Is 'content' a useful concept?

An interesting meme has been doing the rounds in the blogosphere over the last two weeks. It was started by Jeff Jarvis, and at its core is the idea that controlling (i.e. producing or distributing) content is not as important as the media industry likes to think. Jarvis' argument is about the emergence of user-generated content, citizen journalism, the demise of old mainstream media, and the importance of what many call the 'conversation' among readers who are also writers.

This discussion gives me a context to write about something I've been pondering for some time. I should confess at the outset that this is not something I've thought through; it is admittedly half-baked. However, rather than thinking about it on my own, a friend advised me to post about it and hopefully start a conversation that will help me get my thoughts in order.

I will start with some claims, some of which I can substantiate, and some of which are no more than intuitions. Some of them may sound outlandish. I ask readers to give me the benefit of the doubt, fill in the blanks, avoid picking obvious holes, and see if what I have to say resonates with their experience.

***

Perhaps what is happening with content is not that it is becoming less important. Perhaps the problem is that the concept of content is nearing the end of its useful lifetime.

I am not claiming that 'content' does not exist. 'Content' is a case of what John Searle calls a 'social fact': laws and contracts are written in terms of it, and anybody who refuses to acknowledge that something has been 'transmitted' when, say, a song is downloaded does so at her peril. Content is an objective reality.

The concept begins to break down, however, when the media industry assumes that what audiences do is consume content, and build new-media products accordingly. With exceptions (and admittedly there are many), audiences don't operate in terms of content.

Audiences don't 'seek' something that they eventually 'find'.  They engage in media practices, jumping from one to the next in a seamless dance, a dance that is enabled by what the media call 'content' but whose basic distinctions are not those of content units. I turn on the television, find something I want to watch (which is not the same as saying 'something I like', like a cat that likes Whiskas), then flow on to something else, perhaps after using my remote control. I open the newspaper, browse the headlines, find myself reading something in some depth, then browse again.

The idea that what audiences do is consume content is rooted in theories of consumer behavior according to which consumers make choices that maximize their utility. The idea is one of individuals engaged in  purposeful action: a process that starts with the desire for a satisfaction (i.e. utility), is then followed by actions intended to attain it, and (ideally) culminates with the desired satisfaction itself.

All of this is certainly involved in media experiences. It is, e.g., a fair description of what happens when I decide to go to the local video shop to get a movie. It may also be what happens when, after browsing the headlines, I decide to read a newspaper article. But does it fully describe my experience of going over the newspaper as a whole as part of my commute? I think not.

You could argue that, in the newpaper case, the undirected browsing is part of the satisfaction I seek when I decide to buy the paper on my way to work. Again this is true, but accepting it and stopping here would miss the point.

My point is that much of our satisfaction comes not from the transactions themselves, but from the moments in between transactions: from the headline-browsing before reading, or from the channel-flicking before settling on a programme.

But this is not very well put. It is not simply that media experiences are composed of an alternating series of moments, some of which are about choosing and some about consuming. It is the entire experience as a whole, with its several transactions, satisfactions and frustrations, that is itself satisfactory (or not). As consumers we are rarely aware of this, and we tend to think that all that matters are the transactions we engage in.

***

To describe the media experience as consumers who start with a want (even if only a vague desire) that they then set out to fulful misses out the crucial question of where media wants come from. Taken to its naive extreme, the view assumes that wants are formed in a vacuum, possibly outside media. But this is not the case. Media wants are not basic psychological givens; they are formed within socially learned practices, in which media play a large role.

You could say that wants are formed through promotion, which, although relying on media, happens in moments and contexts (e.g. advertisements) that are different from those in which consumers make choices in an on-demand-media experience. While this is a fair point about some types of media (e.g. blockbuster movies), it applies much less clearly to the serendipitous, casual choices of miscellaneous content that consumers make when reading the news, surfing the web, flicking channels on the TV, or reading an advertisement.

Up to a point, on-demand media could be indifferent to this, relying on factors outside it to condition audiences' wants. But in a world where recommendation and consumption are only a click away this is not a sustainable proposition.

***

In summary: audiences don't consume content: they dance through media, stepping on various pieces of content, but their main concern is to have a dance that is satisfactory overall. It is this that audiences pay for, not the content it relies on.

It is those who can enable this dance that will be handsomely rewarded, not only by users, but also through the power that comes from having a say in the serendipitous choices that consumers are presented (e.g. advertisements, promotions, and generally being able to set the agenda). Delivering this is not easy: users who know what they want should not be detained, and the dance's key rule --relevance-- must be observed at all costs, even if this means loosing out on a transaction or two. But, as is increasingly becoming clear, these are not insurmountable obstacles.

[I've written about related subjects in a somewhat different context. See this.]

Comments

[Chirag]

What you are in effect saying is that content is a commodity. One might argue that content is a commodity, yet the vehicles (newspaper or DTH platform) are brands. But is that really true as well? If one were rename the New York Times, will the two consumers of NYT, the readers and the advertisers stop consuming it? My guess is. No.

Clearly, what media companies are capitalising on is the time that a consumer is spending on their offering of media. So if you control more of the time, you are able to garner a larger share of the advertising revenue and hence (hopefully?) more profit. Put another way, media companies have the right of way (read monopoly) to the consumers homes and minds and extracting as much from it as possible. If this right of way does not exist, profitability will fall.

The above said, the question remains do media companies see the business this way? i.e. it is a commodity business

Cheers

Chirag

[Where is my telly]

Dear Chirag

Thank you for your comments.

I'm not sure that content is a commodity, at least not in the sense that it is replaceable.

What would happen if you renamed the NYT (assuming you don't tell people the new address)? That's hard to tell and depends on promotions, etc. I assure you this: unless you do a massive pre-launch marketing blitz, or get Yahoo or someone else to link to your stories, on the launch day you will have very few users.

Do companies capitalise on attention? Sure. That's as true in the web as it is in TV. I don't think this is a monopoly though--in TV it is at worst an oligopoly, but the web is much more pluralistic (power laws notwithstanding).

All the best.