Niche journalism in a niche society

While not addressing journalism per se, this opinion piece by Gregory Rodriguez in the L.A. Times highlights one of the major challenges to the traditional idea of the one-size-fits-all community newspaper: extreme political partisanship and the erosion of national and local consensus on matters ranging from personal morality to foreign policy. In short, people want to read and see things that reinforce the values of their particular subculture, while avoiding anything that disagrees with its worldview.

I'm not sure what this development means in the long run. Countries whose citizens divide themselves into squabbling factions - for example, Yugoslavia - usually don't remain countries for very long. From a print jounalism perspective, it will result in the growth of more niche publications aimed at specific "lifestyle" groups, and the decline of large newspapers aimed at the ever-fragmenting "middle America". You can see this in Greensboro with the rising influence of the Rhino Times and YesWeekly, our city's "conservative" and "alternative" publications, respectively, not to mention the various blogs, each cultivating their own audience based on common hobbies, musical tastes, politics, etc. Ironically, the technological revolution that has put the tools of mass communication into an ever-increasing number of hands may be undermining democracy in the old-fashioned town meeting sense of the word. Why debate policy with your fellow citizens when you can coccoon yourself amongst your own kind at Freerepublic.com or Commondreams.org?