Is New Media contributing to the economic recession in America? Is it even a factor, and if so, how? I was reading Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily earlier, and she posted an entry on yet another PR firm moving to embrace emerging platforms to stay afloat in the social media era. People are losing their jobs to unintended crowdsourcing, in this case, due to the web’s impact on word-of-mouth and brand/persona marketing. Agencies have to compete with an entirely new beast. For example, would Tom Cruise’s image be as tarnished by his relationship with Scientology if it wasn’t for the chatter on Digg, the Wikileaks, and the activities of the Anonymous movement?

Anyway, all of this got me thinking about New Media’s economic impact. Piracy, net neutrality, e-commerce, web leaks, etc.; do these and other elements of the age in which we live completely subvert traditional avenues of cash flow? I gather the consensus is somewhere close to a “yes”. So, if the idea is social media is going to do your work for you because you can no longer control messages, that agencies, studios and other media entities require less overhead and fewer employees, technology is streamlining manufacturing and production methods, customer support is outsourced overseas or provided by the community at-large, and while everyone is willing to pay for delivery platforms they incipiently expect free content (oh, and who the heck really looks at advertising? I mean, really?) then I guess that means no one is spending money and no one is making money. What do you think?

The economy and social media is no where near my area of study or expertise, so I’m just putting my thoughts out there. Tell me what you think I should know. Or, tell me I’m clueless. I can handle it either way.

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