But what about all that McLuhan's "the medium is the message"? I think one of the major preocupations here must be that many people get satisfied with the quality of information you have at the net. When they realize all the zillions of pages dedicated to as many subjects as possible, they feel like "ok, that's enough for me". The way a medium, in this case the net, is organized reflects the way new generations will be able to treat the information on it. The medium shapes the message in the receptor's side of communication.
Another little thing that must be said is about sources. The enormous quantity of online newspapers, or news-gathering like sites that exist on internet can't be described as an enormous quantity of sources of information. Or haven't you ever noticed all that ctrl+C/crtl+V that make you find the same piece of text in different sites? Really diferent sources of information would not solve the problem of depth (quality) of what we read on the net, but it would help people to find out more than one or two point of views in subjects they're interested. If these readers I just described would be like the ones on the first paragraph, that would be satisfied just for knowing that there is a lot of information here.
Lucilene Breier
About poor countries who can't afford the ultra-expensive treatment there are interesting things like programs directed by the brazilian federal governmet that buy those medicines and distribute them for free. Althought it seems a good idea, the patent industry has almost shut down these programs. Beside the cientific frontier (on researching new treatments) and the educational frontier (enlightening citizens on how to prevent HIV), there is this political frontier everyone must be informed of and defend sick and poor people from the pharmaceutical patent industry.
Slashdot Mirror
But what about all that McLuhan's "the medium is the message"? I think one of the major preocupations here must be that many people get satisfied with the quality of information you have at the net. When they realize all the zillions of pages dedicated to as many subjects as possible, they feel like "ok, that's enough for me". The way a medium, in this case the net, is organized reflects the way new generations will be able to treat the information on it. The medium shapes the message in the receptor's side of communication. Another little thing that must be said is about sources. The enormous quantity of online newspapers, or news-gathering like sites that exist on internet can't be described as an enormous quantity of sources of information. Or haven't you ever noticed all that ctrl+C/crtl+V that make you find the same piece of text in different sites? Really diferent sources of information would not solve the problem of depth (quality) of what we read on the net, but it would help people to find out more than one or two point of views in subjects they're interested. If these readers I just described would be like the ones on the first paragraph, that would be satisfied just for knowing that there is a lot of information here. Lucilene Breier
About poor countries who can't afford the ultra-expensive treatment there are interesting things like programs directed by the brazilian federal governmet that buy those medicines and distribute them for free. Althought it seems a good idea, the patent industry has almost shut down these programs. Beside the cientific frontier (on researching new treatments) and the educational frontier (enlightening citizens on how to prevent HIV), there is this political frontier everyone must be informed of and defend sick and poor people from the pharmaceutical patent industry.
Why not an international t-shirt design competition? I know some brazilian girls that would love to take part on that. Me, for example.