From: Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi at yahoo.com> Date: June 10, 2007 1:42:47 PM EDT To: nettime-l at bbs.thing.net Subject: Re: <nettime> The Society of the Unspectacular Reply-To: Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi at yahoo.com>
If "empowerment" of the public by cheap self-publishing has demonstrated anything, it is that a vast majority has nothing to say, lacks any detectable talent and mimicks TV in publishing the void of own life (but unlike TV they derive no income from commercials.)
So I wouldn't say that the classical notion of "public" has changed in the sense that it got fragmented around "new media". It's "new media" giving content-free personal smalltalk the ability to be globally visible (not that anyone looks at it in practice, but they could, in theory.)
The public still congregates around the professionally prepared content, where the most talent and money is, be it movies, gladiator spectacles, or books pushed through big publishers. There is no data confirming erosion of any of these in favour of consumption of cheap publishing for the masses. And that is good, as it shows that we are not complete imbeciles, yet.