Welcome back to the Reading Garden, where every Friday we spotlight three must-read pieces we're paying attention to and explore what they mean for legacy media.
Without further ado…
Quite the perfect follow up to last week’s piece by Jon Stahl. After he set us up with the idea that the future isn’t binary or permanent like the naysayers love to proclaim, we have none other than Doug Shapiro to give us the deep dive into how traditional media can capitalize and adapt. Or as he puts it, avoid own goals.
His core argument? When one input in a production process becomes more abundant, other elements become more scarce—and therefore more valuable.
As it turns out, many of those scarce resources sit squarely in the wheelhouse of traditional media (he describes each one in detail). So as we buckle up for future disruption, let this be a reminder to not panic, but recalibrate.
Emma Jamieson tells it like it is: “No one on social media gives two [expletive] about the 10 production companies that funded the film.” And she’s not wrong.
Thirty seconds of logos followed by a standard-issue trailer? It’s not going to cut it. Social media posting is an art in and of itself, one with a totally different format that requires its own creative language. So yes, repurposing theatrical assets for TikTok or Instagram is a big mistake.
And if you still think that social posts aren’t “polished”, just check out author Adam Aleksic’s video explaining how creators alter their accents to the T for maximum engagement. That’s the level of detail we’re talking about, there’s no option but for legacy media to step up.
The University of North Carolina just launched an initiative to train all 850 of its student-athletes to become social media influencers. And yes, it's a big deal for athlete compensation, but it's also a big deal for legacy media.
Here’s why…
Instead of relying on a handful of polished ad spots, UNC now has hundreds of micro-creators telling the brand story in their own voice. It’s decentralized marketing at scale, and more authentic than anything you can write in a boardroom.
Our Substacker in Chief, Ben Odell, wrote about this in our latest post as it relates to a TV. Now, a college sports program is putting it into practice.
Who’s catching up?
See you next week.
Nice! I read Doug's piece too. Honored to be mentioned alongside it!