Narrowcasting

Narrowcasting has traditionally been understood as the dissemination of information (usually via Internet, radio, newspaper, or television) to a narrow audience; not to the broader public at-large. Also called niche marketing or target marketing, narrowcasting involves aiming media messages at specific segments of the public defined by values, preferences, demographic attributes, and/or subscription. Narrowcasting is based on the postmodern idea that mass audiences do not exist. While the first uses of the term appeared within the context of subscription radio programs in the late 1940s, the term first entered the common lexicon due to computer scientist and public broadcasting advocate J. C. R. Licklider, who in a 1967 report envisioned