Paradigms of Media in the Digital Age
By Hugho Deogratius

1. The digital age arrives with a set of big communication challenges for traditional mainstream media: new relations with audiences (Interactivity), new languages (Multimedia) and a new grammar. But this media revolution not only changes the communication landscape for the usual players, most importantly, it opens the mass communication system to a wide range of new players. As far as enterprises, institutions, administrations, organizations, groups, families and individuals starts their own online presence, they become “media” by their own, they also become “sources” for traditional media, and in many cases, they produce strong “media criticism”: opinion about how issues are covered and delivering of alternative coverage. The blogging phenomena represent the ultimate challenge for the old communication system because it integrates both: the new features of the digital world and a wide democratization in the access to media with a universal scope. Ten theses about this new scenario are proposed, and the term communication is coined to describe it in a single word. The global process could be understood as a big shift from the classical mass media models to the new media paradigms: the user becomes the axis of communication process, the content is the identity of media, multimedia is the new language, real time is the only time, hypertext is the grammar , and knowledge is the new name of information
2.  The Paradigms of communication The formulation of this ten thesis in terms of “switching”, should not be understood as if the old model is replaced with by the new one, because as a matter of fact, both sets of models are, and will be, coexisting. Paradigm I: from audience to user During the 80’s, the merge of satellite and cable technologies enabled broadcast media the delivering of content to thematic segmented target audiences, evolving from broadcasting to narrowcasting. From the 90’s on, the Net opens the way to a next step: from narrowcasting to point casting. Online content provision not only could fit niche targets, but even more: it could be      arranged to meet the specific interests and time constraints of every individual user. The de-mystification of public communication arrives with the personal configuration options of online media and services. The passive unidirectional way of media consumption is replaced by the concept of active user seeking for content, exploring and navigating info-spaces. Users have the control to choose, to decide, to search, to define and configure, to subscribe or unsubscribe, and to comment and, most important: to write, talk and film. Self media, Nan publishing or Thin Media are the new names for the strategy of those users who decide to become even more active and start low profile media activities. Paradigm II: from media to content the focus shift from the industrial production constrains (press, radio, and television) to content authority in order to define media. National Geographic and CNN, for example, are not a particular kind of media, but      brands which represents authority over an area of content (natural life) or expertise in current affairs content management (journalism). The media convergence towards digital resets media identity, shifting from platforms to contents and outstanding brand image in relation to a type of content not to a media format. Media brand image is one of the most valuable actives of media companies in the new environment: a source of credibility and prestige for digital content. Today media starts to understand that their business is selling the content, not the holder: multiplatform services to be accessed by users from a range of terminals according to the users situation and needs.