Networking and blogs, he says, "provide the means to reconnect fans and audiences who are rarely listening to or watching the same thing at the same time now that so much is available. The new breed of smart intermediaries will look for ways" to give us the sense of shared experience that the hegemony of Big Media has fostered, and to "enrich...those experiences by adding contextual information and opportunities to communicate or contribute."
The key strength of this book is Jennings's strong background in sociology, psychology, and marketing, combined with his understanding of the latest technologies in use, and in development, for the dissemination of media. He creates a neat synthesis of the intersection of human nature and technological trends. It might be too neat, in fact. The "rock 'n' roll" part of his title triumvirate refers to human creative energy: personal expression, anti-authoritarianism, sexuality, and the "do-it-yourself ethos" now being expressed in blogs and wikis. But another part of what one might call the "rock 'n' roll" spirit is a tendency towards chaos and destruction.
Jennings more than ably presents a wide-angle perspective on technology and media discovery. He acknowledges technological hurdles yet to be overcome, the need to police social networks, and the vulnerability of discovery and recommendation engines to being gamed by the unscrupulous or antisocial. But his analysis mostly ignores political matters like net neutrality, privacy concerns, and censorship, any of which could stomp on the beautiful, networked world of sharing like Godzilla on Bambi. Perhaps that's a subject for a different book. But it hung over me like a small dark cloud throughout my reading of this one, despite its sunny disposition and smiling forecast for the future of media and popular culture.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net , which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States, and to Boston.com. Nice work!