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The Hypermedia Hazard
But the problem isn't only responsibility and ethics, it's technology. There's too much media, and when it's combined with a dreadful and scientifically complex story, and rapid-fire, immediate and ubiquitous information technologies, the results are disturbing, as well as dangerous. Even the most serious media executives seem unwilling to even consider the unthinking and frightening way complex stories like this are transmitted, reported and explained.
A generation ago, most Americans got their news once or twice a day -? from daily papers and evening network newscasts -? no matter what was going on. These were delayed, filtered media. Information could be transmitted, digested and organized before it was presented to the public. No matter how serious the story, you couldn't wallow in it for too long -- evening newscasts only lasted a half hour and there was only so much space in the paper. And reporters and editors had time to consider and check some of the information they passed along. In the Age of Hypermedia, it's commonplace to pass along information immediately and continuously before it can be verified or considered. The public, already frightened, seems to quickly lose track of what is factual and what isn't -- a perfect environment for panic.
But digital and screen technologies, from cable and satellite transmissions to the Net (especially the Web), have created an immediate, unfiltered, 24/7 kind of information delivery system. The mediastream is incessant, even when there is no new information to support it, or little time to make sure it's accurate or coherent. We are told continually, for example, that terrorist cells are dormant and waiting to strike again, and each new anthrax spore seems to have its own cable news hour.
Websites like CNN's bring the news to consumers, giving subscribers e-mail headlines all day long. Like the Net and the Web, cable TV channels are on all the time, every day, desperate and dependent on vivid and disturbing imagery, information, discussion and argument, even when the information isn?t reliable, the discussion not useful or the argument unhelpful. A staggering amount of alarmist information -- innaccurate or best incomplete -- has swamped the country in the past month, yet little is corrected or explained in the continuous rush of reports. This tidal wave of screen and e-information creates a distorted environment, a surreal sense of being surround by an ugly story. This is, literally, hyperreality. Trauma becomes pervasive, and all-encompassing. Normal, routine news and information -- that is, any sense of normalcy -- is drowned out, which adds to the Hypermedia-spawned environment. Even though the vast majority of people are living, working and behaving routinely, the images pouring out of screens suggests just the opposite.
Hypermedia have thus become a civic nightmare. They helped create the hysterical atmosphere surrounding the death of Princess Diana; they helped elevate a sordid presidential scandal ?- the Monica Lewinsky affair -? into a national political crisis.
And now, since the much more serious and legitimately newsworthy attacks on the World Trade Center, and especially following the anthrax mailings around the country, Hypermedia are generating waves of misinformation, confusion and panic. Politicians, reporters and bureaucrats rush in front of TV cameras before they know the facts or have considered how to present them. Images of death, destruction, and hazmat response teams are triggering waves of anxiety and depression. Even though only a handful of Americans have actually contracted anthrax, and it is treatable with available antibiotics, the House of Representatives fled the Capitol last week. People all over the country are flooding emergency rooms for nose swab tests and calling 911 when the see artificial sweetener on a coffee counter or flour residue on a pizza crust. Meanwhile, lobbyists, politicians and professional ideologues crowd the cable channels to take advantage of all that airtime, squabbling over everything from military strategy to airport security. National unity is not sustainable in an environment shaped byh Hypermedia. Whether there is any real news or not, you can turn on MSNBC or Fox or CNN any time of any day and get some saturation coverage. Hypermedia spreads rumors, prompts action where none is required, panic and anxiety where none is necessary.
Meanwhile, as with Desert Storm, the military conflict has been morphed into a techno-war, covered mostly in terms of exotic new weapons systems, analyzed by the generals and military analysts who created them. The corporatized networks no longer pay for enough foreign correspondents to cover conflicts; they prefer to rent military retirees who can talk about AC-130 Spectre gunships and their firepower.
Learning to cope with Hypermedia is an essential survival skill in difficult times. People are learning not to believe much of what they see, read or hear, even when it comes from the Speaker of the House of Representatives (who rushed to microphones Thursday to report -- falsely -- that anthrax spores were making their way through the Capitol ventilation system) and to take their media in small, managed regimens. You might try watching the news for 15 minutes in the morning, then again for 15 minutes at night. You'll be amazed at how little happens in between, and how much of it can wait.
It's no accident that anthrax is being mailed to media organizations. Hypermedia has become the dream tool of terrorists everywhere, sowing precisely the same sort of overblown rhetoric ("things will never be the same in this country again"), and fear that prompted the blowhards who run Congress to shut most of the Capitol down last week, even though the health threat to them and their staffs was both minimal and treatable. Sparked in part by a panicky media, Congressional leaders missed the chance to demonstrate that we aren't in terrible danger. Instead, they embraced the terrorist message that we are falling apart.
