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Ilgaz Fakıoğlu
A dense fog has settled over the media landscape, thick enough to obscure not only direction but purpose itself. AI systems embedded in search engines, vanishing traffic flows across social platforms, the algorithm’s quiet ascent to absolute gatekeeper, and the slow erosion of capital, these shifts didn’t erupt overnight. They marked the slow turn toward a post-pandemic stasis, one that signaled less a pause than a systemic slowdown.
Today, the media is not just navigating economic contraction. It stands at the intersection of a strategic disorientation, a weakening public bond, and a functional identity crisis. That is why this piece focuses on the boundaries within the crisis, not to escape the fog, but to identify where a new sense of strategic direction might begin to take shape.
First, we need to understand the era we are living in.
The digital economy, along with the production relationships it shapes, no longer moves in broad historical phases. Instead, it breaks time into micro-eras. The global financial crisis of 2008 to 2012 disrupted not only the financial system but also reset the architecture of media and information structures. Today, we are experiencing another rupture of similar scale, but far more complex. It is no longer possible to describe our time using broad categories. Every headline collapses under the weight of its own internal shifts. The media stands at the very center of this collapse.
To make sense of the current disruption, we need to look back at the previous phase: The period from 2014 to 2022. This was a transitional moment for the media. Content production and strategy were redefined. Community-based structures emerged. A new alignment between aesthetic form and meaning took shape. Publishing moved away from its passive model and began to prioritize engagement, conceptual production, and storytelling as central elements. Out of this, a “narrative economy” was born. But the post-pandemic period has since exposed the limits of this model. It gave way quickly to fragility and uncertainty.
Since 2022, the media landscape has not only become more difficult, but also structurally more rigid. The threat of stagflation, the energy systems crisis, rising authoritarian security regimes, and fragmented flows of information have pushed us into what John Kay and Mervyn King have called an era of “radical uncertainty.” It is not only the future that is uncertain, but the system itself. That is why today’s world cannot be understood through risk-based models of the past. We now live in a new decision-making environment. And within this environment, the media has become a mirror of the very crisis and transformation we are undergoing.
Media lies at the core of this collapsed digital economy. As platforms tighten their control over content, media is becoming trapped in the darkness of an increasingly closed internet. This is a time when algorithms have become the new authorities of circulation, and publishers are turning into passive actors who try to decode those algorithms just to stay visible.
That is why this piece raises key questions for the post-2025 media world. Can we rebuild meaningful connections within isolated systems? More importantly, can we move beyond survival and build a new strategic foundation from within the crisis itself? Resilience alone is no longer enough. Media now requires not just strength, but a structure that can determine direction, and a position that can carry that structure forward.
Since 2022, media has not simply been shrinking, it has been structurally contracting. Stagnation has become visible across multiple fronts at once. Slowing economic growth, shrinking advertising revenues, declining investment, and the weakening of the public’s connection to media content now stand as simultaneous barriers for most organizations. Subscription models, once seen as a promising path forward between 2014 and 2022, have also reached a saturation point. Users are drifting away from content. According to Reuters data, news avoidance has exceeded 40 percent globally. The cause is not only fatigue, but also a growing loss of trust in the media system itself.
Today, seeing content is not enough for users. They want to feel connected to it, to form a meaningful relationship with what they consume. Yet the content itself increasingly takes shape under the shadow of algorithms, closed traffic channels, and the dominance of platform logic.
That shadow reflects a deeper structural transformation. The current phase of media is not only marked by economic pressure. It is unfolding within a political and technological reconfiguration of the system itself. Institutions, not just platforms, now operate like autonomous micro-systems, governed by private actors and closed networks. This shift is giving rise to a new order built on fragmented hierarchies.
