Observations on time/space

I put a lot of thought into this blog, which is obviously why I'm doing it at the last minute. In my mind, the most interesting aspect of space vs. time bias in the media is the motivation behind it. In general, space biased media is motivated by greed, whereas time biased media is motivated by more personal reasons such as ego and altruism.

Space biased media have the general function of spreading to as many people as possible, which makes these the perfect mediums for advertisements. Time biased media simply don't have the same possibilities for monetary gain that space media do. This draws most of the media producers simply out for profit away from time biased media to space biased. If a one hour news program can be produced every day that nets 2 million profit per episode, why would someone interested in money alone spend a year writing a book that might net less than 2 million dollars in its entire existence?

The generalized notion of motivation has to be qualified, however, because every media and every media producer is different. It should be stated that in our economy, virtually no media would be produced if there wasn't a potential for profit to be made. Money is the ultimate motivator in a capitalist economy, and it takes a lot to make most media. In most cases, therefore, the people producing the media are in it for profit. The producers of media are aiming for space bias--sell more books, get higher ratings, appeal to a broader market. The creators of media are more interested in time bias. Journalists in general aren't interested in making advertisers happy, they are interested in telling people the news and getting that one story that might change the life of someone who reads it. They are interested in spreading the truth. Authors want to tell stories they think matter, to make a connection to their readers. Of course, these people also write and create things that are sometimes frivolous, that don't matter, that are obviously only written to make someone more money. That someone is once again the producers of the media.

I guess the point of all this is to be aware of the forces working on the media we interact with. Some of it is meaningful, but all of it will try to sell you something.