A mostly off-topic speculation …
I came across some notes for a course I took once on journalism and the media. A survey course of sorts. Part of the early portion of the class dealt with the obligatory coverage of the history of journalism (apparently Julius Caesar’s pamphlets against his political adversaries were the first form of published reporting). Anyway – one thing that strikes you is that pretty much anyone was a reporter. News was collected and reported by word of mouth (you could make a good argument that web logs bring us at least some of that back).
So this got me wondering. Has mass media reduced our interpersonal interaction in such a way as to undermine or diminish “self-reporting?” When we as individuals all watch “the news”, are we somehow collectively absolved of a social responsibility to “report” the news ourselves?
Perhaps this is just another way of saying the same old obvious stuff, but technologies like weblogs and, yes, chat/IM, provide an outlet for such “reporting” – whether within an organization or amongst private individuals.
Cheers,
Eric
Leave a Reply