“Today, figures such as Nick Robinson (above) and Andrew Neill, enjoy greater gatekeeping functions to the political class than ever before” Image: Chris Boland
In 2006 Time chose “You” as their person of the year. While the magazine had previously selected ideas and inventions rather than individuals for the accolade - such as “The Computer” in 1982 and the “American Soldier” in 2003 - this was arguably their most provocative choice yet. The intention behind it was to herald the arrival of Web 2.0: a new kind of internet where individuals not only enjoyed greater access to information, but were also able to collaborate in ways that were previously impossible. Such changes, Time claimed, empowered the individual at the cost of extant concentrations of power: social, political and economic. Organisational incumbents with previously unquestioned protocol now faced a generational challenge.
Reflecting on this choice almost a decade later, the timing with which it was made could not have been more apposite. 2006 was a tipping-point in a rapidly changing media environment. YouTube officially launched in November 2005 and experienced 65,000 uploads every day within eight months of its release. Meanwhile, Facebook, which first become widely available in 2006, saw 100 million global users in its first two years. Those figures were only the beginning. By 2014 YouTube counted over one billion unique users a month - collectively watching over six billion hours of video a year - while Facebook enjoyed over one billion active users every day.
