My new book is out this week. It’s a look at what the descent into Feudal Media has brought about, not just for the media and advertising communities, but on a broader societal basis as well.
In the book, I’ll take you through the origins of mass media and the monoculture and how it all came apart. We’ll look at the key players in the Feudal Media ecosystem and their prospects over the coming years, with a slight detour to look at the limitations of the creator economy as seen through the lens of OnlyFans.
Next there’s a full examination of just what we’ve lost and gained with the collapse, everything from the state of news to the state of fame to the loss of serendipity.
And because I am an eternal optimist, the book ends with a plan to get us out of this mess. Not a return to the monoculture, mind you, but a way out.
Since you’ve all been such loyal readers over the years, and to tempt you to buy the book, I’m giving you a preview of the introduction, which should give you a sense of the tone and flavor of the book and get you to click “buy.”
Like I said, I’m an eternal optimist.
INTRODUCTION
For most of my life, whenever there was a major national, international or weather-based crisis, I would turn to The New York Times to learn what was going on.
While I was well aware that the Times was not without its own biases, there was a feeling that their coverage of major news stories was generally fair, factual and above all, neutral, and that what I was able to glean from the paper’s coverage was reliable enough that I did not feel the need to go elsewhere unless I wanted a much deeper dive.
That changed recently with the start of the 2026 Iran War.
I would look at the Times and think “well, that’s one way to look at it, I guess,” and immediately click over to The Wall Street Journal, Axios, The Times of Israel, the BBC, The Atlantic, Puck and The Free Press (to name a few) to triangulate all their takes before coming to a decision on what seemed to be real and what did not.
Initially, I attributed my need to triangulate to the lack of any Western journalists on the ground in Iran who could provide some sort of consensus, but as the days wore on, the pattern remained.
More surprising still, when I’d share this observation with friends from across the political spectrum, they would, almost to a one, report that they’d been experiencing the same thing.
And that we were all somewhat taken aback by the fact that this was happening.
In retrospect though, it should not have been surprising.
Not even a little bit.
What we’d been experiencing is what happens when the monoculture collapses and with it any commonly accepted sources of truth.
What’s emerged in its stead is something I call “Feudal Media,” a series of mostly disconnected bubbles, each with its own truth, its own celebrity influencers, its own memes and in-jokes, its own culture.
Feudal Media extends far beyond the news to include everything from music and entertainment to art and comedy and cooking and health and fitness and everything in between. It’s an international phenomenon too, not just a U.S. one, and Feudal Media bubbles know no national borders.
But why feudal media?
Because at its core, the monoculture was a lot like ancient Rome.
Where everywhere you went, there was a sense of standardization and uniformity.
There was Latin. There was a system of roads and aqueducts. Towns were laid out in a similar fashion no matter where in the Empire you went. There was a standard system of weights and measures. A common currency. Arts and sciences created a shared Roman culture and writers like Cicero and Suetonius were known throughout the realm.
And then slowly, and then quickly, it all disappeared.
The barbarians invaded.
Cities collapsed.
And so eventually did the Empire.
Latin gave way to French, Spanish and Italian. Math and science gave way to superstition. And throughout Europe the centralized system of government that created a common sense of “Romanness” gave way to a series of small, largely disconnected fiefdoms, each with its own rules, its own dialect, its own customs and superstitions, its own source of truth.
It is, in many ways, similar to the way the mid-20th-century monoculture of TV, radio and print dissolved into a series of largely disconnected bubbles spread across a wide range of platforms from TikTok to Spotify to Substack to Netflix.
It’s why we seemingly have so many celebrities you’ve never heard of. Oscar-nominated movies that people in the industry need to Google to learn what they’re about. Cultural trends (“looksmaxxing”) that seemingly pop up fully formed from out of nowhere before disappearing back into the ether.
And above all, why we no longer seem to have a commonly accepted source of truth or anything remotely approaching one.
Welcome to the new dark ages of media.
Alan Wolk is co-founder and lead analyst at the consulting firm TV[R]EV. He is the author of the best-selling industry primer, Over The Top: How The Internet Is (Slowly But Surely) Changing The Television Industry. Wolk frequently speaks about changes in the television industry, both at conferences and to anyone who’ll listen.
Week in Review is an opinion column. It does not necessarily represent the opinions of StreamTV Insider.