2025: A Dystopic Media Landscape

Predictions are only as good at the data you have to work with, and even then they are only predictions. There are so many factors that will impact the media landscape in the next 10 years: mergers and acquisitions, audience preferences, political regime changes and new laws, the innovation of new technologies, and the list goes on.

The fact of the matter is, the way things are going right now, all media are increasingly and blatantly becoming marketplaces for consumers to meet advertisers. By 2025, I think there will be two very different Internet experiences. A completely free version of the web which comes with free hardware, but that constantly harasses people with advertisements. This will probably be marketed to low income people.

There will also be a highly premium version of the Internet that allows the elite to pay for content and not have to deal with advertisements (as much). 

Newspapers and even digital native news media outlets will be less relevant for news and information, as in the next 10 years people will grow increasingly tired of their hawking of advertisements. 

Instead, we'll go back to a model of advocacy journalism organizations producing important investigative stories. We're seeing this already happening with the rise of ProPublica, Marshall Project, and the Texas Tribune. Non-profits will begin commissioning their own investigative units as social issues become more intense. 

News media's incessant need for advertising profits will be its downfall, and will give rise to media outlets that educate people through well-thought out stories rather than an incompetent barrage of content that is great for profit but horrible for educating the public.