Saving the Media - Capitalism, Crowdfunding, and Democracy

The media are in crisis. Confronted by growing competition and sagging advertising revenue, news operations in print, on radio and TV, and even online are struggling to reinvent themselves. Many have gone under. For too many others, the answer has been to lay off reporters, join conglomerates, and lean more heavily on generic content. The result: in a world awash with information, news organizations provide citizens with less and less in-depth reporting and a narrowing range of viewpoints. If democracy requires an informed citizenry, this trend spells trouble. Julia Cagé explains the economics and history of the media crisis in Europe and America, and she presents a bold solution. The answer, she says, is a new business model: a nonprofit media organization, midway between a foundation and a joint stock company. Cagé shows how this model would enable the media to operate independent of outside shareholders, advertisers, and government, relying instead on readers, employees, and innovative methods of financing, including crowdfunding. Cagé’s prototype is designed to offer new ways to share and transmit power. It meets the challenges of the digital revolution and the realities of the twenty-first century, inspired by a central idea: that news, like education, is a public good. Saving the Media will be a key document in a debate whose stakes are nothing less crucial than the vitality of democracy.

Introduction: For a New Form of Governance Lost Illusions The Media Are Not a Commodity Media and Democracy Saving the Media 1. The Information Age? Information beyond the Media Diversity of Legal Forms and Financing Arrangements What Is News? Journalists and Press Credentials The Changing Size of the Journalistic Work Force A Revolution in Journalism Fewer and Fewer Journalists…per Paper From Print to Web Has Quality Content Decreased? Has Online Content Increased? 2. The End of Illusions The Birth of Ad-Supported Media The Illusion of Ad-Supported Media Less and Less Advertising The Illusion of Competition The Limits of Competition The Perverse Effects of Competition The Illusion of Vast Internet Audiences The Illusion of Subsidized Media The True Importance of Press Subsidies Subsidies in Context Reforming Subsidies to the Press The Illusion of a New Golden Age The Death of One Kind of Freedom 3. A New Model for the Twenty-First Century Transcending the Laws of the Market The Market Nonprofit Media Organizations Governance and Stock Existing Nonprofit Media Organizations The Price of Independence Limits Cooperatives A New Model: The NMO Capital and Power Voting Rights in NMOs Illustration The Advantages of the NMO Model An Alternative to Press Subsidies Conclusion: Capitalism and Democracy Replacing the Stagecoach Endgame? Notes Index