Movies and television are in trouble, says Stherei. They used to be prestige mediums that were able to tell great stories. With the rise of digital channels and streaming you can now watch them on any channel. But after that, with most movies, until recently, that's all you got - they're a low common denominator.
Once it was The Shadow radio show; now it's the podcast Serial. Is every old storytelling medium new again? Frank Rose, author of The Sea We Swim In, concedes that some things remain sacred--from the power of a great hook to the hope that great stories never end. But he also thinks the Internet has led to new kinds of stories, ones that are not just entertaining, but immersive, and whose worlds are more richly imaginative than ever--even as they leave increasingly little to our imagination.