Broadcast, broadsheet or broadband was the subject of last nights rather pedestrian Hansard Society annual debate and to cut straight to the chase everyone more or less agreed that "broadband" was the way forward. Though none of them presented a very sophisticated appreciation of the online world. I was also a little disappointed at the quality of the preparation, apart from Pete Picton (The Sun Online) no one seemed to have taken much time to put together a good argument, they just rocked up and complained randomly around the subject.

No surprise then that they trotted out the standard discussions of TV, papers and radio. TV more engaging, but limited time. More depth with Radio (but only Radio 4). And people go to papers for more depth. With a generally understanding that the web (and maybe a larger internet experience) is beginning to edge into all of the above areas. Occasionally people mentioned messageboards or treaded close to real interactivity, nearly as much in relation to Radio 5 as to the web.

There were a few good lines though.

Polly Billington (BBC Radio4) on getting people to care more about politics and Radio 1's cartoon politics.

All of you here in this room are odd because you care about politics.

And on the relationship between politicians and the media.

There is a compact between politicians and the media. Politicians like the fights and the show and so does the media.

She went on to say that government may not like this sort of thing, but any PR is good for politicians. And as all relationships are actually with politicians not with the government that's the way it is.

Michael White (The Guardian)

My kids tell me the new Berliner Guardian looks like a website.

The Guardian editor's reply to him, it was designed to look web-like.

That's the standard way to consume information now.

Towards the end Michael White did bring up an interesting point that sank without a trace. Maybe that's because it felt a bit too like critical theory or post-modernism.

The history of the 20th century has been one of grand narratives, big life stories that affect everyone, two world wars, recoveries, depressions, cold wars. The media as it has existed over the last 100 years and political institutions have played an important part in telling these stories. These have all been simple stories and the media and politics have evolved to tell these simple stories. Maybe the media shaped the perception of world events, or the world events shaped the media but I'll not get into cause and effect in meta-technologies right now.

However life is more complicated now. For a variety of reasons events, opinions, sides, religions and lifestyles are all more nuanced and intermixed, they don't fit nicely into grand narratives.

So we don't need (and maybe don't want) the media to be telling us stories, shaping our big picture of the way the world is. Perhaps we would rather have the media institutions helping us tell our own stories - shape our own narratives.

This is not just people blogging, posting on messageboards, remixing, swarm behaviour or social networking, and in fact it is not because we can do this and even though nowadays it is easier have been able to all along. This should be about a shift in allowing people to take control of their own perceptions and their own life narrative. And this does require the active participation of big media institutions, not the least because they are already there and telling us stories, albeit the wrong type of stories. There world does need large media institutions to do this, there are economies of scale and trust issues that need to be dealt with.

The media needs to get off the stage and come and join us around the camp fire, there is still space to tell stories, but these should be little stories that we can relate to. They should be there beside us as partners helping us fill in our own big life story. Stop delivering politics and help us take part in it.