-Caveat Lector- from alt.conspiracy ----- As always, Caveat Lector. Om K ----- <A HREF="aol://5863:126/alt.conspiracy:520325">NEW MEDIA ORDER THREATENS INFORMATION OVERLOAD </A> ----- Subject: NEW MEDIA ORDER THREATENS INFORMATION OVERLOAD From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dr. Jai Maharaj) Date: Tue, May 4, 1999 3:26 PM Message-id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> NEW MEDIA ORDER THREATENS INFORMATION OVERLOAD AFP Tuesday, May 4, 1999 Paris, May 4 (AFP) - When on January 21, 1998 the notorious gossip-monger Matt Drudge broke the year's top news story, revealing that President Bill Clinton had had an affair with a White House intern and possibly asked her to lie about it, he ignored the press. He posted his report on his own self-published scandal-sheet on the internet. Within hours the national networks, overcoming their disdain for the maverick they viewed as a high-school dropout with a modem, were lapping up and spewing out detail after salacious detail. The media had turned full circle, feeding public prurience in the way that their penny-press forebears had done at the start of the century. "Remember yellow journalism," the New York Times blared, noting the headline frenzy of 100 years ago between two New York newspapers, Joseph Pulitzer's World and the William Randolph Hearst's Journal. Historians believe their battle for readers may have stoked up the Spanish-American war as fierce competition led to sensationalist and often unsubstantiated reports of atrocities. The content of the media has changed little over the years. "I would say what has changed is that the news media has become so pervasive," says Marshall Loeb, editor of the Columbia Journalism Review. "You listen to the news as you shave in the morning, as you drive to work." The route from the penny press to the World Wide Web began with the invention of technologies that we now take for granted: the telephone, the telegraph, the radio and the television. The emergence of mass media was already apparent in the West by 1914, but in the interwar years, as the world lurched from one political crisis to another, their growth was explosive. This was the heyday of popular radio and the rotogravure illustrated press. The first public radio station, KDKA, went on the air in Philadelphia in 1920. By the end of 1922, 576 commercial radio stations were operating, and by 1939 more than 27 million households had receivers. Radio transformed the life of the poor, especially housebound poor women, banishing solitude as it brought the world into their home. The spread of literacy meant that newspaper readership also expanded rapidly, so that by 1950, in the average developed country, between 300 and 350 papers were sold for every thousand of the population. Television, whose development was interrupted by World War II, began broadcasting full schedules during the 1950's, bringing live variety shows and later made-for- television situation comedies, until by the 1960's, in the United States at least, it had become the dominant medium, slashing cinema audiences and virtually killing off live entertainment such as the music hall. As programming improved, television news started to supplant the photographs in glossy magazines, while its dramas started to replace popular radio soaps. In Europe, where the power of the media to sway public opinion had been harnessed by the totalitarian regimes of the 1930's, most goverments retained a hold on television until the 1980s but then loosened their grip through privatizations. They did not forget the lessons of the Vietnam war, when television coverage did much to undermine the US administration's policies, and employed legions of specialists, sometimes known as spin-doctors, skilled in turning the media agenda to their advantage. Around this time cable television, developed in the 1950's to reach viewers in remote areas in North America, began to widen its scope, its growth spearheaded by the music channel MTV and Ted Turner's international all-news network CNN. Satellite link-ups now mean that instantaneous news coverage can be transmitted around the world, though the power to do so lies with just a handful of media operators. And Francois Hurard, professor of media studies at University of Paris warns: "We have gone from scarcity to overabundance in channels, but we have to keep our options (for variety) open." By 1995, according to UNESCO, 98 percent of American, 95 percent of western European and 94 percent of eastern European households owned a television set. The rest of the world is catching up, so that already 63 percent of Asian households are equipped with television. Only in Africa, with 21 percent of households owning sets, has the tide of television images failed to invade the home. With the advent of the internet the 1990's have become, in the words of Time Magazine, "the era of information overload." The internet, originally devised by the US defense department for military purposes, has made a reality of Marshall McLuhan's 1960's concept of the global village, bringing real-time information from around the world at the click of a mouse. In 1990, British researcher Tim Berners-Lee -- who has been compared to the inventor of the printing press -- created the World Wide Web, writing a public-access program to help the general public navigate the labyrinth. Two years later, with the release of Mosaic, the first commercial browser, roaming the internet became -- literally -- child's play. The rest is history, and a godsend for the Matt Drudges of the world. "Now, everybody can be a publisher," said CJR's Loeb. The question that is now being asked with growing insistency is: what is to be the fate of the printed word? "There has been a sense that newspapers might be doomed," says Michael Getler, executive editor of the International Herald Tribune. "But they have survived... by trying to provide more in-depth reporting and analysis." Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Posted by: Brian Mosely 5/04/99 16:27:03 PDT - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Source of the above and more news and discussion: http://www.freerepublic.com/ Jai Maharaj Latest world news at: http://www.flex.com/~jai/topnews.html Om Shanti ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
