Fragmentation of Media Reality
There is a hubris and inappropriate self-confidence among mainstream
media that their practices and approaches to media are sound, and new
entrants are unsound. They purport to present fact-checked truths while
pointing to new media as promulgators of disinformation, poor
journalism, AI-assisted deep fakes, and propaganda. My ‘provocation’
for those of you today attending the OSCE’s conference on the state of
journalism and media broadly is that progress in assuring a healthy,
socially responsible media consistent with democratic norms cannot come
from just clinging to past platforms and norms.
Let me offer some perspective on the fragmentation of media and what it means for society.
First, the fragmentation of media has been a multi-decade
phenomenon, driven not only by new digital tools and platforms but,
particularly in the United States, by changes in law that previously
guaranteed “fair use” of airwaves so that anything that gave air to one
political party’s perspective required fair time for the other political
party. The Supreme Court and U.S. legislators gutted those provisions
of fair use requirements long ago, and thus the harnessing of TV, Cable
and Radio airwaves, and later blogs, and even leading newspapers and
journals by political perspectives took hold. This has helped fuel the
tribalization of perspectives and has driven the “filter bubble”
phenomenon of individuals being surrounded and inundated by views that
they want to have around them, rather than the generally objective,
occasionally uncomfortable form of news that used to inform the body
politic. Similar patterns seem clear in the rise of populist news
platforms, blogs, and social media networks in Europe.
Second, the eruption of social media networks, video, and
digital tools enhanced not only by artificial intelligence that has been
around for some time, but by generative AI, that has created a
strategic leap in the power content creators has changed the power
relationship between news providers and news consumers. Now many more
players, many untutored in the skills and norms of journalism, have
become content providers, and that content often seems like or mimics
news. I started a successful political blog, The Washington Note,
in early 2004, and my target was the mainstream news media as I saw
them largely as homogenized, lazy, often missing key stories — and thus
my blog at the outset was designed to shame and blame major news media
for their own inadequacies and to provide better news and service to my
own readers. Many blogs did this, and thus 20 years ago, the
fragmentation of media, in my view, helped improve mainstream media
which had to compete and re-establish itself as providers of quality
news — a responsibility for which they had been lazy and inattentive.
However today, the challenges to mainstream media are messier as the
challengers do not necessarily fill the gaps left by a poorly performing
mainstream media — they instead often create fake or ‘unreal’ media,
deep fakes, memes, or engage in outright propaganda or perpetuate
mistruths. Not all new media do this, but there is no doubt that lots
of new media are up for sale, up for political harnessing, up for
attention and celebritization of their platforms and content.
So what to do? I feel that too many governments, think tanks, and public
private foundations concerned with news quality have been clutching
their pearls too much, lamenting the eroding quality of journalism and
news rather than competing head-to-head with new content providers and
low-quality new media outlets. It seems clear to me that for media to
return to a healthier place and to become part of the solid social
contract in democratic societies, they need to evolve.
My belief is that the deep fake creations of some media are worrisome
but only have impact on vulnerable societies if there is no competition
with them. How are old media investing in new tools of story-telling?
How are they embracing a less centralized approach to who their story
tellers might be? How could they be promulgating and inculcating a
younger generation of content makers with norms about sourcing, about
real facts, about objectivity, about the importance of uncomfortable
news and not just opinion-reaffirming news or perspectives? How are
they experimenting with all of the new waves of technology coming online
to make themselves the more attractive news and content option — thus
stealing space and oxygen from those who are faking it and deceiving
society.
My sense is that some states, Russia being just one, are taking
advantage of this gap between old and new media — and they are
exacerbating the negative impacts created by a lack of modernization and
vision of traditional media platforms. My sense is that for the old
media to grow and compete, they need to be part of the media
fragmentation wave, and rather than over-centralizing need to figure out
how to disseminate quality news across a fragmented sphere of options.
This is hard to do - and it challenges the way newspapers and TV
networks of record organize their work. But I believe that the
fragmentation is not going away, and thus news organizations that want
to assure their place in healthy civil society need to adapt.
About the author:
Steve Clemons is editor at large of The National
Interest and has served as Editor at Large of The Hill, The Atlantic and
Semafor as well as in senior editorial roles at National Journal and
Quartz. He is also editor and publisher of the popular political blog,
The Washington Note, and host of "The Bottom Line" which airs on the
global network of Al Jazeera English. Clemons also Co-Chairs the US
Initiative of GLOBSEC, one of Europe's most dynamic and important
national and global security think tanks. Clemons serves on the Advisory
Board of Future U.S. and CareLab, and is Chairman & CEO of Widehall
LLC, a strategic communications and events firm that translates ideas
into high-traction impact. Clemons previously served as Executive Vice
President of the Economic Strategy Institute as well as of the New
America Foundation, and was founding Executive Director of the Nixon
Center, later renamed the Center for the National Interest. He was also
Senior Economic and International Affairs Advisor to US Senator Jeff
Bingaman.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect IFIMES official position.
Ljubljana/Vienna/Washington, 18 March 2025