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- [00:00]
A
The world that we see is often a little cluster of things that are related to our interests. And even those things that are hits aren't reaching nearly the size of an audience that they once did.
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Today is Saturday, August 8th. Remember when it felt like everyone was watching the same movie, hearing the same song, or talking about the same big moment on TV the next day? Now that's not really the case. Even people in the same house may have completely different algorithms feeding them different content. So are we losing the shared media culture that once gave Americans something easy to talk about? And if so, what's replacing it? Today we're joined by Amanda Lotz, a media scholar, author and consultant who has spent more than two decades studying how digital technology is changing media industries and their role in culture. She helps us understand how we got from a world of mass hits and water cooler moments to a world of personalized media diets and what that means for the way we connect, discover and understand each other. Welcome to THE Newsworthy Special Edition Saturday when we sit down with a different expert or celebrity every Saturday to talk about something in the news. Don't forget to tune in every Monday through Friday for our regular episodes where we provide all the day's news in less than 15 minutes. I'm Erica Mandy. It's now time for today's special edition Saturday. Amanda Lutz, thank you so much for joining us here on THE newsworthy.
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A
Thank you very much. My pleasure.
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B
Are we losing the shared mass media culture that once gave Americans something easy to talk about?
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A
I think the verb tense there is lost. That moment that was typical of, I'd say the period of the 50s through the 80s has been well and truly over for quite a while.
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B
That's true across all different types of media. Right. You got TV and movies, music, news. Even social media is more personalized these days.
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A
Right. It can be really confusing because as a culture, we still talk a lot about hits. And of course, whether it's in TV and movies or it's Taylor Swift or certain news stories, we have the sense that there are things that are consumed by more people. And that is true. The thing that has changed is what percentage of the population those hits are actually reaching. And so it was really changed from a world in which half the population was watching, if not aware of popular television shows to a world where it could be 2 and 3%.
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B
And so, I mean, you mentioned Taylor Swift. We recently had the World Cup. A lot of people were talking about that. How many people does that or what percentage of people of America does that? Those types of things reach.
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A
There's a great analysis about Taylor Swift if you look at the number of albums sold. And it's tricky now because we don't sell albums, but they've done sort of comparative analysis and the difference between the number of folks that even Taylor Swift's dreams reach. And I believe it's the number of people who bought one of the Eagles albums in the late 70s. There's just giant golf. As people who are trying to understand culture, we have to keep reminding ourselves that the world that we see is often a little cluster of things that are related to our interests. And even those things that are hits aren't reaching nearly the size of an audience that they once did.
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B
You know, we talked about sports. That does seem to be the thing that has more shared culture, especially when it comes to live media. Is that an exception, do you think?
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A
It definitely is the most mass, most regular form of media that we have now. And that explains a lot about what we see in terms of the amount of money that different broadcast networks are willing to continue to put into it, or even the streamers. I think we also need to be aware of the many different ways that people are consuming now. Young folks in particular are often only consuming highlights. Even though sports really is hanging on to a lot of that experience, where if you went down the street, multiple households would be having that content on and be aware of it, we are probably going to see that erode in time as well.
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B
And it does seem like it's created maybe smaller communities that all can talk about the same thing. I mean, when you're thinking about TV or books, there's like, maybe one group that's into Netflix's Stranger Things, another's deep into, like, Bravo or Love Island. Then there's book talk and then, you know, specific sports. So do you think that all of these smaller communities have popped up and that's where people gravitate towards?
- [04:29]
A
Yes, but I think the other thing that's been really surprising in the work we've been doing is when we ask people about, do they comment, do they feel part of a community, at least in terms of the things that they follow online? And there is a percentage of people who do that. They are small relative to the whole. So I think a lot of people derive a lot of satisfaction just by reading about and knowing about things that are deeply important to them. And we probably need to understand that part of it a little bit more, too.
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B
What are some of the benefits that come to mind for you for this newer type of Media both for the individual as well as society as a whole.
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A
So I've been in the process of doing some interview research. I'm doing my research in Australia because they're still funding research. So I've talked about 100 people now, all ages. And what's been fascinating is people are really happy with this world. We've been talking about it in terms of a media diet. So all of the things that they read, watch, listen to and play, they're able to construct a daily diet of things that are just deeply interesting to them. We can consume content that is deeply interesting and important to us in a way that we couldn't before. And I think that really has been the key gain of this era.
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B
Okay, so what are the cons? What do we lose when everyone's feed is personalized?
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A
So that's where in doing this research, I would say something like, and this is a thing you hear a lot that, well, we've lost the common experience. I think we have to put a caveat on that and note that a lot of what we were consuming is content that we regarded as, and I'm going to put it in quotes here, good enough. You sat down, you'd had a hard day, you finished feeding your kids and you just wanted to relax for a couple hours. You turned on the tv. Nothing was really what you wanted to watch, but you watched something because it was good enough. So yes, many people were watching the same things. But if we look at that content, and I'm going to say this as a woman who grew up in 70s and 80s Ohio, who watched a ton of television and never saw stories that had a female protagonist, part of that world as well is that we saw very few stories about very few people. We were also sort of steadily seeing a certain view of the world that now, and I think we could regard this as a con now, we live in worlds where our particular media diets construct quite different visions of reality. We haven't quite made that jump to understand how different reality is becoming for just the people that live again up and down your street.
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B
You brought up representation for women as one example. Are there any more specific impacts, good or bad, because of this new media world? For more marginalized communities?
