The Chaos Scenario: Amid the Ruins of Mass Media, the Choice for Business Is Stark: Listen or Perish. Bob Garfield. Nashville, TN: Stielstra Publishing, 2009. 306 pp.
One of the popular debates about the Internet and related digital technologies is whether they represent an evolutionary change or a revolutionary one. It is fairly easy to argue for the former position, since fundamentally all that the Internet does is to lower the cost of transmitting information. However, it is much more fun to argue for the latter view, and Bob Garfield is clearly in this second camp.
In The Chaos Scenario, Garfield uses a mix of colorful language and well-chosen examples to argue that the so-called digital revolution “isn’t just some news-magazine cover headline. It’s an actual revolution, yielding revolutionary changes, thousands or millions of victims and an entirely new way of life.” The principle implication of this shift is a fundamental undermining of most existing business models for media firms — Garfield envisions the end of traditional advertising agencies, newspapers and other traditional news organizations, and most network television programming.