Is the internet killing literature and the arts? (TV symphony, theatre, film, newspapers, magazines, books, etc.)

Jane Mitchell is a regional councilor, designer and writer. Her daughter is also an animator, and she works in Flash and works freelance for a firm in LA. How can someone be living in New Brunswick, have two acres of land and work in LA and across the world... we all know the answer, it's the internet. Her feeling is that things are really changing and probably if you are working at a newspaper you probably are feeling at it. One participant says that many newspapers in the states are closing down. Things are changing. We have Kindle now coming from the Amazon, etc. Maybe we should change the title from "killing" to changing? But maybe if you're from the 40+ group you may feel that it really is dying.

Things like the symphony and the theatre numbers are decreasing. Media is not necessarily dying, but it's transforming. It's not killing, it's forced change. Media is changing faster than ever than ever, and users are adopting new technologies at much faster rates. Rather than saying that they're dead, we need to work with traditional media to be cooperative and asset in that change. There's a big question about the market in general: What do people want? It's the way of accessing audience is changing; the distribution method. Print may not disappear, but the big newspapers are going to disappear, i.e. specialty papers will still exist but the big newspapers will be supplanted by the internet. Maybe the internet is hurting newspapers, maybe not. It's more democratic to have citizen journalism, but newspapers have certain advantages, i.e. staff to do investigative journalism.

People are less willing to pay for content. How do we deveop new revenue streams that value peoples content. One example is women who are selling their crochet patterns online. They can pay their mortgage from selling their creations, and distribute their works through the internet. The internet allows artists to display their work. It almost goes back to a village /cottage economy where people are making money of their individual work, as opposed to make money through a company.

Mike Miner from the Agenda says that the internet makes it much more easier for people to find each other. Marketing and reaching an audience is cheaper than ever before. As far as the major journalism, they can't create niche reporting like that as they have to focus on broader issues. The value propisitioning is screwed up, because it would draw a lot of content but it also creates communities of interest. Clay Shirky's article on revolution in the media is very important: if you write a print story people can copy and paste it on their website, and the business model has been destroyed. When the Gutenberg press was invented it took awhile for the effects to take place. Example of iTunes and Napster was brought up.

If corporations had teamed up with Napster then they could have been ahead of iTunes, instead they chose to destroy it and now they are falling behind in the industry. Newspapers had a chance to collaborate with Craigslist as well, but they missed that boat and now they're loosing millions in revenue. The online ecosystem has deflated the ad industry, so now there's no way for them to get the same revenues. While before people used to advertise in the paper, and now they advertise online and it's a fraction of the price and much more effective in reaching audiences. The internet has changed things dramatically, and now we have to change to catch up with it.

Jane Mitchell gets a lot of amusement from interacting through people's comments. How is it important whether or not things are on paper.  What does it mean if it's online, v.s. paper.  Is that really killing it or is it just a transformation.  It happened in Seattle, it's entirely online now.  Same content and quality, just half the staff.  The stories are still quality, but just less.  The internet may kill somethings, i.e. the labour jobs that actually print the paper.  It's actually a cost saving method going online.  It may be killing somethings, but not the function of journalism.

We focused a lot of newspapers, but how has our use of the internet change our consumption of literature, arts and culture? Jane Mitchell says that while she's older, even though she has digital cable, and she can find cool content, but she couldn't find the next one and it was frustrating trying to find it on cable v.s. the internet.  It's easier to find the content you want when you want it on the internet.  If cable carriers don't adapt, the internet can provide the same content.  Would it kill them to have google for TV?  

Do we pay for online TV watching?  Some people do, others don't.  Mike Miner: it hasn't changed how I consume media completely.  Never went to the symphony, but it has changed the way that he discovers music.  Before you would hear about music from friends, now you can download or buy CDS online.  He goes to websites that organize content effectively so it's easy to find the information he wants, i.e. info on the bands, where they are playing, bands that have similar styles.  

There is still revenue stream if entertainment and information is displayed and relevant.  As a musician you can advertise online, share content, and you end up making money when you're touring, i.e. 80% of bands make their money that way.  The trick about print is that it's easy to duplicate without added value.  

When you apply it to architecture, there is a variety of content, but the premium stuff gets extra value.  It's about providing premium content.

Murray said that experiencing the MET through the medium of film was a completely different experience, and it allows them to reach a wider audience by providing more in depth content.  

Video is different from experiencing something live.  The way we value media is transforming.  Now audiences have more agency and choice in the content they consume and how they value it.