In short, we are moving into an era where connectivity is weakening in every sense, and centralized systems are beginning to dissolve. Digital media finds itself precisely at this inflection point. The systems it once connected with are no longer guided by public interest, but by narrow economic and algorithmic logics. Content is no longer a collective product of public reason, but a functional by-product of closed systems. In this new media age, terms like “information society” or “public sphere” no longer reflect reality. Instead, concepts like “autonomous networks,” “isolated systems,” and “multiple centers” offer a more conceptual map that reflects the fragmented logic of today’s media.
Today’s media landscape operates across a layered and competing set of models. The first visible actor remains the traditional media institution. These organizations focus on editorial values, maintain a primarily news-driven structure, and rely on a linear relationship between content and audience. Their business models still depend on print, legacy advertising, and direct sales. Yet the fragmented, multi-platform nature of the digital era offers little flexibility for these older models. As a result, their ability to remain viable continues to erode.
The second model consists of media ventures built around a “lifestyle business” logic. These actors are deeply familiar with their market segments and place visibility and engagement at the center of their strategy, often building communities through social media. They shape their content for virality and create value through speed and reach. However, as algorithms tighten their grip on media distribution, off-platform traffic declines, and communities begin to disengage, the sustainability of this model is also being called into question.
The third and increasingly prominent model is that of hybrid media. These are not just content producers. They also develop AI-powered tools, design technology, provide strategic consulting, and build diversified revenue streams that include events and product sales. Their core approach is built on the formula: Human + Technology + Strategy. Hybrid media redefines both production and distribution within an integrated system. Without abandoning the narrative core of journalism, they treat technology not merely as a distribution mechanism but as an essential part of content architecture and business model design. In doing so, hybrid media emerges as the model most attuned to the logic of our time; responsive, adaptive, and deeply systemic in how it operates.
Despite the surrounding crisis, what we are witnessing is not simply the breakdown of old systems, but the emergence of something unexpected from within them: A creative anomaly. As I noted in my writings between 2020 and 2022, the rise of new-generation digital producers is not a by-product of structural collapse. It is, rather, a response forged from inside the rupture itself.
At the heart of this anomaly lies a new figure: Generalist. These are individuals who have moved beyond industrial-era production schemes, integrating multiple skills, scaling their work independently, and mastering both narrative and tools. They represent a new class of digital laborers, self-directed, strategically literate, and technically fluent.
The force accelerating this shift is, without question, artificial intelligence. AI is not merely assisting these creators. It acts as a multiplier, strategist, and infrastructure. It enables a form of media work that is lean in structure but high in output, not only producing content, but designing meaning, systems, and strategic outcomes.
This new producer archetype redefines journalism not as a profession alone, but as a dynamic capability, one that blends editorial judgment, design thinking, and technological agility. What emerges is a form of journalism that is post-industrial, hybrid in method, and resilient by design. In this light, the so-called anomaly becomes something else entirely: not a deviation, but a glimpse into the next paradigm.
Institutions must now clarify the values they represent, the degree to which they will integrate technology, and the organizational capabilities through which they intend to sustain themselves. In this context, the most critical advantage an organization can hold today is the ability to build hybrid structures that integrate content, technology, and human expertise. The weakest link, by contrast, still lies in the inability to build robust bridges between revenue models and digital infrastructures.
Strategically, media is moving toward a model in which content becomes a service, not a standalone product, but part of an integrated user experience. Journalism and publishing are no longer defined solely by the production of discrete articles or reports, but by their capacity to deliver value through a service-oriented framework.
Yet the core rupture brought on by technological transformation is not just about how content is produced, but about who produces it. By 2030, artificial intelligence may automate 60 to 70 percent of media production. But at present, automation largely applies to quantitative output. Content architecture, ethical discernment, and strategic decision-making still require human reflexes.
This indicates a fundamental shift: journalism is evolving from data generation to meaning construction. It will survive not by output alone, but by interpretation, synthesis, and intentional design. And in that evolution, the essential strategy remains constant: Adaptation and agility. In an era defined by distributed centers of power and permanent uncertainty, direction can only emerge through models that are built on these two capacities.
