The Internet used to be something you read. In 2018, it will officially be something you watch.
Two decades after the web posed an unexpectedly serious challenge to television in the 1990s, we can now comfortably say television has won. It has conquered the internet, the media, and thereby the world.
Not just as a medium, but as a discourse which has deeply affected our understanding of ourselves and the world. Its linear, centralized, emotion-driven, and photography-centered form has prevailed over the decentralized, text-based, and reason-driven form of the World Wide Web, which was itself inspired by books and newspapers.
Not only is there a lot more investment into video journalism, television’s business models, broadcast or cable, are also dominating: from video ads before or in the middle of a clip, product placement, and monthly subscriptions. This is while digital or analogue ads for text-based media are plummeting.
Even criticism against “pivot to video” is more about “pivot to short videos” rather than videos altogether. Everybody is spending big cash on longform videos.
There are other similarities. Just as TV producers need cable or broadcast distributors to reach their audience, digital media now increasingly need social platforms such as Facebook or YouTube instead of their own websites or mobile apps. This wasn’t the case when the press had their own printing facilities or distribution systems.
Ideas such as “prime time” have also migrated from television to social media. You can’t tweet or post on Facebook or Instagram anytime any more. It has to happen at certain times to receive most engagement and thereby visibility.
This is all in addition to recent ideas such as YouTube TV, or Twitter and Facebook’s live broadcasts of conventional TV products. These are quite literally a re-imagination of television in the age of mobile internet.
The internet has become a neo-TV and we’re going to face the scary consequences of a TV-dominated society, some of which Neil Postman explained in his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death.
Television, old or new, is the medium of our post-Enlightenment era when text and reason are substituted by images and emotions. To be brief and blunt, Trump is just the beginning.
Hossein Derakhshan is a journalist and analyst, and coauthor of Information Disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making.
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Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
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Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
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Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
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Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
An Xiao Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
L. Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Richard J. Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future