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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
One of the not-funny ironies of the 21st century has been that everything we thought was social media is actually just mass media, except it’s terrible and broken. Luckily, journalists and creators are finally figuring out how to leave the old media models behind and enter the future.
The term “mass media” became popular in the 1920s to describe pop culture in the age of industrial production. Mass-produced books, movies and radio shows created a paradigm for audiences where thousands or even millions of people could experience the same exact piece of media at the same time. Before the 20th century, most people experienced their entertainment live, in theatres, bars and concert halls, where the performance was always slightly different. But a movie or radio show was the same for everyone, no matter when or where you experienced it. You could buy standardised media products for the masses, just like shoes or cars.
Social media didn’t change this formula. Platforms such as X, Facebook and TikTok were made for mass consumption. Every post, video and livestream is a product aimed at the broadest possible audience. Yes, you can target your media at certain demographics if you like, or create filter bubbles. But the whole reason why follower counts matter is because we are still in a mass media mindset, looking to see who can deliver content to the largest number of people. That isn’t “social” anything. It’s mass production under a different name.
What if we tried to make media that was truly social, without AI slop and political scapegoating? One possibility is something called cosy media, which refers to apps or other content designed to help you connect with small groups of friends, often in a friendly, calming environment. Imagine the media equivalent of meeting up with friends to knit or play cards and talk beside the fire.
The game Animal Crossing, with its low-stakes missions and cute, natural setting, is an iconic cosy-media experience. App developers are trying to reproduce that aesthetic in social apps too – anything from a group chat to an online book club can be cosy. But it isn’t just about aesthetics. A cosy social app is designed to limit your social interactions with random strangers, steering you towards trusted friends instead.
I have been using the photo-sharing app Retro a lot recently. Unlike Instagram, where Retro’s creators cut their teeth, Retro is primarily intended to be used among small groups of trusted friends. And there are no algorithms pushing videos from strangers into your feed. When I open Retro, I feel like I’m hearing from my pals rather than tuning into a fire hose of nonsense and advertising. Nothing I post there is intended to go beyond a few dozen people. Like a group chat app, Retro lets you choose who you want to talk to in a mindful way, rather than shouting into a giant algorithmic void.
We may need cosy media to soothe ourselves in a frenetic, scary time, but we also need news and analysis. Unfortunately, many of our trusted news sources are falling apart. Journalists in the US, where I live, are leaving media outlets such as The Washington Post, The New York Times and National Public Radio, citing diminishing resources and editorial freedoms.
Some, like economist Paul Krugman and technology researcher Molly White, have created successful, crowdfunded newsletters for their work. But most journalists don’t want to go solo: good reporting and analysis often require a solid team. That is why many are forming worker-owned co-operatives to start new publications, where they get institutional perks like lawyers, editors and helpful colleagues. This model is also good for consumers, who don’t want to search out and subscribe to dozens of individual newsletters just to catch up on current issues.
The worker-owned co-op model has already been a smashing success for several publications that started in the past couple of years. 404 Media [Paywall warning] is one such site, breaking news in the worlds of tech and science. Defector is a worker-owned co-op that covers sports and politics; Aftermath covers games; Hearing Things covers music. Flaming Hydra (to which I contribute) is a collective that publishes political analysis, interviews and cultural criticism. Coyote Media is about to launch in the San Francisco Bay area, to cover local news. And there are many other worker-owned local media co-ops forming.
Like mass media, social media often leads to loneliness and isolation. The point of cosy media and worker-owned publications is to rebuild community and trust. We might be witnessing the birth of a new information ecosystem, designed to help us understand the world again.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 27, @03:34PM (5 children)
Mrs. Turgid is on the likes of Farcebook for keeping in touch with friends and family. She also uses it for a few hobby things, and even so is pretty tired of the bad behaviour there and all the ridiculous memes and conspiracy stories. I'm not on anything like that. I do Signal for instant messaging select friends and that's about it.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 27, @03:48PM (4 children)
The thing about Farcebook is that it gives the illusion of a cosy space for interaction, but it's more like sitting at a table of a food court in a crowded shopping mall - all kinds of people passing by in earshot, all kinds of wares being hawked to you before you reach your friends and after you stand up from the table.
