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The Media in 2014
Alexandre Van de Sande writes "Robin Sloan made a flash video as a "documentary" of how big enterprises like google and amazon converged medias and changed the way we see news by 2014.
It's a vision of what could be (or will be) the world with personalized media, made by peers, and the guy knows what's going on on those big heads. It ends with a sad view on which, althought some people get their news in a way they could never before, most of them just get a bunch of untrue gossip and sensasionalist trivia. And that's exactly what they wanted." This will take a few minutes to watch, but stick it out to the end. I think there's a lot in there that you really should think about.
"most of them just get a bunch of untrue gossip and sensasionalist trivia"
Isn't this already true for the American "real press"?
Just because you've never used a feature that doesn't make it useless.
Operating systems, applications and services have all have core features that almost everyone uses but they also have other features that almost nobody uses, but that's not a bad thing. Whether its help for disabled users, a mail merge facility or whatever else, there are plenty of little-used features that make a huge difference to some people's use of software, and these Amazon and Google tools are no different.
You might never feel the need to search within a book, or create a Google group but it's pretty egocentric to think that just because you don't use them these facilities are useless to everyone else.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
"The medium is the message" also indicates literally that the communication medium through which information is sent affects how we interpret it. The information is filtered differently NOT only because, for example, we think print media is more trustworthy than electronic media. Because we cognitively use different processes to listen to the radio and watch TV, we interpret the SAME message differently. JFK won the first televised presidential election, but Nixon won the same debate among radio listeners (though of course demographic probably had an effect too).
By their very nature, media change how we communicate (notice how most people write e-mail letters like they are talking rather than like snail mail letters?) and interpret information, so paper video displays and Google's fictious, omni-media GRID will change how we think and interface with others. The death of the New York Times in this story is indicative of the transformation (for better or worse) of ourselves due to the new media. When Guttenburg invented the movable-type printing press, it cause fundamental change in the dissemination of information and hence society. The question is not what would people choose to view on Google GRID/EPIC (the video's author is probably right), but how will it change how we think and interact?
"And how is your typical blogger any more informed or connected than a journalist?"
Let's see... someone as a professional writing about their field or a journalist writing about a field they do not understand...
Now think about the implications of that. I can't see how classical journalism will survive. A blogger will ALWAYS be more connected than some journalist when writing about their fiel of expertise.
An exercise left to the reader is to spot all the inaccuracies and logical fallacies within. And yes, I do realize one story proves nothing; I'm just making a point.
Hmmm...if I want to know what digital camera I should buy, probably the last person I'd consult would be a digital camera expert. They're most likely going to deluge with overly specific information, technical jargon within the digital camera field. If you simply ask them, "Look, I've got $200. Which camera should I buy?" They won't be able to give you a 1 paragraph answer.
That's where journalists come in. They have a more marginal understand of the field (it's usually always worse than the experts, but that's expected), but they're good at translating it into information that can be understood by, let's say, a layman.
This is, ultimately, the advantage of journalists. No one wants to read a 10 page dissertation on the origins or dynamics of this or that conflict. They want 4-5 paragraphs telling them who did what, when, where, how, and why.
If you want to get deeper into that information, then you consult the expert.
Also, it's very possible that the expert won't be as good at putting his knowledge in the larger picture. At times like this, a shallow understanding of the subject is often more useful than a deep one.
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.