One of the books in the Bibliography is THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR by Andrew Keen. It posits that an unintended consequence of Internet Media is the undermining of professional journalism and a general dumbing-down of public opinion. Since the Internet is the great equalizer whereby any blogger can sound be heard and command a pseudo credibility, professional journalists are devalued. You can’t appreciate their research, fact checking, adherence to Journalistic standards. Every sound bite and web page and podcast can have equivalent distribution. Another proponent of this point of view is Chris Hedges. This recent article underscores the anti-intellectual effect of the Internet and the demise of professional news journalism; Bad Days for Newsrooms—and Democracy . I tend to agree. It is perilous to have so few controlling so much of our news, and to have so many reading and contemplating so little. What do you think?
Also in this vein is the work of Professor Mark Bauerlein and his book THE DUMBEST GENERATION. He argues that “screen intelligence” is no replacement for traditional literacy. Pervasive use of social networks, superficial blogging (mia culpa!), short texting and the obsession over keeping constantly attached to your friends and peers, comes at the price of focused concentration and deeper thought. He sites a number of statistics supporting is assertion that the overall level of younger intellectual achievement is on the decline. A review of the book is published in the LA Times and of course you can find it on Amazon.
Rock 'em, sock 'em TV providers
On the digital media consumer front, the Chicago Tribune had a great piece comparing Comcast Digital CATV with AT&Ts U-Verse Broadband IP TV service. Comcast still came out the winner although U-Verse posed a formidable challenge. The article diplomatically concludes “With prices for HDTVs gradually coming down, Comcast is the better choice for homes with more than one HDTV” . My personal opinion is that eventually AT&T will be able to offer more feature and a better overall bundle with your telephone services. Comcast is better at organizing and aggregating programming but AT&T will hire and develop that expertise. The final battle will be pricing and customer service. The consumer wins. U-Verse is still years away from having the reach of Comcast.
Thanks to Michael Fitzgerald for this link about brain - computer interfaces. I was privy to some EMOTIV UI work being done by a local Interactive shop last year.
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Monday, July 28, 2008
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2 comments:
Check out Is Google Making Us Stupid? - a different take on Bauerlein, whom I disagree with. As for amateurs diluting fact and fiction on the web, I think we just have to teach people to be more skeptical of things they see online or in the media (we should be doing this anyway). Self policing - like wikipedia - works, and it will work even better with a skeptical user base. We also see a push back of professional edited content - like Mahalo and Google's Knol as a kind of UGC antidote.
The notion that blogs are distorting things is a very interesting narrative worth following. One interesting quote I'll share here, wondering if blogs are killing satire :
Maybe satire is really dead because there is no wrong opinion, no matter how extreme or looney, that doesn't appear somewhere on the internet. I'm not sure it's possible to be sufficiently over the top anymore for people to recognize satire.
I wrote this in response to the wrong blog, sorry:
it appears that legitimate news reporters/editors are getting into the online market in response to the decline of traditional newspapers: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117990421.html?categoryid=1009&cs=1
-shannon
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