The Internet and the Future

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The Internet and the Future

• Robert L. Stevenson

UNC-CH School of Journalism and Mass Communication
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General principles
Communication changes everything Technology
drives communication change
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Communication Revolution No. 1

• Invention of writing
• Results
• Communication across time and space
• Infinite accumulation of knowledge
• Flexible, expanding cultures
• Challenged authority of tribal leaders and
  guardians of culture

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Communication Revolution No. 2

• Gutenbergs invention of printing
• Results
• Cheap, fast reproduction of information
• News emerged quickly
• Modern society became possible languages,
  bureaucracy, democracy
• Traditional authority challenged

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Communication Revolution No. 3

• Convergence of technologies
• Computers
• Satellites
• Digitization
• Integration of text, pictures, sound into common
  code
• Result is capacity to transmit unlimited
  quantities of information from any point on earth
  to any other point almost instantly
• Technical restrictions disappear quickly

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The Internet

• A global network of computer networks
• Components
• E-mail
• World-Wide Web
• File transfer and sharing
• Everyone is connected, but no one is in charge

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Implications

• An end to national sovereignty?
• Near impossibility of any kind of regulation? Or
  total regulation?
• Information as new form of wealth and power
• Information-rich and information-poor
• Regulation of an information economy
• News media in struggle for survival

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The downside of the future

• Commercial dominance
• Rise of extremism
• The digital divide
• An emerging global culture or continued
  Anglo-American dominance?

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The revolution in news

• News is data
• News is components
• News is live or on-demand
• News is multi-media
• News is personal
• News is interactive

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Re-valuing information

• Be traditional
• Give away the news, sell the olds
• Spread the costs
• Give it away and sell ads

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Journalism in the future

• Summarize events
• Assemble elements of a complex event
• Separate the probably true from the obviously
  false
• Monitor powerful institutions
• Tell us what to think about

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For more information
www.unc.edu/rlstev
Email me robert_stevenson_at_unc.edu