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Back Issues
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Good News, Bad News, and Your News
Increased wealth (for those privileged to have it) leads to a problem: what to do with all of your extra money. The luxury consumer goods that once set wealthy people apart--like designer clothes and consumer electronics--are now more available to more people, notes trend watcher Eric Garland. Two trends in luxury consumption are toward more experiential indulgences (vacations in space) and toward consumption that is more environmentally conscious. (See "The Experience Economy: The High Life of Tomorrow," page 20.) For those focusing on the bad news, there is plenty of it, ranging from environmental threats to economic disasters. But when apocalyptic threats become the sole focus, according to social researcher Richard Eckersley, people may respond in one of three ways: by giving up on the future and embracing a hedonistic nihilism, by adhering to fundamentalist intolerance of those they hold responsible for the coming apocalypse, or by taking action to avert the catastrophes foreseen. (See "Nihilism, Fundamentalism, or Activism: Three Responses to Suspicions of the Apocalypse," page 35.) An activist mentality is partly shaping changes in the media environment, with consumers increasingly using their own voices and becoming their own force in marketing, notes business futurist Arnold Brown ("The Consumer Is the Medium," page 29). But this form of amateur activism may produce a backlash, as your fellow consumers demand better information from better authorities than the Internet's many anonymous "critics" grinding their various axes. (See "Fighting the Cult of the Amateur," an interview with Web critic Andrew Keen, page 33.) --Cynthia G. Wagner |
