I don't have the book on hand, I read it years ago and used it to teach a course once, but one of the things that sets my teeth on edge is described by Joseph Turrow in _Breaking Up America_: the use of this information to increasingly segment people so that some groups get served up the good stuff and others get the shit. If you're from a shite zip code, you get Colt45. That's already happening, but the technology could make it even more insidious.
In lieu of a spiel from me about the book (I don't have time or patience right now), I found a book review awhile back, posted below. I think some of his concerns have proved unfounded -- technology runs ahead of itself. But I think there's something to the segmentation thing especially in terms of inequality:
http://blog.pulpculture.org/breaking-up-america/
<quote> In his Breaking Up of America, Turow (1998) expresses concern over the increasing fragmentation of US media. He argues that we are experiencing a shift in the balance between ?society-making and ?segment-making media, where the latter ?encourage small slices of society to talk to themselves, while society-making media are those that have the potential to get all those segments to talk to each other? (1998:3). Targeting techniques and programming structures ? including ?zoning? newspapers or strategically scheduling television content ? signal specific groups that certain content is primarily for them while signaling others to ?stay away.? Turow argues that media producers and advertisers customize media in order to capture specific audiences more faithfully. This fragmentation only increases as the number of cable channels, magazines, and broadcast networks grows.
The large audiences needed by broadcasters in order to efficiently sell audiences to advertisers can be ? and producers prefer them to be ? made up of smaller, well-defined groups. Of course, there is a trade-off between tight targeting and profit margins. The greater the distinction between the products CBS creates for different audience segments, for example, the greater the cost for them, and the lower the advertising revenue per show. The economies of scale created when producers can create one story or program for a very wide audience decrease as the number of shows and audience segments increases. For example, as the average number of television (including satellite and cable) channels to the home grows, so do the average number of channels viewers watch. In 1995, households received an average of 41.1 channels and watched 10.4; in 1997 they received an average of 49.2 and watched 12.1, and in 1999, they received an average of 62.0 and watched 12.1 (Nielson Media Research 2000 Report on Television). What is decreasing, however, is the proportion of watched to received channels. Perhaps there are some channels that simply no one watches, but more likely viewers are dividing themselves among more and more channels.
The fragmentation of audiences is significant to society not only from the analytical perspective of scholars and marketers. The synergy between advertising messages, scheduling/layout, and other media content contribute to our constructions of society: who we are, who others are, what is important, and what our lives are. (Turow 1998). Many scholars have observed that constructions of identity and race (Gandy et al. 1997; Cornell and Hartman 1998; Gilens 1996; Astroff 1989) are strongly influenced by mass media content. For example, Herman Gray (1995) calls mass media ?the most fertile social arenas in which African Americans engaged each other (and Whites) over questions of African American presence in the United States? (1995:36). These constructions are critical not only because they tell us what and who others are, but also who we ourselves are. For example, Gandy (1998) points out that that framing and other media content has different effects on White and non-White audiences in terms of psychological measures like self-esteem. Similarly, people?s perceptions of social issues including racism (Conoway 1996), homelessness (Iyengar 1996), poverty and welfare, (Sotirovic 2000), political figures and issues (Cappella and Jamieson 1996) and policy options (Gandy et al.1997) can be influenced by mass media, particularly via framing (Kahneman and Tversky 1984) and priming (Iyengar & Kinder 1987) effects.
What happens when these frames and constructions via mass media not only influence the way we see society and ourselves, but do so in a way that deepens the barriers between us by dividing us even further into Turow?s media-constructed ?tribes?? Turow?s worries with regards to fragmentation, then, are significant not only because segmentation decreases the quantity of potentially common experiences in mass media that might help us talk across segments, but also because the ways in which we construct our identities and perceptions of society are bound-up in those media experiences.
Contributing to worries about fragmentation is the fastest growing new medium, the Internet. Lauded for its diversity, seemingly endless options, and potential to allow ?even the most disenfranchised a voice? (Cooper 2000), the Internet might be simultaneously exacerbating society?s fragmentation. Importantly, there is a difference between fragmentation and diversity that goes beyond the valence of the terms. Fragmentation here implies a division, where different groups are identified by marketers and programmers and broken off into separate audiences to be bought and sold. Diversity, on the other hand, need not refer to a diverse number of channels, but instead variety within channels, for example. Broadly, under this view fragmentation is creating a separate channel for each audience group, while diversity allows members of various social, ethnic, or other groups to all be present on one channel or in one program.
Initially (and still for many), the diversity of the Internet was considered a grand thing. In her book Life on the Screen, Sherry Turkle argues that computers and the internet are ?bringing about a set of ideas associated with post-modernism ? in this case ideas about the instability of meanings and the lack of universal and knowable truths? (1995:18). Indeed, the internet need not provide a consistently fixed, predictable space of truths, constructions, or other socially stable points of reference. Turkle optimistically calls this characteristic of the Internet a ?a postmodern aesthetic of complexity and decentering? (1995:20) which she hopes will better mirror the complexities of every-day life. But as its number of users grows, so does the strength of corporate and traditional media presence. Turkle?s dream may come true for some few sophisticated users, but a growing proportion of users gravitate towards a relatively limited number of sites (Graphic, Visualization, & Usability Center's 10th WWW User Survey 2000). Certainly, the top advertisers among Web companies as of 1999 ?AOL, Amazon, E*Trade, Yahoo!, and E-Bay ? are counting on some unifying trends.
Instead of offering a radically ?complex and decentered? experience, the Internet offers more and more key ?centers?. Search engines such as Yahoo and Altavista, browsers such as Explorer and Netscape, and portals such as AOL provide their own specific links to content people use to find out about current news, sports, and entertainment. The wide use of these sites suggests that corporate presence on the Web is attracting users and providing carefully tailored, tightly targeted information. Indeed, if Csikszentmihalyi?s (1974) notion of ?flow? (a seamless sequence of responses that is un-self-conscious and self-reinforcing) guides Internet use, then portals?, search engines? and browsers? influence on content selection will only grow. Far from a completely random and haphazard experience, Internet use is arguably becoming more predictable and consistent for a majority of users. Indeed, marketers and cognitive psychologists alike argue that ease of use, familiarity, and feelings of psychological refuge lead users to gravitate toward regular consumption habits, not the random chaos of Turkle?s dream. </quote>
more at link: http://blog.pulpculture.org/breaking-up-america/