WHO OWNS THE MEDIA?
One of the overarching — and overwhelming — traits of the social media revolution is the fact that billions of media owners have emerged thanks to the opportunity to run a social media page, profile, channel, whatever. PR companies must be aware of who those people are.
Of course, this development has occurred against another intriguing merger that has already materialized — that of traditional media with “traditional online media,” a.k.a. their websites.
Traditional media have been dependent on their websites for a long time now. Even the most prominent international newspaper has been relying for its survival much more on its website than on its print edition.
Many surviving press outlets exist solely thanks to their websites because a print medium is not a dynamic media platform updated by the minute. Plus, it is much more susceptible to bankruptcy for purely economic reasons.
Of course, this first merger of traditional media with their websites has yet to go smoothly. One of the gravest mistakes has been the failure to adapt identical content to the different environments.
Even today, as they are struggling for survival, many of the traditional media, regardless of the merger with their online divisions, still copy-paste their print stories instead of adapting them for online (not to mention the need to adjust to the social platforms!). Luckily, if the merger with their online outlet has materialized when they hire experts, they can adapt their writing and publishing style pretty fast.
It’s not limited to newspapers — it’s the same with TV and radio. There is hardly a decent radio station that doesn’t have a proper website that’s updated regularly.
And what is the effect? The emergence of billions of social media users owning media. However, this has not eclipsed concerns over the ownership of traditional media gone digital — in developed countries where media is bought or already owned by major corporations and in the developing world, including fledging new democracies, where media often gets snatched up by ruthless oligarchs.
Yet in the new media realm, regardless of their buyouts, even large corporations or hefty oligarchs can hardly boast 100 percent control over the media content of their outlets simply because access to that media’s online platform cannot be limited only to them.
Because if a present-day media outlet isn’t interactive, if it doesn’t give people the opportunity to debate on any topic or readers the ability to express opinions differing from the position of the publisher, that medium is going downhill, at least from a purely financial point of view. Nobody is going to read it anymore.
Even in post-Communist Eastern Europe, which has become notorious for its oligarchs, one can hardly think of a media outlet banning differing opinions as supplements (comments) to the main news stories that outlet publishes. A media outlet like that has no future.
Of course, on the other hand, the evident downside is that the ownership of media is increasingly influencing editorial policies.
The First Amendment of the US Constitution that ensures freedom of speech was adopted a little over two centuries ago, yet it seems as if that happened light years away — because today’s media doesn’t have much in common with the press that existed back then in America and Britain.
Regardless of how ruthless of a media owner you might be, the more staunchly your outlet focuses on defending and promoting the owner’s business or political interests, the more insignificant that outlet will become and the less readership it will have.
A media outlet like that could still have many readers, clicks, likes, etc., but it must be more trustworthy. The main thing the media is supposed to sell is trust.
With solely traditional media, there is still an opportunity to do that, to propagate your interests and nothing else. Say a multimillionaire buys a couple of newspapers or a TV channel somewhere in the world and starts promoting his or her actions or products in those papers or channels.
OK, good job. However, today's readers and viewers have other channels for information and usually prefer them. The reader will not rely solely on those papers and TV channels to stay adequately informed about a topic.
Even if a corporate or oligarchy owner of a media outlet isn’t interested in making a profit from it, they are still interested in their outlet being perceived as trustworthy.
The point is that in the online environment, and especially now in the social media environment, there is no way for a media outlet to solely feature the agenda of its owner.
The social media environment is bound to force that owner to allow people to react, interact, and share their views and opinions, whether commenting on the website or Facebook.
That’s one great advantage of the social media era.
Excerpt from Maxim Behar's New book The Global PR Revolution, published by Allworth Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster.
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