AOL and Huffington Post merger: tragedy or triumph for mass media

Huff Post

Huffington/AOL Merger

On its surface, the merger in 2011 between popular newsblog site Huffington Post and one time dial-up web access pioneer America Online would seem an unnatural pairing. The former is among the most popularly visited daily-content sites on the web whereas AOL is a name more laregely associated with the internet's early history of commercial penetration. One might perceive the latter -- a media empire now including Time-Warner among its considerable assets -- as nonetheless a lesser partner than perhaps a media group with more current cache. However, as the discussion here shows, the partnership between the two entities may well represent a perfect pairing, given their mutual interest in finding ways to present news as an entertainment commodity. As a result, we would argue here that there is a certain triumph in this merger for the field of mass communications, which sees Huffington gaining the backing and resources of a company philosophically familiar -- through such broadcast ventures as CNN -- with the proliferation of news as a brand of profitable programming content. The result is a new prototype in the context of mass communications, a site simultaneously driven by news content and community responsiveness.

In a certain respect, this has helped to reduce the force of gatekeeping in the news dimension of mass communications and has, consequently, ignited hostility from more traditional mass media outlets. Indeed, even as Huffington Post has gained considerable reputation in this area, it garners a certain degree of criticism for its orientation. For instance, Snow (2011) points out that Huffington is often skewered for its presentation of content largely borrowed from other sources as being wholly original. In this way, the site postures as a legitimate source of journalistic reporting while in actuality, its prioritization of content drives a different strategic orientation. According to the Snow text, critics such as the far more traditional journalistic institution the New York Times have characterized Huffington not as news but as "aggregation." The text indicates that "aggregation' . . . too often . . . amounts to taking words written by other people, packaging them on your own Web site and harvesting revenue that might otherwise be directed to the originators of the material. In Somalia this would be called piracy. In the mediasphere, it is a respected business model." (Snow, p. 9)

Indeed, the model would be sufficiently respected to make Huffington a commodity of tremendous value from a media perspective. Ultimately, while it could not be argued that Huffington was the reliable news outlet that it presented itself to be for its readers, it could be said that its model had succeeded in siphoning off a tremendous amount of traffic, repeat visitation and site usage. Its greatest point of virtue is the ever-expanding community of users and commenters, which helped to Huffington not just to attract the merger with AOL but ultimately to maintain strategic control over its content approach as well. Indeed, where the Huffington Post distinguishes itself from other outlets is in the active involvement of its users. This has helped to forge a new, progressive and democratic context not just for the delivery of current events but for the open discussion thereupon. With AOL's resource backing, online mass communication would benefit substantially from the heightened capabilities of a distinctly community-oriented news site.

In fact, it may be argued that the merger only further legitimized an orientation toward news that is both commercialized and populist in its intent. To the point, from Huffington's own perspective, the merger has imposed a demand for effective balance between the types of stories and headlines that drive traffic and those that are necessitated by their importance. According to Bercovici (2012), since its merger with AOL, Huffington Post has worked hard to remain firmly entrenched in both the worlds of news and entertainment. In interview, Huffington would tell Bercovici that "We're selecting the stories because we think they're important but we found a very engaged readership for them. We've seen enormous page views around some of our best feature work." (Bercovici, p. 1)

This unabashed prioritization of traffic-generation and profitability would not just make Huffington a suitable partner for the AOL media giant. It would actually create a scenario in which the Huffington Post and its iconic CEO could proceed with relative authority and dominance in the relationship, a positive development given its successful modeling of commentary-driven mass communication. Huffington Post would effectively pioneer a newly multidirectional discourse on current events on a commercially legitimized forum. At present, a year removed from the merger, recent renegotiations of terms have demonstrated the shared disposition within the two partnered entities that Arianna Huffington is herself best suited to administrate the continued progress of the Post. This speaks to perhaps the greatest triumph on the part of Huffington within the context of this partnering. That is, recent developments have reaffirmed and even extending Huffington's authority over her empire. According to Stelter (2012), a recent revamping, Huffington said, "is intended to help the Huffington Post 'maintain the innovative spirit of a start-up.' Technology, business development, marketing and communications units that were woven into AOL last year will begin to report to her. The advertising sales unit will remain inside AOL 'at the moment,' she said." (Stelter, p. 1)