The people formerly known as the audience: power shifts in the digital age

The digital age is an age of paradox. Readers have more to read than ever before, in more forms than ever before, yet authors are making less money. It's never been easier to listen to music, yet musicians making serious money out of recording contracts are scarce, and the idea that touring will fill the gap has turned out to be a myth. Newspapers retrench their best, most experienced journalists in the face of dwindling revenues, even when they have more readers than ever before. Social media and low barriers to entry have made all of us creators now. But most of the money is flowing to the big tech giants who have made all of this possible, while traditional content companies, whose professionally produced work is consumed (and sometimes stolen) by more people than ever before, face declining revenue streams. What does it mean to be a reader, a listener, a viewer in the midst of all this? How have relationships between creators and their publics changed? Are we all producers and consumers now?