Talk radio has made an enormous run around establishment media. But the Internet is making an end run around talk radio. Suddenly we're faced with an information age.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
American media has just become talk radio, incredibly partisan name-calling and op-eds.
For years everyone looked toward the demise of radio when television came along. Before that, they thought talking movies might eliminate radio as well. But radio just keeps getting stronger.
In this age of media and Internet access, we are much more talkative than ever before.
I feel like the Internet has really freed everything up to an extent, hasn't it? That radio maybe doesn't have quite the power that it had before.
Conservative talk radio works because there are lots of conservatives who are convinced that they are not getting the whole story from the regular media.
The important thing to remember with the Internet is that there are large companies that have an interest in controlling how information flows in it. They're very effective at lobbying Congress, and that pattern has locked down other communication media in the past. And it will happen again unless we do something about it.
What's happened to broadcasting is that broadcasting really used to be... it used to have a very clear public service quotient. And it's more or less now. And it's been lost.
Even in developing markets, we're seeing the growth of digital communication is proceeding at a very rapid pace.
We aren't in an information age, we are in an entertainment age.
Basically, radio hasn't changed over the years. Despite all the technical improvements, it still boils down to a man or a woman and a microphone, playing music, sharing stories, talking about issues - communicating with an audience.