As I mentioned in class earlier today, I believe that mass and niche media both fill different needs for people, so they will both continue to co-exist. I believe that it is in our human nature to want to feel connected with other people based on our generic interests, such as weather, sports, and popular music and movies. Mass media allow us to do this on a large scale. For instance, everyone has been able to talk to one another about Hurricane Sandy, even those of us that have no direct connection with the storm. We do this to feel a sense of community, a shared “social glue.” But on the opposite side of this are niche media. Niche media cater to our specific interests that might not be commonly shared by many other people that we know. For instance, I’ve been really into biking for the past two years. While the population of bike enthusiasts in Memphis has grown because of the Shelby Farms Greenline, this interest area still isn’t one that I could use to connect with nearly every single person walking down the street. So I am left with using niche media to connect with people who share my interest. Because of the availability of niches like this (which are fragmented), consumers like myself have become fragmented as well. This has created a problem for advertising-based businesses because advertisers no longer completely know where target audiences are and how to best reach them. In the readings, it is also mentioned that the traditional approaches to measuring audience attention no longer work in this era of new media, which is a key problem derived from fragmentation. But I think this disruption allows for a time of opportunity. There is now a definite need for new development and rethinking.