Sunday, October 23, 2005
Digital Age Journalism: Evidence of a flat world? Or just too much information?
Digitally Yours, Revolution: TWIF Reading Overview
MsTorres's blog Digitally Yours, Revolution has posted a thoughtful discussion of a key point from The World Is Flat>. She makes an interesting comparison to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. MsTorres writes that Friedman uses the example of a "digital age journalist" to make the point that "the increasing connectivity of our culture is flattening the world." She then raises a different point about the increasing connectivity made possible by all of the hi-tech toys available to journalists and amateurs alike:
We will become more efficient information searchers and consumers or we will surely drown.
But many will try to "banish" the complexity by building barriers against this tide of information. Political firewalls are being constructed that any reader of Fahrenheit 451 will recognize as attempts to destroy or at least control dangerous ideas.
We don't need to spend hours researching every story, nor do most people have the time or inclination to become amateur journalists with cellphone cameras. But citizen journalists will increase connectivity for those of us who are ready to surf the tsunami of information. The traditional media have to confront this challenge and so do we as citizens and consumers of news.
MsTorres's blog Digitally Yours, Revolution has posted a thoughtful discussion of a key point from The World Is Flat>. She makes an interesting comparison to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. MsTorres writes that Friedman uses the example of a "digital age journalist" to make the point that "the increasing connectivity of our culture is flattening the world." She then raises a different point about the increasing connectivity made possible by all of the hi-tech toys available to journalists and amateurs alike:
So now is everyone going to be a news reporter? How reliable is this "news" that the "Digital Age Journalist" has to report? Or is this what we need? This world is run by major cooperation's, and those cooperating own news outlets...so how reliable are they really? So is this "DAJ" the real deal and just what the doctor ordered to dodge the politics of media? Ardolino expressed that, "Being a journalist is a hobby that sprang from my frustration about biased, incomplete, selective, and/or incompetent information gathering by the mainstream media,". He continued to say that "...-a need is not being met by current information sources."My reaction would be that we are indeed facing a world with too much information, but that new technologies for information management are being developed as well, not just technologies for information production. We will have to spend hours at times, researching crucial issues, but that may well be the price of freedom.
In Fahrenheit 451, books and other reading material were banished because they were said to be too complicated. One book contradicted another, one philosopher down talking another. Is it possible that at some point we are going to have too much information? Or is that kind of mentality just a conditioning of commercial media? How badly do I want to know the news? Will I sit in front of my computer for hours trying to find correspondents in Cuba to uncover the realities of a country under embargo?
We will become more efficient information searchers and consumers or we will surely drown.
But many will try to "banish" the complexity by building barriers against this tide of information. Political firewalls are being constructed that any reader of Fahrenheit 451 will recognize as attempts to destroy or at least control dangerous ideas.
We don't need to spend hours researching every story, nor do most people have the time or inclination to become amateur journalists with cellphone cameras. But citizen journalists will increase connectivity for those of us who are ready to surf the tsunami of information. The traditional media have to confront this challenge and so do we as citizens and consumers of news.
