Bob surveys media with `Chaos Scenario`

New York: Everywhere Bob Garfield looks, he sees upheaval.No wonder he called his survey of the media, and beyond, "The Chaos Scenario."

As Garfield explains soon enough, "The Chaos Scenario" addresses "the historic reordering of media, marketing and commerce triggered by the revolution in digital technology." Or, put another way (yikes), it`s "about crawling from the wreckage of the old order to establish a new one." Item: Adios, television! Seems the mass audiences that TV used to attract aren`t so keen on being massed anymore. They like getting their content (while interacting with it) elsewhere, from ever-more-fragmenting digital media that give them at least a measure of control. Nor do they like being preached to by advertisers, as they seize every opportunity to dodge TV commercials. That means TV is getting less and less cost-effective for advertisers, who are now looking elsewhere to tell their story. Which means TV channels are driven to air cheaper shows to make ends meet which, over time, could drive even more viewers away. Fortunately, this particular collapse, like the many other propositions Garfield puts forth, is far more entertaining as depicted in his book. Anyone who knows Garfield from his writing for Advertising Age or as a co-host of public radio`s splendid "On the Media" knows he`s irreverent along with informed. So "The Chaos Scenario" is more than a wonkfest: It`s sassy. And it`s startling. Garfield doesn`t just sound the death knell for traditional media. He`s arguing that every human institution must forge a new responsiveness to its constituency — or else. Listen or perish. "Why, all of a sudden," Garfield poses to the media establishment, "is it so important to listen? Here`s why: Because hardly anyone anymore is listening to you." Garfield has coined a term, "listenomics," which he defines as "the art and science of cultivating relationships with individuals in a connected, increasingly open-source environment." One of his shining examples: the Danish-born maker of Lego products, which tapped a global community of Mindstorm fans to help reinvent (not just buy) its line of robot toys. There at Lego headquarters in Billund, Denmark, writes Garfield, he started his "journey as a chronicler of revolution." For several years, he kept uncovering evidence that in a digital, interactive, open-source-insistent world of liberated individuals, the Power Elite are headed for extinction. "Mind you, I`m not an economist. I`ve never been in the media business," chuckled Garfield in a recent phone chat, downplaying his credentials. "But it seemed so blindingly obvious to me that this was a downward spiral." The rampant redistribution of power wasn`t so blindingly obvious to media bigwigs he consulted, Garfield said. From them he heard, at best, grudging acknowledgment. "But not a single person could offer me a reason why my premise was wrong, apart from their certainty that `nothing could dare happen, cause how would we survive?!`" Garfield laughed again. "Being unthinkable doesn`t mean it isn`t possible." Not surprisingly, Garfield poses far more questions in his book than he has answers. (He has many suggestions for how YouTube could be profitable — and he doubts any of them would work.) But the questions are themselves illuminating for the reader, that is, when they aren`t triggering panic attacks. "This is a revolution!" summed up Garfield on the phone. "Nothing is going to be the same! It is fundamentally changing the relationship between every citizen, consumer, congregant and audience member — and the institutions that used to constitute The Man." Now, for the citizens, consumers, congregants and audience (plus members of the media`s teetering Old Guard), "The Chaos Scenario" just might be the killer app to help sort out those changes. Bureau Report