With that attitude, Humpty Dumpty might have been the first new-media pundit. Like Humpty Dumpty, new-media types take delight in twisting the meanings of words to illustrate their more evolved view of the world.
An example is the word local as in local radio.
Three years ago one pundit proclaimed:
There is no longer any such thing as "local" as we traditionally use the term....The definition of "local" is both expanding and shrinking at the same time.
At the time we declared it new-media rubbish.
Now Seth Godin has essentially rewritten the piece, writing:
We're discovering that when given the chance, people are a lot more interested in what they're interested in, as opposed to what their physical neighbors are doing. Going forward, then, the real kings of media will be local in a totally different sense.
Humpty Dumpty would be proud.
Godin first fabricates a past, and then declares that the future will be different from this fabricated past. And finally he redefines the word local based on this fiction.
Seth has essentially doubled-down on the original new-media rubbish about local changing, not only redefining local radio, but also distorting the notion of community.
Both the original and this copy-cat post are committing the biggest mistake that new media pundits make.
They believe that delivery systems are more important than content. They then compound the mistake by believing that new delivery systems will change what people want and value.
None of the new-media delivery systems have replaced local radio because local radio is local because of its content, not the location of its transmitter.
Yes, today it is primarily delivered through local broadcast facilities, but that is because broadcast is the means by which the majority of local media consumers want it delivered.
One day a majority of listeners may want it delivered a different way, and local radio will have to change the way its content is delivered.
Radio critics keep claiming that the latest new media product whether Twitter, Pandora, Facebook, Craig’s List, or some other new product will make local radio less relevant and ultimately render local radio obsolete.
Yet radio keeps hanging in there defying a decade’s worth of new-media death notices.
And local radio will continue to defy the critics’ predictions as long as it ignores these self-serving criticisms.
The only way that local radio could become less relevant is if radio lets it happen.
Those within the radio business who advocate homogenized centralized voice-tracked radio in the belief that local no longer matters will pay a price as long as there remains broadcasters who understand the value of real local radio.
This latest Godin effort only serves to illustrate how little new-media pundits understand about traditional media’s strengths.
But then again, why should we be surprised? He doesn’t even understand his own business.