Who’s the media person of the year?

You did. Time rewarded a collectivity, users, and praised them – or us – for “seizing the reins of the global media.” And this says a lot on how much today’s media and media receptors – who are now also the providers – have changed.

Time’s choice is representative of the shift in media control and the user-content generation, especially in terms of blogs, social networks and media sharing websites. The magazine acknowledged websites such as YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Wikipedia, as well as the web in general – especially the emergence of Web 2.0, for allowing this shift.

“It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes,” said Lev Grossman, who wrote the Time’s article.

Grossman rightly remarks that YouTube, blogs and Web 2.0 are not just social sharing platforms: they’re integral sociological markers, both a way to interconnect people, but also a way to understand them. You learn more by the background of a homemade YouTube video, or by the spelling mistakes on a blog comment, than you do by watching 1000 hours of network TV, says Grossman.

The Time’s decision is also part of a grander worldly view though. Take a look at past winners.

Bill and Melinda Gates, alongside singer Bono, had won the award last year. President George W. Bush was named in 2003. Adolf Hitler was the controversial 1938 winner.

All these winners were individuals. Not anymore.

The Time’s decision shows that the media and people have changed so much that individuals are not the engines of History anymore – though the great ones still have influence. We all are, as a community, because everything we do now affects and is affected by the rest of us.

“This is an opportunity to build a new kind of international understanding, not politician to politician, great man to great man, but citizen to citizen, person to person.”

Source: Time – Los Angeles Times - BBC