2017: media will get messier, journalism must show courage

One of the most common fallacies of media trend prediction is the idea of a ‘tipping point’. 2016 is no different. It might feel like the 12 months when media and democracy crash-landed. It will be labelled as the year that confirmed Facebook’s (not entirely welcome) dominance. Perhaps also the year when Twitter went bad and newspaper advertising fell off a cliff. Shiny virtual reality, theatrical 360 video, trendy augmented reality (Pokemon Go!), and mysterious AI all surfaced in articles this year as the Next Big Thing.