In this phase of structural volatility and constant uncertainty, the central question for media is no longer how to survive the crisis, but whether it can turn the crisis into momentum. In this context, Nassim Taleb’s concept of “anti-fragility” offers a meaningful lens. Fragile systems shrink under stress. Resilient ones endure. But anti-fragile systems grow stronger from the shock. This is precisely the challenge facing today’s media institutions: not simply to remain flexible, but to absorb uncertainty and convert it into strategic value.
In such an environment, endurance is not a strategy. Media organizations must move from holding ground to making decisions, defining positions, and initiating reconstruction. This is not merely a crisis phase. It should be understood as a time of institutional and conceptual reckoning.
Even if media institutions manage to pass through this period intact, they will be compelled to re-examine their functions, values, and social roles. The rupture we are experiencing is not just a test of survival. It is an opportunity to redraw the boundaries of journalism and media itself, and to redefine what it means to build in an age of collapse.
In an age of uncertainty, media institutions must move beyond crisis reflexes toward building a coherent and forward-looking strategic posture. This kind of orientation cannot be built solely on technology investments or isolated content strategies. It must be rooted in a media organization’s reason for existing, its relationship with its core audience, and the production philosophy that underpins its daily operations.
To that end, the most urgent task is not to chase immediate outputs, but to ask the right foundational questions, questions that will shape not only tactical responses but the long-term architecture of purpose and value in the media space.
What level of flexible specialization exists within the production team?
Is technology treated as a mere distribution layer, or as a fully integrated component of the production system itself?
Is the goal still to reach dispersed, anonymous audiences, or to cultivate deep, ongoing relationships with focused communities?
And perhaps most critically: is content still understood as a final product, or has it become a carrier of strategic value and service design?
The answers to these questions will not simply shape the next round of media experimentation. They will determine whether an institution can define a position in a fractured media economy, one where success is no longer measured by sheer volume, but by the ability to manage targeted, scalable, and sustainable forms of production.
In this period of deep redefinition, the real determinant of media transformation will not be platform choices or updated content strategies, but the leadership capacity of those designing and executing them. Today's decision-makers must evolve beyond editorial oversight, they must be capable of shaping business models, designing products, and embedding technology directly into the fabric of media production.
From this perspective, I believe there are three strategic pathways forward:
First, media institutions must move beyond content output and become intentional centers of community intelligence, building with, not just for, the audiences they aim to serve. This requires shifting from mass reach to meaningful relationships. It demands that publishers transform into community architects, not just strategically, but philosophically.
Second, media must embrace agile, high-impact structures. The era of large editorial departments and rigid hierarchies is yielding to smaller, topic-driven teams, micro newsrooms and studios that can reposition rapidly, operate efficiently, and specialize deeply. The strategic skill for leaders here is not scale, but the orchestration of precision with limited resources.
Third, artificial intelligence must cease to be treated as a peripheral tool and be fully integrated as a design element within the business model. The real opportunity is not automation for its own sake, but a new form of intelligence infrastructure where editorial judgment, strategic foresight, and AI co-operate in shaping media systems. Institutions that develop such internal tools not only enhance their own production but can offer these solutions externally as methodological services, transforming themselves into knowledge providers and strategic partners.
In this model, a media organization ceases to be just a publisher. It becomes a builder of systems, a designer of strategic tools, and a custodian of knowledge. It reclaims not just relevance, but agency.
In an age where uncertainty is no longer a temporary condition but a structural feature, media must reposition itself, not as a passive content industry, but as an actor capable of setting direction. Both leadership profiles and institutional architectures must be reimagined for this new era.
The future of publishing cannot be left to the mercy of platform algorithms or the economics of visibility. As argued throughout this piece, the current media crisis is not only a threat, it is a structural opportunity.
The choices made in this moment will not only shape what media becomes. They will define whether media remains a reactive industry, or reclaims its place as a strategic force capable of navigating, designing, and even redefining the contours of the information age.
