The media landscape has gone from three TV networks, local television and radio channels, local newspapers and national magazines to several hundred cable stations, 3.2 million podcasts, 307,000 YouTube content creators, 127 million influencers and untold millions of people posting online, all propounding a view about something. That is to say, the media environment has become fragmented and the quantity of information available has become overwhelming. Information comes from everywhere, from anyone, all the time, and that has overloaded society with worthless as well as valuable information, leaving individuals buried in data, even as they contribute to the overload by posting selfies and commenting on other content.
This process has forced an evolution of the media industry, comprising three stages: Information 1.0: The End of the Gatekeepers; Information 2.0: The Market Fragments; and the current phase – Information 3.0: Personalized Information Collages. Working their way through the information overload, identifying valuable information, even if that requires more time, and establishing trustable relationships, all while building a valuable community and having fun, have become what the latest iterations of what digitally trained individuals are doing to make the information overload work for them. The effort by individuals to create their own collage of trusted and comforting sources comprises three components: Networks of Information Sources; Longer-Form Content; and Interpersonal/Community of Connections.