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A
For this conversation, I described marginalized communities as those people who were underrepresented in that mass media world. Those communities have had new possibility to have access to media makers who look like them and media makers who have stories that are like theirs. Folks like me who've been studying media for a while. One of the reasons that we study it is because of the way that even entertainment shows can shape our worldview. And so I think on the one hand, while many different marginalized communities have experienced the access to many images or stories and news about people whose lives better reflect their own reality, we haven't had equivalent cross group awareness. And so in that downside category is that the media has lost its ability to easily tell those stories across audiences.
- [08:27]
B
That might take more intention on the consumer's part to, let's say, follow someone who is not like them to hear more of those perspectives and kind of train their algorithm to show them different things 100%.
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A
And I think that's a great place to go with this because I think it's very easy to oh, the media's bad this, social media bad that, and forget how much we can actually do things in this. But also, and this has been the thing that we found in talking to people about their social media use, the favorite things in people's social media use are the things that their friends and known people share with them. Their second favorite thing are the things that they are is delivered because they are following a thing. We really are in a different era of needing a different kind of media literacy. We see lots of folks spending a lot of time just in their own space and so making a point to exactly, as you say, follow some people who are different. Spend an hour on the weekend outside of your typical media community and see what you learn. Look at something created out of Canada or out of the UK just to get a different vantage point on things and maybe you find a source that you really like. It's difficult to find the things that are out there if we don't go looking for them every now and then.
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Still ahead, people actually find what to watch, listen to, or read anymore. Amanda Lotz explains why different generations may start in very different places, plus why it matters to know who is actually making the content in your feed, how AI could change what we watch next. And even in a world of endless choices, which one thing people tend to gravitate toward. But first, a break for our sponsors. August always feels like a good time for a little reset. So I like having at least one new outfit or piece that makes me feel put together going into a new season. So I'll be looking at Quint. I already love their jeans. Not only do they have that perfect balance of structure, comfort and fit, but also they start at just $50. And Quince has some great baby and kids items too. I've gotten my son a shirt he loves from Quint and there's even a back to school section. And it's not just about apparel either. Quint's also brings the same everyday elevation to accessories, kitchen staples, designer furniture, and more. I love my Quince diamond bracelet and carry on luggage and now I'm eyeing an Italian leather tote for the fall too. Of course I appreciate that everything at Quint's is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. That's because they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you're paying for quality, not brand markup. Upgrade your everyday Download the Quince app for App Exclusive offers or go to quince.com newsworthy get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's Q-U I N C E.com newsworthy the newsworthy is also brought to you by Oneskin. I've tried plenty of skincare products over the years, but Oneskin stands out because it's not built around hype or just making your skin look better for a day. It's built around longevity science. Oneskin was founded by four PhD scientists who studied skin at the cellular level and found that visible signs of aging can start deeper when certain cells stop working the way they should. So they created OS1, their proprietary peptide that is the foundation of every product they make. And for me the products are so easy to actually use. I especially love the peptide lip mask. I use it every night and it has made a noticeable difference. Oneskin's results are also backed by four peer reviewed clinical studies, over 10,000 five star reviews, and recognition from Bloomberg and Fast Company as a leader in skin longevity. Born from over 10 years of longevity research, Oneskin is helping you unlock your healthiest skin now. And as you age, for a limited time you can try OneSkin with 15% off using the code Newsworthy at Oneskin co newsworthy, that's 15% off OneSkin Co with the code Newsworthy. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. So please support our show and tell them we sent you. Okay, now back to my conversation with Amanda Lotz. How are people actually finding what to watch or what to listen to or where to get their news?
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A
I think different media users are driven to find things much more than others. We still hear a lot, especially for anyone over the age of 50. Googling it. You move down a generation, sort of Those in their 30s and 40s maybe. YouTube is you start there and you search there. What was Interesting is that we were hearing from our young adults that they're starting on TikTok. And TikTok, unlike other social media, the search function is a very important feature of that service.
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B
And this just makes me want to talk about media literacy again, because the source matters.
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A
Yep, yep. We do continue to need some controls probably around content. But the thing that is the fastest thing to change would be humans making the choices themselves, thinking not just about, I got my news from Insta. But you didn't. Right. If you stop and take 10 seconds, you realize, okay, that's a story from CBS on Instagram. The media services, those social media services aren't actually making the content. They're thinking about who is making the content and why they are making it. Being aware that your media diet is shaping the way you think about the world and being conscious of how your world is being shaped by the media you're consuming.
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B
And so the inevitable question, how is AI already changing what and how people watch and consume media?
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A
This is again, one of those places where I feel like there are really different communities and I feel like my media consumption community is one that is very suspicious and regards AI poorly. Whereas I think there are other communities in which that's just fine and that's just normal, or you don't even pick up that it's AI. I think that is a new media literacy challenge. Ultimately, I think we'll have probably a decade of turmoil, but I think in the end, we get to the point where the scariest things about AI don't happen because people are smart and people like authenticity. This Entire social media YouTube phase has been about the rising of authentic voices and people really gravitating toward them. So my suspicion is that the AI generated content doesn't win out, but it becomes a tool that perhaps makes higher quality production possible to more audiences.
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B
Do you think the core of what we're seeing with more personalized media will essentially stay the same? Or how might that just the overall big picture change?
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A
The sense that I've gotten from all of the interviews that we've done is that people like what they like. As much as I've tried to sort of find ways to predict or see patterns, they're really all over the place. Folks will continue to gravitate toward the voices, the services that serves, what their need is. It's not just good enough. There's something for everyone and they've proven at this point a capacity to use a lot of different tools or services in different ways to get what they want out of them.
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Thank you so much to our guest, Amanda Lotz. You can learn more about her and her work at Amanda Lotts. And as always, join us again during the week to stay updated and informed on the day's news. We provide daily roundups that are less than 15 minutes every Monday through Friday in our fast fair friendly style. So we'll be back on Monday with the latest news. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend.