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Media Disrupted: Surviving Pirates, Cannibals, and Streaming Wars
How the internet disrupted the recorded music, newspaper, film, and television industries and what this tells us about surviving technological disruption.
Much of what we think we know about how the internet "disrupted" media industries is wrong. Piracy did not wreck the recording industry, Netflix isn't killing Hollywood movies, and information does not want to be free. In Media Disrupted , Amanda Lotz looks at what really happened when the recorded music, newspaper, film, and television industries were the ground zero of digital disruption. It's not that digital technologies introduced "new media," Lotz explains; rather, they offered existing media new tools for reaching people.
For example, the MP3 unbundled recorded music; as the internet enabled new ways for people to experience and pay for music, the primary source of revenue for the recorded music industry shifted from selling music to licensing it. Cable television providers, written off as predigital dinosaurs, became the dominant internet service providers. News organizations struggled to remake businesses in the face of steep declines in advertiser spending, while the film industry split its business among movies that compelled people to go to theaters and others that are better suited for streaming. Lotz looks in detail at how and why internet distribution disrupted each industry. The stories of business transformation she tells offer lessons for surviving and even thriving in the face of epoch-making technological change.
Much of what we think we know about how the internet "disrupted" media industries is wrong. Piracy did not wreck the recording industry, Netflix isn't killing Hollywood movies, and information does not want to be free. In Media Disrupted , Amanda Lotz looks at what really happened when the recorded music, newspaper, film, and television industries were the ground zero of digital disruption. It's not that digital technologies introduced "new media," Lotz explains; rather, they offered existing media new tools for reaching people.
For example, the MP3 unbundled recorded music; as the internet enabled new ways for people to experience and pay for music, the primary source of revenue for the recorded music industry shifted from selling music to licensing it. Cable television providers, written off as predigital dinosaurs, became the dominant internet service providers. News organizations struggled to remake businesses in the face of steep declines in advertiser spending, while the film industry split its business among movies that compelled people to go to theaters and others that are better suited for streaming. Lotz looks in detail at how and why internet distribution disrupted each industry. The stories of business transformation she tells offer lessons for surviving and even thriving in the face of epoch-making technological change.
- GenresNonfiction
187 pages, Hardcover
Published October 5, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 4, 2023
An authoritative assessment of the different ways in which internet distribution has disrupted four specific media industries. Apart from Lotz's apparent lack of concern about the growing degree of corporate consolidation across these industries and an uncritical reliance on classical capitalist notions of competition and consumer demand, the book reflects intelligently and insightfully on complex and easily-misunderstood transformations.
January 13, 2022
A superb, succinct and highly accessible book that methodically picks apart misconceptions around 21st-Century media disruption of music, news, films and television as precipitated by the digital turn. Mandatory reading for students, researchers and workers within media industries.
November 5, 2025
Possibilities and Perils -Having read some other books on the subject (e.g., see my review of Smith & Telang’s “Streaming, Stealing, & Sharing”) and looking to learn more about the impact of streaming on television, Lotz’s “Media Disrupted” seemed like it could provide further revelations. Overall, the book does provide additional insight, and particular chapters were pertinent for me regarding television. However, it still remains to be seen what streaming will lead and what it will particularly for those concerned with public interest areas.
More, specifically, the book unfolds in five chapters and a conclusion: “Digital Disruption,” “Piracy Killed the Music Industry,” “Information Wants to Be Free,” “Netflix Is Destroying Hollywood,” and “The End of Television as We Know It.” Each chapter builds on the previous to trace how technological innovation and audience empowerment disrupted entire sectors. Lotz begins by framing digital disruption not as a technological event but as a process of exponential expansion in communication and data analysis capacities.
For me, the book’s strength lies in its analytical clarity. Lotz distills twenty years of digital transformation into a coherent narrative about reconfigured supply chains, redefined value propositions, and new audience expectations. Her conclusion—“fear failing consumers, not cannibals, or losing control”—summarizes her argument that the key to survival lies in prioritizing the user experience rather than resisting disruption. The real competition, she implies, is not other platforms but irrelevance.
However, “Media Disrupted” is not without its limitations. It captures disruption in motion, making it inevitably incomplete as the industry continues to evolve beyond streaming into algorithmic personalization, AI-driven production, and platform consolidation. Lotz touches only lightly on public-interest media, which face unique pressures in the same turbulent environment. For instance, what do these ongoing changes mean for civic and educational media such as PBS and Sesame Workshop? Can such institutions “disrupt” without betraying their mission? If Netflix built a “virtuous cycle” by using data to anticipate consumer preferences, might public media build one that strengthens civic literacy or childhood development in a fragmented digital world?
Despite such questions, Lotz’s analysis provides a vital framework for understanding the forces that continue to shape media today—and for asking who will shape them tomorrow. Accordingly, she succeeds in mapping both the terrain as well as the possibilities and perils of disruption. Some others related titles that offer some illumination along these lines include Kim & Mauborgne’s “Beyond Disruption,” Parker & Van Alstyne’s “Platform Revolution,” and Rufi Thorpe’s “Margo's Got Money Troubles: A Novel” (see my reviews); also see Lotz’s “After Mass Media: Storytelling for Micro-audiences in the Twenty-First Century” for a continuation of the narrative and its implications in this regard.
In the end, the book reminds us that technological change always brings moral and institutional choices: what values to preserve, which audiences to serve, and how to redefine creativity in a world of endless access. Though written before the streaming correction and the financial strain now facing public broadcasting, "Media Disrupted" remains an essential guide for anyone seeking to understand how media industries can evolve—and what must not be lost in the process.
More, specifically, the book unfolds in five chapters and a conclusion: “Digital Disruption,” “Piracy Killed the Music Industry,” “Information Wants to Be Free,” “Netflix Is Destroying Hollywood,” and “The End of Television as We Know It.” Each chapter builds on the previous to trace how technological innovation and audience empowerment disrupted entire sectors. Lotz begins by framing digital disruption not as a technological event but as a process of exponential expansion in communication and data analysis capacities.
For me, the book’s strength lies in its analytical clarity. Lotz distills twenty years of digital transformation into a coherent narrative about reconfigured supply chains, redefined value propositions, and new audience expectations. Her conclusion—“fear failing consumers, not cannibals, or losing control”—summarizes her argument that the key to survival lies in prioritizing the user experience rather than resisting disruption. The real competition, she implies, is not other platforms but irrelevance.
However, “Media Disrupted” is not without its limitations. It captures disruption in motion, making it inevitably incomplete as the industry continues to evolve beyond streaming into algorithmic personalization, AI-driven production, and platform consolidation. Lotz touches only lightly on public-interest media, which face unique pressures in the same turbulent environment. For instance, what do these ongoing changes mean for civic and educational media such as PBS and Sesame Workshop? Can such institutions “disrupt” without betraying their mission? If Netflix built a “virtuous cycle” by using data to anticipate consumer preferences, might public media build one that strengthens civic literacy or childhood development in a fragmented digital world?
Despite such questions, Lotz’s analysis provides a vital framework for understanding the forces that continue to shape media today—and for asking who will shape them tomorrow. Accordingly, she succeeds in mapping both the terrain as well as the possibilities and perils of disruption. Some others related titles that offer some illumination along these lines include Kim & Mauborgne’s “Beyond Disruption,” Parker & Van Alstyne’s “Platform Revolution,” and Rufi Thorpe’s “Margo's Got Money Troubles: A Novel” (see my reviews); also see Lotz’s “After Mass Media: Storytelling for Micro-audiences in the Twenty-First Century” for a continuation of the narrative and its implications in this regard.
In the end, the book reminds us that technological change always brings moral and institutional choices: what values to preserve, which audiences to serve, and how to redefine creativity in a world of endless access. Though written before the streaming correction and the financial strain now facing public broadcasting, "Media Disrupted" remains an essential guide for anyone seeking to understand how media industries can evolve—and what must not be lost in the process.
May 21, 2023
Great at dispelling myths as to the economic conditions that actually wracked various media industries even before internet disruption, less great at summarizing and understanding the current state of the businesses and their drawbacks.
June 25, 2023
Analisi approfondita e a tratti interessante delle trasformazioni indotte da internet in alcuni cambi
June 4, 2025
me ajudou bastante mas curioso como ela e o ramon lobato tão em todas
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews