Thought: Circle of Trust applied to media

There’s a lot of discussion around how to bridge the gulf between media and people as such - a gulf that in my mind is one of the reasons why many media companies are struggling to remain relevant for people and thus struggling to get them to subscribe to fx a newspaper.

One of the things always mentioned is a new focus on user involvement and interactivity and various ways of accomplishing that. However I have found it hard to frame all that - until now.

What I’m suggesting is thinking about this as applying The Circle of Trust to media. If you have seen the movies “Meet the Parents” or “Meet the Fockers”, you’ll know that The Circle of Trust is where you want to be, if you want to be on a good standing with the people who are important to you (in the movies case, your inlaws).

Why shouldn’t it be the same for media? If you as a media owner want to be on a good standing with your customers/readers/users, you want to have a relationship where you trust each other. Because when you place trust, you become engaged. And engaged people tend to be loyal people. They will find it hard to leave you behind. It will almost feel like an ugly divorce.

If you think about building out The Circle of Trust it also becomes more apparent for you, what you need to do. Because you get a framework. A focus. How do we get people to trust us? How do we get people to feel a meaningful relationship to us. To me it becomes a whole lot more concreate and real to deal with.

The more I think about it the more I think that the Circle of Trust metaphor is very efficient when applied to media. What do you think?