For me, this has been clear for many years already — but then again I grew up using computers.
For others my age (or even older! 
), the news of the world was something they picked up at their doorstep (yes, indeed: for many it still is). It was (or is) packaged in a bundle, brought to you by an editor paid for by the people who hope to sell you their products and services after you’ve been inspired by their beautiful messages. For centuries, churches have used a similar approach to selling ideas — and now, the church’s stained glass windows are in every living room of every house for every couch potato to sit in front of and gawk over… so who needs to get up and open the door for news? It is now delivered to the living room, the bedroom, the kitchen, the toilet,… — it is simply everywhere.
The stories are all the same, only the words are different. In one news channel the glass is half-empty, in the other it is half-full. And people accordingly choose their news channels according to their religion (or supposed lack thereof). This was the cosy “industrial” world most of us grew up with.
Along comes the Internet, and the world is now turned upside-down. Media is no longer a matter of capital-intensive technologies, and all of a sudden capitalism is vulnerable to no longer being preached from every pulpit — now anyone can buy a pulpit and preach. Accordingly, sermons are no longer written only by members of a privileged estate, but rather now also by novelists, journalists, marketers, comedians, entrepreneurs and various other interests wishing to mix their dime-store opinion into the crucible known as “The Golden Crowd” — and those previously known as the audience now dance around this boiling, frothing honey-pot of knowledge as if it contained some secret sauce hitherto unknown to the bygone bosses of big business.
Amidst this great turmoil, a minute but significant detail is commonly overlooked: Whereas during the industrial age, knowledge was metered out in single units of broadsheets, the new mass media melting pot has not a single sheet within it: it is an amalgamted belly of fluidity — one big brothel including liberty, fraternity, equality, in addition to a long list of many other assorted sentiments, interests, favorites and favoritisms. No longer must any of these align on the map, no longer must any whim conform to the lines of a page, no longer is there any kind of limit whatsoever — other than that everything is contained in one “universe”.
This new notion of universe is what our new notion of church and religion now revolves around: Today, the religion of the link is referred to as “Google”, the religion of the celebrity is referred to as “Facebook”, the religion of discount coupons, deals and offers is referred to as “Twitter”, and so on. Each religion has developed its own contraption to distill its own peculiar world view — in other words: the particular method of distillation from the universe of knowledge which adherents and followers of that religion pay attention to (as previous generations used to pay tithe) and reap the reward of those particular kinds of spirits of which they have become adamant connoisseurs.
Moreover: These religions are not mutually exclusive! Believers can believe in Google and in Facebook at one and the same time. They can believe in Twits and Twats, in Hot or Not, in Less Filling, in Great Taste, in Yahoo, in Failure, in ABC, FML, OMG, … — whatever. To each his/her own purist moonshine and/or eclectic chablis. Each can choose their own poison according to their own mood, their own wants, their own desires, needs, habits,… or simply according to more or less random page refreshes.
Audience is no longer owned, but simply interested — not captivated, but only momentarily inspired. Today, the ethic of knowledge is one of engagement, and woe to those who turn buy in into sell out.
Next >> Part 2: The First Law of Converso-Dynamics