The Midlife Crisis of the Network Society

Nikki Usher and Matt Carlson
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Nikki Usher: College of Media, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA
Matt Carlson: Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota, USA

Media and Communication, 2018, vol. 6, issue 4, 107-110

Abstract: The network society is moving into some sort of middle age, or has at least normalized into the daily set of expectations people have for how they live their lives, not to mention consume news and information. In their adolescence, the technological and temporal affordances that have come with these new digital technologies were supposed to make the world better, or least they could have. There was much we did not foresee, such as the way that this brave new world would turn journalism into distributed content, not only taking away news organizations’ gatekeeping power but also their business model. This is indeed a midlife crisis. The present moment provides a vantage point for stocktaking and the mix of awe, nostalgia, and ruefulness that comes with maturity.

Keywords: digital journalism; fake news; hybridity; Networks; Media; participation; reflexivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:meanco:v6:y:2018:i:4:p:107-110

DOI: 10.17645/mac.v6i4.1751

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