We are moving rapidly from an era of an oligopoly of content providers to an oligopoly of content controllers: new choke points. This is not media consolidation in the traditional sense, where a few huge conglomerates used economies of scale to dominate journalism by dominating the local and national agendas. This consolidation, to a very few companies plus increasing government intervention, is even more dangerous — and information providers of all kinds are finally starting to grasp what’s happening.
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Dan Gillmor, Professor, Cronkite School of Journalism. 2012 will be the year of the content-controller oligopoly.
Nieman Lab is running an interesting 2012 preview series by asking prominent journalism observers what they think the upcoming year will hold.
Gillmor believes the open Internet — where content, creativity and innovation has flourished — is being constricted by choke points that include:
- Search Engines
- Wire-line Internet service providers
- Mobile carriers
- Apple
- The copyright cartel
- Government
Click through to read what he means by each. It’s a very real — if sobering — analysis of our future ability to find, create and share information with one another.
(via futurejournalismproject)
(via journo-geekery)
