The Digital Revolution's Influence on the Public Sphere, Citizenry, and Platforms of Mass Communications

The digital revolution is a multi-faceted and ambiguous term encompassing everything from the common action of content swapping to the emergence of citizen journalism. It is a shift from analog (physical) content to digital (electronic) content. Independent and/or marginalized voices can be public or commercial so long as the voice maintains no favored affiliation to governments or advertisers. Society is embarking upon its third media eon (defined as digital) following first print and then broadcasting. There are indications that a fundamental shift is afoot as the public sphere, initially theorized as an inclusive whole, appears to be fracturing due to a marked audience diversification that is aided by a multiplicity of content available through the Internet. Nonprofit journalism, as of late, has benefited greatly from this boon of digital technology; it tends to focus upon issues concerning citizenry rather than the tabloid content that has recently permeated and in some cases taken over as the main focus for many content providers. The recent surge of digital nonprofit journalism is a glimpse at the possible future of media's correlation to the public sphere, as society becomes more splintered and seeks information specific to individual needs. That same digital revolution is no doubt affecting civic discourse in ways that have been both predicted and as of yet not realized as the Internet levels the playing field of distribution between for-profit and nonprofit media outlets. But why then is nonprofit journalism not as prevalent as for-profit journalism, when on the Internet, all content has the potential of being equal? And there-in the Catch-22 of the digital revolution is realized: the Internet provides the platform for global distribution of nonprofit content, yet the medium is such a vast landscape that content, regardless of quality, can be easily overlooked.