2006, the year of p2p
p2p news / p2pnet: A theme p2pnet hammered last year centred
on the fact the traditional vested interest corporate media no longer
rule – that people who use the Net are their own reporters, telling
each other what’s happening almost minute by minute as it happens.
Put another way, control over the manner
in which individuals and groups find out what’s happening in the
world and pass their news along is being wrested – and we do
mean wrested – from the entertainment industry by p2p – peer-to-peer,
people-to-people, applications and techniques.
Until the Net came along, companies, and
associated enterprises, which own the major record labels and movie
studios were solely in charge of what you saw and heard (and in many
cases, believed) at national and international levels.
But now, significant amounts of
information and data are passed to anyone with a computer and a Net
account by others with computers and Net accounts, completely by-
passing corporate communications vehicles and their self-interested
versions of what’s news, and what isn’t.
The term ‘blogosphere’ is now all the
rage but although blogs, blogging and bloggers have certainly been
responsible for much of the spread of information, they’re far from
being the only means. Other ways we communicate with each other
include news web sites, vlogs, podcasts, chat, IM, hand-helds, look-
and-listen mobil phones, and so on. These new p2p talk-tools are
taking over from the TV sets, mainstream newspapers and radios of
yesteryear.
Meanwhile, the central, all-abiding
problem for the people who own the old media is: how to get penetrate
and cash in on the new?
“With this explosion of citizen
reporting, the relationship between producer and consumer has to
realign itself,” says the BBC, going on, “As a
result, the challenge to content industries and mainstream media has
been to think about how to ensure everyone has access to quality and
trusted sources of news and information.”
Actually, thanks to the Net, everyone
who’s online now already has “access to quality and trusted sources
of news and information” for the first time. What the BBC story
really means is: the mainstream media dinosaurs are now desperately
trying to figure how to regain at least partial control so they don’t
end up in the tar pits and, “They also have to grapple with sticky
questions such as who owns what, and who has the right to share
content and re-create something with it in this converging world.”
Corporate Copyright Control and Digital
Management Restriction, in other words.
Meanwhile, “coupled with a high-speed
network, these media tools could do much to enhance participation in
community and political life,” the Beeb says, going on to quote
Boston city councillor, John Tobin as saying that by the 2008
presidential elections, “most politicians in the US will vlog or die
in the public eye.”
In Britain, “as we said goodbye to 2005,
65.9% or 16.5 million UK households were watching digital TV.
Broadband is within reach of nearly 99% of the country, and now makes
up 57.4% of all net connections compared with 42.6% for dial-up.The
UK has long worried about the relationship between government, media
and the public.
“That still leaves swathes of the nation
digitally excluded, though. This year will see much more convergence
around traditional media such as TV, and broadband which could serve
to plug this hole” and, “Some might argue that the remaining ties
binding government, media and the public will be eroded further by
the decentralisation of media.”
Some might indeed argue that.
“Clearly there is an appetite to be
involved with the production of news – the capturing of moments that
have left their indelible watermark on history, big or small.,” says
the Beeb. “This needs support and nurturing. It also needs to be
inspiring and relevant.”
And, “To that end, it will be interesting
to see what former journalist Dan Gillmor’s newly announced non-
profit Center for Citizen Media achieves in the coming year.”
It’ll also be interesting to sees how all
the other blog, vlogs, podcasting, news and other sites find each
other and interact; and, how the corporate communications industry
deals with the fact that many of its components are no longer
relevant in the 21st century.
face="Courier New,Courier,Monaco">Also See:
BBC –
The year of the digital citizen, January 2, 2006