In a curious way, this is an old story for America's bizarre relationship with technology. Nobody makes more of it than we do, or is less prepared to deal with its consequences, from airline safety to hypermedia to biological terrorism. Sometimes it seems our ignorance about how technology really works -- and what its consequences really are -- will ultimately do more damage than terrorists can.
The problem starts when people ONLY read biased news, and don't know about it. CNN is a good example here - if you have access to other sources you trust, you probably know as well as I do that the current affairs in Afghanistan are _very_ US-centric reported by CNN. When others say there are confirmed reports about civilian casualities, CNN still claims there are no such reports etc.
There's a saying that americans are ignorant - can't point out Egypt on a map, don't know that Sweden and Schwitzerland aren't the same countries etc. With the risk of immideate "flamebait" moderation, I must confess that I agree with that view. Do a test sometime, and compare your knowledge (if you're american) about the world affairs with someone from Europe or Asia
it's in my head
This is nothing new. Anybody ever hear of the radio "hoax" War of the Worlds? How did news of Christ spread throughout Rome? This "hypermedia" concept speeds things up a bit, but the internet and TV did not invent FUD.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
Ya know, I actually have to agree with him a bit on this one. I was speaking to some of our Haz-Mat crews (I also work for Fire/Rescue) and ours, the city's, and the next county over's Haz-Mat units have been running non-stop with Anthrax and other scares. But do we tell the media? We can't. It would only increase the load that we already have.
I agree that information has to get out there, and it seems as if most of the calls we get are people who are playing pranks more than anything else. Lots of people are exposed to Anthrax every day - it is a naturally occuring spore. And it is highly responsive to treatment when caught early. Take something like smallpox - that has potential to be dangerous. Something that hasn't been seen for years, we don't have enough vaccine for, AND is contagious? But again, it is treatable when caught early.
There is a fine line between reporting the news, keeping the citizens informed, and reporting to the point that you push people to the limit where copycats start happening and fear is rampent. I don't have a TV, so I don't know how well the TV media have done with the story, but all of the 'net coverage I have seen has been pretty responsible.
So should we run in fear because the media says it is so? Or perhaps we should merely take that as an opportunity to do more research and find out just how much danger you are really in. Remember, the media are humans too, and prone to make mistakes. Make sure that what they are reporting truly affects you before you go out an by Bio suits and build your bunkers.
Random Musings
Learning how to cope with this Hypermedia -- especially in a crisis -- is now as critical to survival as combatting terrorism.
Yeah, remember that time CNN.com blew up a truck in front of the US Embassy?
For once I find myself in very close agreement with JK. I've been trying to explain this to others for years and to be honest it is a very hard message to get across, so many people think 'information is good, speedy information is better' and switch off if you start gainsaying this.
So I devised an example, I ask them to think of any time the mass media has ever reported on a subject they understand really well. I then ask them to think about how it was reported.. Was it accurate? Did it actually explain anything? or was it just trite generalisations interspersed with political, commercial and personal bias?
Since the answers to those three questions are generally 'No', 'No' and 'Yes', the next step is to ask them if they really believe that the media reports anything else (stuff they do not understand so well) with any level of accuracy and objectivity.
This is a useful little argument, and while there are exceptions, it has helped me convince several of my peers and family to be a lot more critical and subjective about 'facts' they hear on the mass media.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
Somebody should give this guy a medal !
From a retired military weapons, munitions, and training expert : The truth about Bio/Terror/Chem Weapons.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
The problem is that people are reporting unsubstantiated rumors, dropping the time-honored journalistic tradition of confirmation from multiple sources in some illusory quest for "speed". Terry Pratchett wrote about this in his book The Truth. Journalism for small communities was a revelation. Before that, any crazy rumor would circulate around the town like wildfire. With journalism, people said, hey, maybe we should go talk to the baker who supposedly baked the Satanic bread, and the person who supposedly saw it, and see if there is any actual confirmation of it being true.
So the problem is not hypermedia, it's hyper people on TV who report anything immediately, in order to keep us "informed", without checking their facts.
I live in a small city in Canada, and every single news article to which I've had insider information has been totally botched to the point of being unrecognizable. Out of dozens of verbatim quotes, I've never seen one that someone never said "that's not what I actually said". I've more faith in the regularity of earthquakes than I do in the validity of the media.
Not to sound like a specialist luddite or paranoid conspirator theorist, but I think the news media is only a pawn of corporate media and corporate media a pawn of political and corporate interests.
Slashdot excluded.
One striking trend: technology has spawned too much instant and unfiltered media.
No. Humans have spawned too much instant and unfiltered media. I've seen things like "5 ways you can protect yourself from terrorists" on the news. This isn't news its fear mongering and it isn't about informing the public-- its about people (not technology) maximizing eye balls and profit for their own greed. I hope they shall be judged accordingly for using a tragidy to their benefit.
Obligatory Jon Katz flame:
And yet again Jon fails to see the root of the problem instead sensationalizing the idea of technology controling everything the exact same way the big media sensationalizes terrorism.
