The Magazine Publishers of America reports that since 1950, the number of U.S. periodicals has gone from just under 7,000 to more than 11,000. When you throw in small literary journals, 'zines, and other tiny titles, there are far more magazines than the MPA can even begin to count. And desktop publishing is making them cheaper and easier to produce. The lesson for the new media age is that when media are abundant, they become more specialized, like magazines and newsletters. And they develop more personal relationships between producers and audiences.
Mass media assume they produce programs or articles for the general public.
And, in my experience, the editors and producers assume that the general public is not like them but should be. This produces a paradox that Don Roberts, a communications professor at Stanford, pointed out to me recently. And these two strains are always in tension. The more specialized the publication, the more readers and editors identify with each other, the less prominent is that tension. I do not think the reporters of The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal think of themselves as writing for the uninformed masses who don't have the sense to know what's important.