Stephen Downes

This is a transcript of a talk given to the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa ddressing the causes of the decline of traditional media. I think the proposal that it was a "market failure" is a straw man; most people I read pretty much agree that the news media did not manage the transition into the digital age well at all. It was " a failure of thoughtful market assessment, a failure of imagination, and a failure of innovation." The media used to drive what people thought was a social consensus, but "did it present a true sense of our collective psyche? Or was it only a gauze hiding unresolved cultural fractures?" It's not a perfect article - the reference to Plato is wrong, for example (it was Socrates). But it does point the way to a new media - "Village demonstrates that local news can be profitable and self-sustaining without a subscription paywall, and that local advertising can serve both as a source of useful community information and as support for the local economy."