1) Usually produced by formal and complex organizations ("professional communicators")

2) Organizations have multiple gatekeepers

3) Need a great deal of money to operate

4) Exist to make a profit

5) Have a great deal of competition

As "The Bloggers Strike" article in Part 2 shows, the Internet ignores 4 of these 5 characteristics.

A new type of "Mass Communicator" has emerged

There are parallels with the beginnings of radio. In both, "hobbyists" provided technical and content innovations. In both cases, traditional media companies stepped in to dominate the new medium to prevent the loss of audience and profit.

One of the newest forms of mass communication is the podcast. Like websites, they are easy to create and easy to make available to the world. And traditional media is trying to figure out how to "monetize" (make money) from podcasts.

"In an effort to walk back the cat - young people are listening to iPods, therefore media should be reiterated in a form that they both use and enjoy - big media is taking a stab at the next big thing. Much of it is awkward and some of it is downright dumb. But it costs almost nothing to experiment with, and this time media organizations are determined not to miss a significant opportunity.

Given recent history, you cannot blame them for paying attention. Network television is dancing on a ledge that gives way bit by bit every day. Newspapers have come to see flat circulation as a huge win. And radio, once the darling of Wall Street, has become a drag on earnings. Their audiences are being atomized, sliced and diced into ever narrowing niches of gamers, surfers and iPod-ers."

Click here to read "Big Media Wants a Piece of Your Pod."

1) Formal Organizations

Until the Internet, mass media organizations were managed by large, formal bureaucracies

As a result, mass communication was a product of a committee.

Look at the credits of a movie or TV show, the "masthead" of a newspaper or magazine, the credits on a record album. Even a novel is supported by editors, publishers, and publicists.

Formal bureaucracies are threatened by the Internet

Corporations are concerned about the internet across a wide range of media. They are, after all, middlemen whose business is built on an isthmus between the artist and the audience. The internet is a bridge between the two groups which cuts out the middleman.

A musician who has also produced for U2 and Bob Dylan notes: "We can record something at night, put it on the site for breakfast and have the money in the PayPal account by 5. With all due respect for my very great friends who have come up in the record-company environment, it's nice to see that technology has opened the doors to everybody."

Click here to read "1,700 Bands, Rocking as the CD Industry Reels."