas Time-Warner seems to hope that AOL will become its privileged pipeline to thehearts and minds of untold millions. Neither has a coherent view of theaudience, how it behaves, or should behave. Consequently, their effortshave a distinctly "unmanaged" and slighly inexplicable air to them, asthough everyone were simultaneously hopeful and clueless. While one might argue that the stage is set to capitalise on the audienceas commodity, there are indications that the success of such an approachis far from guaranteed. First, the AOL/Time-Warner/EMI transaction, merelyby existing, has sparked conflicts over proprietary rights. For example,the Recording Industry Association of America, representing Sony,Universal, BMG, Warner and EMI, recently launched a $6.8 billion lawsuitagainst MP3.com -- an AOL subsidiary -- for alleged copyright violations.Specifically, MP3.com is being sued for selling digitized music over theInternet without paying royalties to the record companies (Anderson). Asimilar lawsuit has recently been launched over the issue of re-broadcasting television programs over the Internet. The major US networkshave joined together against Canadian Internet company iCravetv for theunlawful distribution of content. Both the iCravetv and the MP3.com casesshow how dominant media players can marshal their forces to protectproprietary rights in both content and distribution. Since software and media industries have failed to recreate the Internetin the image of traditional broadcasting, the merger of the dominantplayers in each industry makes sense. However, their simultaneous failureto secure proprietary rights reflects both the competitive nature of the"new media economy" and the weakness of the marketing view of theaudience. Media Audience as PublicIt is often said that communication produces social cohesion. From suchcohesion communities emerge on which political or social orders can beconstructed. The power of social cohesion and attachment to group symbolscan even create a sense of belonging to a "people" or nation (Deutsch). Sociologist Daniel Bell described how the mass media helped create anAmerican culture simply by addressing a large enough audience. Hesuggested that on the evening of 7 March 1955, when one out of every twoAmericans could see Mary Martin as Peter Pan on television, a kind ofsocial revolution occurred and a new American public was born. "It was thefirst time in history that a single individual was seen and heard at thesame time by such a broad public" (Bell, quoted in Mattelart 72). Onecould easily substitute the 1953 World Series or the birth of little Rickyon I Love Lucy. The desire to document such a process recurs with the Internet. Internetcommunities are based on the assumption that a common experience "creates"group cohesion (Rheingold; Jones). However, as a mass medium, the Internethas yet to find its originary moment, that event to which all couldcredibly point as the birth of something genuine and meaningful. A recentcontender was the appearance of Paul McCartney at the refurbished CavernClub in Liverpool. On Tuesday, 14 December 1999, McCartney played to apacked club of 300 fans, while another 150,000 watched on an outdoorscreen nearby. MSN arranged to broadcast the concert live over theInternet. It advertised an anticipated global audience of 500 million.Unfortunately, there was such heavy Internet traffic that the system wasunable to accommodate more than 3 million people. Servers in the UnitedKingdom were so congested that many could only watch the choppy videostream via an American link. The concert raises a number of questions about "virtual" events. We candraw several conclusions about measuring Internet audiences. While 3million is a sizeable audience for a 20 minute transmission, byadvertising a potential audience of 500 million, MSN showed remarkablypoor judgment of its inherent appeal. The Internet is the first medium that allows access to unprocessedmaterial or information about events to be delivered to an audience withneither the time constraints of broadcast media nor the space limitationsof the traditional press. This is often cited as one of thecharacteristics that sets the Internet apart from other media. This feedsthe idea of the Internet audience as a participatory, democratic public.For example, it is often claimed that the Internet can foster democraticparticipation by providing voters with uninterpreted information aboutcandidates and issues (Selnow). However, as James Curran argues, the veryprocess of distributing uninterrupted, unfiltered information, at least inthe case of traditional mass media, represents an abdication of a centraldemocratic function -- that of watchdog to power (Curran). In the end,publics are created and maintained through active and continuousparticipation on the part of communicators and audiences. The Internet holds together potentially conflicting communicativerelationships within the same technological medium (Merrill & Ogan).Viewing the audience as co-participant in a communicative relationshipmakes more sense than simply focussing on the Internet audience as eitheran aggregate of consumers or a passively constructed symbolic public. Audience as RelationshipMany scholars have shifted attention from the producer to the audience asan active participant in the communication process (Ang; McQuail,Audience). Virginia Nightingale goes further to describe the audience aspart of a communicative relationship. Nightingale identifies four factorsin the relationship between audiences and producers that emphasize theirco-dependency. The audience and producer are engaged in a symbioticrelationship in which consumption and use are necessary but not sufficientexplanations of audience relations. The notion of the audience invokes, atleast potentially, a greater range of activities than simply use orconsumption. Further, the audience actively, if not always consciously,enters relationships with content producers and the institutions thatgovern the creation, distribution and exhibition of content (Nightingale149-50). Others have demonstrated how this relationship between audiences andproducers is no longer the one-sided affair characterised by the marketingmodel or the model of the audience as public. A global culture is emergingbased on critical viewing skills. Kavoori calls this a reflexive mode bornof an increasing familiarity with the narrative conventions of news and anawareness of the institutional imperatives of media industries (Kavoori).Given the sophistication of the emergent global audience, a theory thatreduces new media audiences to a set of consumer preferences or behaviourswill inevitably prove inadequate, just as it has for understandingaudience behavior in old media. Similarly, by ignoring those elements ofaudience behavior that will be easily transported to the Web, we run therisk of idealising the Internet as a medium that will create an illusory,pre-technological public. ConclusionThere is an understandable confusion between the two models of theaudience that appear in the examples above. The "new economy" will haveto come to terms with sophisticated audiences. Contrary to IBM's claimthat they want to "get to know all about you", Internet users do not seemparticularly interested in becoming a perpetual source of marketinformation. The fragmented, autonomous audience resists attempts to lockit into proprietary relationships. Internet hypesters talk about creating publics and argue that theInternet recreates the intimacy of community as a corrective to theatomisation and alienation characteristic of mass society. This faith inthe power of a medium to create social cohesion recalls the view of thetelevision audience as a public constructed by the common experience ofwatching an important event. However, MSN's McCartney concert indicatesthat creating a public from spectacle it is not a simple process. In fact,what the Internet media conglomerates seem to want more than anything isto create consumer bases. Audiences exist for pleasure and by the desire to be entertained. AsInternet media institutions are established, the cynical view of theaudience as a source of consumer behavior and preferences will inevitablygive way, to some extent, to a view of the audience as participant incommunication. Audiences will be seen, as they have been by other media,as groups whose attention must be courted and rewarded. Who knows, maybethe AOL/Time-Warner merger might, indeed, signal the new medium's comingof age. ReferencesAnderson, Lessley. "To Beam or Not to Beam. MP3.com Is Being Sued by theMajor Record Labels. Does the Digital Download Site Stand a Chance?"Industry Standard 31 Jan. 2000. .Ang, Ien. Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination.London: Methuen, 1985.Baran, Stanley, and Dennis Davis. Mass Communication Theory: Foundations,Ferment, and Future. 2nd ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth 2000.Curran, James. "Mass Media and Democracy Revisited." Mass Media andSociety. Eds. James Curran and Michael Gurevitch. 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Downes. (2000) The Medium Vanishes? The Resurrection of theMass Audience in the New Media Economy. M/C: A Journal of Media andCulture 3(1). ([your date of access]).