The trick is: how do we get a "free to use" site (because otherwise the majority of people won't use it) that doesn't attempt to maximize the value they obtain from our attention?
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by looorg on Sunday July 27, @04:05PM (2 children)
You could still bring in some money to cover site costs and such. Meta/Facebook made a profit of $62.36 billion last year. I think they covered their server costs a few times over if that is all they wanted to do. So we just need someone that is not a greedy dumb fuck to run the thing ...
That said I am not sure if the small boutique curated websites for "small" groups of friends is the wave of the social-media-future. They tried that before the current iteration and it failed, or it was monetized so heavily that it failed. It seems to me that "AI-chat-bots" that bring you all your answers that you want to hear. Combine it with a few "AI-agents" that trawl the net for things you like and you don't have to interact with another human at all. Friend-Computer is all the friend you need. No pesky humans needed. Behind all the layers tho is some creepy corporate that will want to monitor and monetize you. That thing is just to good to give up. It's just a matter of how you are going to hide that aspect from the users.
Also Soylentnews -- a head of the curve. Small. Curated. News. We might not all be friends. But we beat the curve this time ...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 27, @04:55PM (1 child)
> we just need someone that is not a greedy dumb fuck to run the thing ...
When you say "the thing" that implies a monopoly, or at least a very large enterprise. As you ascend into the rarefied air of global leaders, the density of greedy dumb fucks increases exponentially. Just ask Ben & Jerry.
>small boutique curated websites for "small" groups of friends is the wave of the social-media-future. They tried that before the current iteration and it failed
Failed to what? My small boutique website from 1997 is still chugging along, as irrelevant - yet available - on the global stage as ever. Lots of "small stuff" from 15-20-30 years ago is still "out there" neglected by their creators, but available and with the same potential to blossom into a social happening as ever.
>Combine it with a few "AI-agents" that trawl the net for things you like
Whether it's AI-agents or magazine editors (ala "The Devil Wears Prada"), are they trawling the ether for things you like, or presenting you with things that you will like after you see them?
>Friend-Computer is all the friend you need.
For a segment of the population (probably around 3%, I'd guess) that's as true as it ever has been. Maybe if "Friend-Computer" grows new capacities like interactive chat, robotic embodiment, etc. that may increase to as high as 30%, but there's a few Billion years of evolutionary development that has tuned most of humanity to crave social interaction of "their own kind" and until soft warm hairy smelly robots are passing the Turing test with flying colors, they're never going to satisfy everyone.
>Behind all the layers tho is some creepy corporate that will want to monitor and monetize you.
Same as it ever was. Part of what protects the current "Friend-Computer is all the friend you need" crowd is their minority status. If "Friend-Computer" develops enough to satisfy the social needs of significant chunks of the population, watch out - they'll be taking over governments to ensure their access to eyeball-time. Oh, wait...
>It's just a matter of how you are going to hide that aspect from the users.
One of the rare things I "like" about the current US administration is their lack of hiding all kinds of outrageous offenses to decency in their actions. I wonder if that's part of a desensitization strategy to get people to accept lesser evils in the near future.
>We might not all be friends. But we beat the curve this time ...
Define friend? It has been a remarkably long run since the initial split, and I am still here because of the "smaller" vibe.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 28, @07:02PM
> One of the rare things I "like" about the current US administration is One of the rare things I "like" about the current US administration is their lack of hiding all kinds of outrageous offenses to decency in their actions. I wonder if that's part of a desensitization strategy to get people to accept lesser evils in the near future. in their actions. I wonder if that's part of a desensitization strategy to get people to accept lesser evils in the near future.
Almost right -- most of "lack of hiding all kinds of outrageous offenses to decency" is smokescreen ... for all the profiteering (and worse) going on behind the curtain.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 28, @09:34AM
Reminded me of one Mexican restaurant I frequent.
We had this street "entrepreneur" come in with trinkets and place them on the tables while customers were dining, then walk off. If you messed with one, he would suddenly reappear and ask for money. The restaurant manager got wind of it, and he had an employee bus the table immediately as the customer was leaving. The customers caught on pretty fast, too, and the manager saw to it the table leavings went into trash cans already having a generous amount of saucy food scrap and stale soda pop to thoroughly dirty up anything that went in, thereby cutting off the business model of recovering the bait so it could be used on the next mark.
That was hilarious to watch.