The future of the media

  New media is to assist global democracy

Kalina Varbanova

In the age of new technologies democracy is suffering some kind of transformation. As Alvin Toffler say in his “Third wave” book the new society of the post-industrial world is information based. The most precious resource in the information society is knowledge. In the information era media shifts from the conventional communication model one-to-many to the totally unpredictable many-to-many. Total diverse in information sources gives a person way to fulfill the puzzle construct more complex picture of the surrounding world. The new global society is based on so called “informed citizen”.

Via internet hundred of pieces of information for currents events are dispatched to millions of people all over the world from on-line news papers, e-wires, e-zines, blogs, on-line radio stations and televisions. The emerging question is – is information relevant to knowledge? The mass media work on the principle “news of the day” or “hot news”. They rely on the called “15 minutes  glory”. On the contrary the knowledge is  a result of thousands years of human activities. The society of the future is some kind of global society where there are no boundaries between the individuals. Are the media capable to respond to the growing needs of the informed citizen?

The democracy of the XXI century is based on the shift in power- from majority to minorities, as Toffler says. The Toffler argue that new educational paradigms are needed to remain competitive in the knowledge economy, and perhaps this will filter down to create better civilians of the emergent new society. Hopefully we can educate future generations to become much more aware of the complex interplay of issues and interests which influence what is presented to us as news. Thus they can navigate the spin on issues before making important decisions in elections and referenda.

The structure of an organization of human beings can be considered as a form of information, thus it is possible to regard this as another area being affected by the Informational Revolution. . We are all affected by organizations throughout our lives, including: governments, employers, insurers, hospitals, religions, charities, pressure groups, media, neighbourhood groups or school boards. By its very nature, the Informational Revolution is resulting in an upheaval of how structural information is created, communicated and analysed thereby stimulating new lines of thought on organizations. Jason Kitcat   in his essay “People Power”   argues, an Organizational Revolution  that is going to have a major impact on society. 

Empowering  Civil Society it is important that we examine the impact of this simultaneous revolution.

 Raymond Williams suggests that the introduction of a new medium will engender debate about political culture but cannot by itself significantly alter the society in which it appears. Instead, the new medium generates an extended negotiation or contestation among competing forces-some emergent, some well-established; some encouraging change, others resisting it; some publicly visible, others operating covertly. The impact of new media, in Williams"s model, is evolutionary, not revolutionary.

Williams"s powerful argument confutes what one might call the rhetoric of inevitability: the assumption that the introduction of networked computing will inevitably lead to a more democratic society. In "The Laws of Cyberspace," Lawrence Lessig, a sharp critic of technological determinism, offers a summary of such utopian faith: "Cyberspace is unavoidable, and yet cyberspace is unregulatable. No nation can live without it, yet no nation can control behavior within it. Cyberspace is that space where individuals are, inherently, free from control by real space sovereigns”

Lessig is one of a number of recent writers calling on technologically literate citizens to ensure a broader public debate about the political impact of new media. Langdon Winner, for example, urges computer professionals to take civic responsibility for their work and insists that the general public should have a part in the creation and deployment of new technologies. "Right now it"s anyone"s guess what sorts of personalities, styles of discourse, and social norms will ultimately flourish" in our digital future, Winner says. "Industrial leaders present as faits accomplis what otherwise might have been choices open for diverse public imaginings, investigations and debates…. If we"re asking people to change their lives to adapt to new information systems, it seems responsible to solicit broad participation in deliberation, planning; decision making, prototyping, testing, [and] evaluation”.

In the age of the networked computers we stand in front of the challenge of the future world. We change our perceptions about education, culture, prosperity, democracy, media. The emerging new media through the abilities that give to person to participate in the process of decision making   are the media of the future. What defines new media is real time news, interactivity, convergence, multimedia, hypertextuality, dispatching of local news. New media is the media of the informed citizen.

Used sources: The Digital Revolution, the Informed Citizen, and the Culture of Democracy   Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn Alvin Toffler “Third wave”, Alvin and  Heidi Toffler “Creating  new civilization – The politics of the third wave”