Information surplus concept is intriguing. I think it is a parsimonious way to explain the new media environment. Opinionization of media we witness in cable TV or online newswebsite could be the result of product differentiation. This concept will arouse many questions.
1. Wither equilibrium?
-A surplus is a state of inequilibrium. Law of demand and supply suggests that the market will try to recover equilibrium. But supply will not decrease. As the chapter said, the curve may not stop shifting to the right. The demand will not increase either. On the contrary, it may move to the left, because of the young adults. How should we explain the perpetuation of inequilibrium?
2. Our goal?
-After reading diverse materials ranging from academic work to blogs, I am a little confused about our perspective. Is the Media Economics about maximizing the profit of media firms? Is it about explanation and prediction? Or, it about enhancing the civic quality? Personally, I agree with the argument that "we may want to shift our attention away from media-centric concerns and focus more on people centric concerns" (Chyi, 99).
3. Demand side explanation?
-I think one of the key concepts of the information surplus is that news and non-news information are substitute goods. Based on that assumption, incidental exposure Ting described in last class can be an explantion of 'surplus' from the demand side. Many news were in the past byproducts of other activities, for example when you had little choice of TV channels. With increased media choice, that forced demand is gone.
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