The Anti-Blog
Then you should also read this!
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
The morning of the 11th, I was a bit late to work in my Fairfax VA office (about 12 miles from downtown DC, less than 10 from Dulles airport), arriving just about the time the Pentagon was hit. Needless to say, we were pretty worried. The question on all our lips was, "Are we at war?", and nobody knew. All 'Net outlets were swamped; all our cell phones were useless as the networks clogged; the only way to get any information at all was to go down to my car and turn on the radio. And at that point, the following things were "known" to be true:
- The Mall was on fire.
- The White House had been attacked.
- A bomb had blown up in the USA Today headquarters (which faces the Potomac, just up from the mall).
- Another hijacked plane was circling Dulles airport, practically over our heads.
- A car bomb had blown up outside the State department.
Needless to say, *none* of these stories turned out to be true - but it took hours to discover that, as all media outlets were reporting rumor as fact. Even the next day, the Washington Post was *still* reporting the State department rumor, even though anyone driving through downtown could clearly see that it was false.
You'd think that it would just have been the hurried rush of events, and that surely in the month since then, calm and reason would have returned to reporting. But if anything, some outlets seem to have become even more sensationalist. Many times the headlines look like something out of the New York Post. Granted these are extraordinary times; but that just calls for extraordinary measures, to make sure that facts are facts and the public isn't needlessly panicked. The past month has been a real eye-opener for me in terms of my ability to trust what the American media says.
On a separate note, describing this phenomenon in a hysterical meta-story, and creating a titled meme ("hypermedia") to describe it, are some of the same tactics that cause the problem in the first place.
And finally, the term "hypermedia" is already taken. Perhaps "hysterimedia" would work for you, if you have to have a meme to rally around instead of just calmly reporting facts.
As for this "hypermedia" -- well, I hate to be cynical (not really), but being factual and rational aren't conducive to RATINGS. Our "respected news organizations" are more like the tabloids than they (or their viewers) would like to admit, and as long as this profitable, they're not going to stop exploiting paranoia.
Personally, I fear anthrax about as much as I fear Michael Jackson, and I fear a rogue briefcase nuke about as much as I fear Bill Gates...which is saying that Gates is only a TINY bit more frightful than MJ, but they're both still mostly harmless. :)
(Oh, and how to make up for that first week of good reporting without ads? How better than by running spots that exploit patriotism...you've bought YOUR genuine U.S. Flag Pin and Medallion Set haven't you!? No? You must be a terrorist sympathizer then!)
Power to the Peaceful
My big beef with corporate media is that these corporations are still agents of government. They take 30 people working in tune with Agenda X, and ignore the 30,000 people working against it, and then promote it as the News.
Having unfiltered media over an anarchistic system is now a BAD thing? If people read everything at face value, then they're not properly exploiting the instant-access-to-everything paradigm of the Web, and really do have the rulers they deserve.
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
Turn off your telivision. One wonderful feature of hypermedia is that you can choose what to consume and when to consume it. Yes, this is theoretically also true with TV, but the fact of the matter is, for most people, the TV just stays on, "in the background", and this greatly contributes to your feeling of being inundated with reporting, which as you've noted is frequently gratuitous and often inaccurate.
With hypermedia, I'm back to the newspaper model of having news from different sources, with the advantage that I can choose the update rate (modulo the timeliness of the source, of course). With the newspaper, I have to wait until the next day, even if something important is happening, With TV, I get it shoved at me even if nothing is happening. Hypermedia puts you back in control of your information consumption.
It could be linked to the same group that destroyed the WTC towers and slaughtered all those people
It's not weapons grade stuff
It is, but someone told us not to tell you
It's all from the same strain
and lots of stories of buying antibiotics, dangers of opening mail, etc.
The one significant nugget I picked up, and only heard once, was that the particular strain of anthrax is native the the US, not the middle east, not somewhere else in the world. This is very significant because it begins to shed light on who's behind, and who may not be. In my humble, and possibly flawed, observation and induction: Someone likely has a lab, in the US where it came from, start looking for it. I suppose the FBI already is on this tack, as there's a lot we don't know until someone tells someone in the media.
Another thought, Loose Lips Sink Ships was once an admonition to keep a tight lip on where soldiers or sailors where departing for, when and such, during WWII. I've been disturbed how often I hear something in the news, which, if I were part of a cell or friendly to the Taliban, I would consider very useful information. The TV and radio virtually spews what I would consider sensitive information. Saddam Hussein even commented, back during the gulf war, that his best source of information as to what the US was doing or planning to to was CNN.
It's not beyond possibility that the US govt. wants this dispersal of information, for psychological or other strategies, i.e. "Man, are we pissed, we are so pissed we are sending 3 aircraft carriers to the Persian Gulf and arming B52s for carpet bombing of some country in the vicinity of Kabul, that's how pissed we are, will you give up before they get there and we start using them, huh? will ya?"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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