The Hypermedia Hazard

In the last week or two, some of the media and political institutions responsible for providing clarity and coherent information appear to be unraveling under the stress of coping with terrorist attacks, especially the anthrax problems, casualties and resulting hysteria. One striking trend: technology has spawned too much instant and unfiltered media. This new, mostly screen-driven strain of Hypermedia are becoming a health and civic hazard all of their own, transmitting huge amounts of data and misinformation and fear along with real news. Learning how to cope with this Hypermedia -- especially in a crisis -- is now as critical to survival as combatting terrorism. Media officials are defensive about their coverage of anthrax and terrorism since September 11, claiming it's their duty to report bad news, and that they are only being responsible by quoting a multiplicity of voices and and instantly reporting each new development. The public seems confused about the danger, and about peripheral issues like "weaponizing", the effectiveness of medications and the means of transmission.

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.

Comments

The human mind is a good filter

[Troed]

I *don't* want someone else to filter my news. I read Swedish newspapers, American newspapers, independant newspapers and _I_ then judge based on lots of facts and opinions what I want to believe in.

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 ..

Anthrax Scars

[Anml4ixoye]

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.

once upon a time

[Satai]

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?

Read This !!

[AftanGustur]

Somebody should give this guy a medal !

From a retired military weapons, munitions, and training expert : The truth about Bio/Terror/Chem Weapons.

problem is journalism, not hyperwhatever

[rakerman]

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.

The Kazakhstan Oil Connection.

[AftanGustur]

I *don't* want someone else to filter my news. I read Swedish newspapers [aftonbladet.se], American newspapers [cnn.com], independant newspapers [indymedia.org] and _I_ then judge based on lots of facts and opinions what I want to believe in.

Then you should also read this!