Media - The News In The Age Of Computers

The following text is a summary of Dr. Stewart's notes (found at Blackboard Academic Suite), including my own comments:

News have a long history. In ancient Greece, there was the agora: a central gathering point where the wealthy men were going to hear the news. Of course, news, back then, had a different form than the one it has nowadays. News had to do with tales of warfare, trade and politics. Others great empires of the past, like the Ancient Rome, the Hun dynasty and the Incas had invested in roads, not only for facilitating trade, but also for speeding up the transmission of the news. A good example for the importance of the news, even in the ancient societies, is the greek Pheidippedes, who ran about 28 miles in a day, just to bring to Athens, the news of the greek victory at the battle of Marathon.

After the speeding up of the oral news, the written news came up. The concept of the "record" is, of course, extremely important, today, in the world of news. The idea of the "record" came up in 59 BC, in Ancient Rome with the "acta". "Acta" was a sheet in which the proceedings of the senate of the Ancient Rome were written. Julius Cesar asked these sheets to be pinned up in a public place, as well as, to be sent throughout the Roman Empire.

In the end of the 16th century, the newly introduced printed technology led to the print of news pamphlets in Western Europe. Gradually, news sheets were produced on a regular basis. The coffee houses, in London and Paris, helped in the spread of these new sheets. It took another few hundred years to get over the obstacles and produce a mass circulation daily newspaper. The Times appeared in the 1840s.

During 20th century, humanity experienced the "massification" of the Media. Inventions, like the telegram, camera, telephone, television and early computers, all contributed to the increase of the speed and the power of the dissemination of the news. Nevertheless,news gathering, during the 20th century was an expensive and complex procedure. That is why, the dissemination of the news was in the hands of a few (powerful enterprises, state). Telecommunications satellites increased the speed by which news was transferred from continent to continent, but it has been argued by Negroponte that the new media are bringing about the de-massification of the existing media. Nowadays, personalized news is a common phenomenon. Readers have the opportunity to receive emails, sms and other phone services containing, only, the news that are really interesting in (politics, sports, entertainment etc.). However, did this rapid development of the dissemination of the news help in receiving the "real story"? Can we trust the sources without being suspicious of propagandist information? Is it possible "creating" the news and, at the same time, being objective about it? Can we trust the journalists? The governments? Maybe we should not trust anyone?

Nowadays, media are owned by a few people or by governments. Journalism , until recently, was a profession without special training and specialization and that is why everyone with language skills could, easily, become a journalist. Sometimes, journalists were (or are), just, puppets in the game of propaganda and they were (or are, I repeat) under the control of the owner or the government. It is widely accepted that objective news media are like the Black Rhinos: they are out there, they exist but I have not seen them. So, the only person that we could trust, as far as news is concerned, is ourselves? Are we going to believe only what we see and be suspicious of the rest? Rejecting news because of the lack of trust in the news is like a broken pencil: pointless. This super-mediated era demands from the users/readers/consumers to create their own filters. The news should be filtered, according to the reader's/viewer's/listener's background, ideology etc. For instance, if someone lives in England and watches a BBC report about Gordon Brown, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, should not reject or accept immediately the information presented. By filtering the report, he should stay in the facts, rejecting the comments or the complicated info. Of course, the method that I suggest is a bit insulting towards the journalists, because it, totally, ignores their place, but since journalism has become such an "unstable" and , at the same time, "powerful" profession, I think it is not my fault. Cheers!