DISQUS

The Equity Kicker: The history of media tells us the web will change the world profoundly

  • rhhfla · 1 year ago
    A different perspective on media development is here http://sophisticatedfinance.typepad.com/sophist...
    Some research by two Harvard professors presents some findings which suggest a different explanation for the history of media
  • Martin Owen · 1 year ago
    Alvin Toffler’s Third Wave said most of this in 1980- only Toffler said more. Many modern pundits, because they are of the media, focus on communication and entertainment technology. We can expect changes that are much more ingrained in our lives than advertising and entertainment: changes in the way we manage our health, our learning, our play, our work, our manufacturing, our travel and on..

    When Orville and Wilbur took off on in 1903, they had no idea that their actions would result in northern Europeans eating asparagus at Christmas – yet along with the way of life in agricultural communities in Peru and out of town supermarkets in rural Wales – it is a consequence. The full consequences of ICT are to be played out... and it isn't the media industry that will be key. Newspapers- an essential ingredient in the restructuring of society in the industrial age, are a consequence of industry and Enlightenment not a cause.

    The railroad, electricity generation, internal combustion and tarmacadam have had deeper effects than the television.

    When we get sub $1 ultra-micro-processors, printed and organic electronics and the rest of nano technologies I suspect the world will become unrecognisable in the way the application of steam power changed our physical world – and in a way the HTTP protocol hasn’t. The internet, as Douglas Adams said, is still, by and large, an advertising brochure… and social media increases that effect.

    The best is yet to come.
  • nic · 1 year ago
    Great comment Martin - and your points are well made. Media is important, but not the be all and end all.

    And I share your excitement about the future.
  • James Penman · 1 year ago
    Hmm. It's important to distinguish between material progress/change and moral progress/change. All the major shifts (Agricultural, Athenian, Renaissance, Industrial and now Information Revolution) have brought about profound material progress for some but looking over the millennia there's been bugger all moral progress. The twentieth century was an absolute shocker. Plus ca change.

    However, I realise this blog relates to the material and certainly share optimism on that front for those fortunate
    enough to benefit from it.
  • Martin Owen · 1 year ago
    James, you do our times down. Fascism was defeated in 1945, imperial powers left their colonies in the 60's and 70's. Mandela did lead a rainbow nation. Women do have the vote. I am not suggesting there isn't more to do.

    However there is a greater desire for universal provision of health, education and nutrition now than there has probably ever been. We might not have got there, but most of the world wants to head in that direction.

    You may see that as material rather than moral - however what virtue is there in morality if it is not about helping our fellow humans.

    Having had the pleasure of seeing OLPC/OXs in favela schools in Sao Paolo one can determine a powerful link between technology, learning, and a growth of moral purpose- better expressed by Paolo Friere in "Cultural Action for Freedom".
  • Abraham Maki · 10 months ago
    this is an awsome blog