R3C3

We have often heard that Internet puts power in the hands of the consumer, but this is nonsense — ‘powerful consumer’ is an oxymoron. The historic role of the consumer has been nothing more than a giant maw at the end of the mass media’s long conveyer belt, the all-absorbing Yin to mass media’s all-producing Yang. Mass media’s role has been to package consumers and sell their atention to the advertisers, in bulk. The consumers’ appointed role in this system gives them and no way to communicate anything about themselves except their preference between Coke and Pepsi, Bounty and Brawny, Trix and Chex. They have no way to respond to the things they see on television or hear on the radio, and they have no access to any media on their own — media is something that is done to them, and consuming is how they register their repsonse. In changing the relations between media and individuals, the Internet does not herald the rise of a powerful consumer. The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether, because the Internet destroys the noisy advertiser/silent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon.