<<Popularly, and more or less correctly, it is still assumed to be dominated by geeks, porn, stoned students and assorted hucksters. It is also correct to assume that it is, not to put too fine a point on it, “full of crap”. Bonkers blogs, corporate/political hype and the whole undifferentiated melee of bad pop, worse television and inane celebribabble still make surfing the net a slightly less culturally respectable activity than watching The Big Food Fight on Channel 4. But something has changed. Basically, this is because of the techie phenomenon known as Web 2.0 – more interactivity, more user-generated content – and the failings of mainstream media. The first we can take for granted; th...

<<Popularly, and more or less correctly, it is still assumed to be dominated by geeks, porn, stoned students and assorted hucksters. It is also correct to assume that it is, not to put too fine a point on it, “full of crap”. Bonkers blogs, corporate/political hype and the whole undifferentiated melee of bad pop, worse television and inane celebribabble still make surfing the net a slightly less culturally respectable activity than watching The Big Food Fight on Channel 4. But something has changed. Basically, this is because of the techie phenomenon known as Web 2.0 – more interactivity, more user-generated content – and the failings of mainstream media. The first we can take for granted; the second may be less immediately obvious.

In an important article, Alex Ross, music critic of The New Yorker, observed: “Between 1980 and 2000, classical music more or less disappeared from American network television, magazines and other mainstream media, its products deemed too elitist, effete or esoteric for the world of pop.” The same applies to all expressions of high culture. Over the past 20 years, the increasing power of marketing and advertising over editorial has driven the mainstream ever further downmarket. I know, in the midst of this decline, we get quality pop products such as The Simpsons and so on, and I know there are plenty of specialist outlets. But that is not the point. Much that should be routinely available is excluded from the mainstream, crowded out by the short-term demands of the bottom line. The fear is that this crowding-out will lead to a severe case of what Clive James calls “cultural amnesia”: starved of popular acceptance and in a climate of perpetual novelty, high art will simply be forgotten. >>