> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
> Behalf Of Marvin Long, Jr.
> Sent: Friday, May 17, 2002 10:53 PM
> To: BRIN-L Mailing list
> Subject: RE: Scouted: Global Village Idiocy
> Is he arguing that exposing people to the unfiltered 'Net is bad; or is he
> arguing that it's a bad situation when an elite is allowed to filter the
> 'Net for the masses to serve its own narrow ends? Which is Friedman
> saying?
Closer to the former, I think. Here are the key paragraphs:
"At its best, the Internet can educate more people faster than any media
tool we've ever had. At its worst, it can make people dumber faster than any
media tool we've ever had. The lie that 4,000 Jews were warned not to go
into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 was spread entirely over the
Internet and is now thoroughly believed in the Muslim world. Because the
Internet has an aura of "technology" surrounding it, the uneducated believe
information from it even more. They don't realize that the Internet, at its
ugliest, is just an open sewer: an electronic conduit for untreated,
unfiltered information.
"Worse, just when you might have thought you were all alone with your
extreme views, the Internet puts you together with a community of people
from around the world who hate all the things and people you do. And you can
scrap the BBC and just get your news from those Web sites that reinforce
your own stereotypes."
To me, that adds up to saying that most people are so gullible that they
should rely on the BBC and other established mass media to be their
information filters; the wired 5 percent cannot be trusted. That's fairly
ridiculous when you consider who the 5 percent are -- the most educated and
well-off Indonesians. And there's a sin of omission in that he treats the
media as if it were faultless.
I'm not denying that what Friedman observes is happening. Something much
like it happened in the early 16th century, a peasant revolution held Luther
as its hero. Luther, who hadn't let go of his social and economic elitism,
not only disowned them, but supported their opponents.
If Friedman's call for "education, exchanges, diplomacy and human
interaction" had been intended as medicine for the mass media, I'd stand
with him. But he seems to be saying that the ignorant masses cannot yet be
trusted to understand what they hear second-hand from the Internet. Or that
the wired 5 percent -- who surely are reasonably well educated and informed
people -- are ignorantly misusing the information they get from the
Internet. Either way, it is elitist nonsense, especially since he fails to
address the issue of mass media credibility.
> The apt comparison is Bible:Priests as Internet:Indonesia's 5%.
> In the Middle Ages if a priest told you what he said came from the Bible,
> you pretty much believed him because he was a figure of authority and
> because only priests could read the Bible. Friedman presents a similar
> situation in Indonesia: a privileged elite tells the masses that
> something is true because it came from the Internet, and the masses
> believe because among the uneducated the 'Net has the mystical authority
> that adheres to admired but misunderstood high technology.
This doesn't work for me at all. We're talking about the effects of the
introduction of a new communications technology. I can see what you're
saying, but I think you're comparing a situation that was relatively
static -- an elitist priesthood that persisted for centuries -- when you
should be comparing the dynamics of the arrival of printing into that
situation. It's not at all clear that the wired 5 percent in Indonesia
represents any sort of organized power base, unlike the priesthood. It's
more like the literate 5 percent or so of 16th-century Europe -- merchants
and others who had received an education from the Church, but were not
necessarily of the Church.
You used the word "sinister" in your reply. I don't see anything sinister
in the article. It's just good old-fashioned media elitism with typical
disdain for the masses.
Nick
