The ‘Rise of the Rest’: Schumpeter's Theory of Creative Destruction in the Age of Digital Media

Abstract

The advent of ICT brought about a process of industrial mutation that, clubbed with the recent economic turmoil, has seen markets, businesses and managements focus on mobility, ubiquity and entrepreneurial innovation as survival strategies. This paper analyses the fall of the media moghuls against the rise of the twitteratti; it argues that we are at the edge of a blast wave of consumer-driven change, one that is tight on performance but loose on tactics; it focuses on the paradox of digital convergence on the one hand and content diversity on the other. How can we best define the role of mediated communication in its multiple technological avatars? Is it becoming a God of Small Things, particularly where social justice is concerned? Or is it just another instance of cultural imperialism? Is it confirming or challenging the public service orientation of the media? Is it creating tipping points that shift relationships among social, financial, and political systems? Or is it becoming a Tower of Babel in the name of alternative voices and discourses? - are the other specifics addressed. Given the global interconnectedness of media today, the paper primarily seeks to take Schumpeter's theory of Creative Destruction out of the purview of economics alone and link it to the larger issue of change as the new constant for our next evolutionary leap- as cyborgs.