Fifth Information Revolution - continued

    The first part is here .

    The beginning of the 20th century marked the fourth information revolution.

    media



    In the 90s of the 19th century, Popov, Marconi and Tesla independently invented a means of transmitting information over a distance - radio. In 1916, regular broadcasting of the first radio station, 9XM in the United States, began. In the mid-20s, the first convenient and affordable radios appeared. Then the first experiments on the transmission of a video signal began.



    Television and radio broadcasting provide a number of opportunities that fundamentally distinguish them from print media:

    a) the possibility of instant delivery of information;
    b) the ability to transmit live speech (and the image in the case of television);
    c) the ability to deliver information free of charge to the consumer;
    d) the ability to surround the consumer with information 24 hours a day.

    It is impossible to even come up with a more ideal political instrument. The politician is in direct (but one-sided!) Contact with the audience; a living voice convinces much better than a printed word, and moreover, the interlocutor is deprived of the opportunity to object; finally, a television or radio channel broadcasts to the whole country, and even to the whole world.

    The distribution of cinema, radio and television falls on the interwar period - the period of crises, the collapse of an established social structure (including the collapse of a large family). The distribution of the media multiplied by emotional hunger turns the people into a mass .

    The phenomenon of the formation of masses and mass movements (fascism, first of all) has been examined in detail in many works of historians and philosophers; I note the "Sources of Totalitarianism" by Hannah Arendt and the "Rise of the Masses" by Ortega i Gasset. The issues of manipulating consciousness through the media are perfectly set forth in the book of the same name by S.G. Kara-Murza (which, among other things, itself is an excellent practical tool for manipulating consciousness). In addition, I recommend here the book “Ears wave a donkey” by a collective of Russian authors and a lecture on propaganda by Pavel Danilin.

    The formation of the masses, of mass consciousness, had the most direct influence on the history of mankind in the mid-20th century — alas, far from positive. However, the sobering up after the Second World War came pretty quickly. A person in the information society has successfully adapted to attempts to influence him and, in general, is much less susceptible to large-scale informational impact, although prolonged isolation quite quickly nullifies immunity, as the experience of Perestroika shows.

    We also note here some other consequences of the appearance of the media. First of all, this is the formation of mass culture.

    It is generally accepted that popular culture has always been; Of course, this is not so. Mass culture is inconceivable without a mass listener (viewer) and simply cannot exist in the absence of mass means of information delivery. Among other things, radio and television completely changed the format of a work of art. Previously, in order to listen to a work, a person had to clearly express his desire (to come to a concert or at least to a street square where artists performed), then the invention of radio and television surrounded the person with information from literally all sides. Modern man, on the contrary, has to turn on filters for incoming audiovisual information and learn to ignore it. Accordingly, a successful work of mass art must successfully overcome these filters,

    Another significant feature of the media is the new monetization format - through advertising. Since no “copy” of the radio or television program ever existed and no centralized recording was possible, radio stations and TV channels initially lived only through advertising (commercial or political property). The lack of feedback between the media and the consumer only contributed to this, and the lack of consumer recording equipment prevented conflicts between the two methods of monetizing art (instance-wise in the case of books and records, advertising in the case of radio and television). However, the idyll did not last long - until the beginning of the 21st century, when it appeared

    the Internet



    We are all experiencing the next, fifth in a row, information revolution, although we do not notice it. The Internet has equally overturned both traditional media and traditional publishers.

    The concept of "instance" is no more. The concept of "feedback" is now there.

    The cost of disseminating information has become zero. Although modern legislation continues to operate with some mythical “instances”, their absurdity is obvious to anyone: when transferring a file over the network, a hundred or two unaccounted “instances” are created and destroyed. By and large, the fifth information revolution destroyed all conceivable barriers to the dissemination of information and eliminated all the shortcomings of analogue media.

    On the other hand, the connection "man - information space" from simplex has become full duplex. Anyone can either draw information from the Internet (moreover, whatever it wants, without any reference to the same television program for everyone), and deliver it. If earlier an unwanted opinion could simply not be put on the radio / television - now it is impossible. Any message interesting to the Internet community can instantly rise to the top, and absolutely any user can become a thousand-plus blogger. Of course, traditional methods of propaganda are well transferred to the Internet, but they work much worse - there is no more one-way contact, you have to answer uncomfortable questions. The monetization of the media through advertising also works significantly worse.

    All this gives rise to active resistance from both the classic media and publisher labels, and from politicians; which, in general, is not surprising. As a result, we see active attempts to regulate the Internet using pseudo-legal methods, both under the pretext of combating "extremism" and under the pretext of observing mythical "intellectual rights".

    It seems that the Internet as a medium for the dissemination of information is a gigantic breakthrough, the significance of which for humanity has not yet been fully understood. The Internet is able to offer every single person inexhaustible intellectual wealth. Unfortunately, due to the antisocial position of the so-called "Copyright holders", the Internet is not yet able to provide feedback - an adequate reward for replenishing these wealth. I want to believe that this problem will be overcome.

    The Internet, as the media, now represents a unique and little-studied phenomenon. Although it is often said about supposedly permissiveness, the Internet clearly demonstrates an excellent ability for self-organization and self-moderation; The Internet shows what human society truly considers unacceptable and what is not. For example, it is almost impossible to meet the notorious child porn on the Internet - and this is clearly not due to its illegality, because the illegality of torrents does not bother anyone. Representation on the Internet of the most diverse spectra of opinions, right down to frankly extremist, I personally consider the gigantic plus of the Internet as a media (and the marginality of these opinions is a clear indicator of their persuasiveness). As Voltaire said, "I do not agree with any word that you say, but I am ready to die for your right to say that."

    The Internet as a policy tool also has enormous potential, precisely because of that notorious feedback. The file of a politician who ignores uncomfortable issues on the Internet is obvious to everyone, and giving him away as a wine is much more difficult than on TV. But only with this the significance of the Internet as a political mechanism is far from exhausted; The Internet significantly expands citizen involvement in politics - a more or less reasonable opinion on any issue can be reached in just a few seconds. The Internet provides much more convenient opportunities for citizens to participate in public discussion of political issues than traditional offline methods, right up to the introduction of real direct democracy.

    Finally, the Internet is once again revolutionizing the cultural space. The Internet is not a radio, the listener again does not fend off annoying content, but purposefully searches for what he needs. It is difficult to say for now whether the influence of the mass culture is reversible on the tastes of the listener, but one wants to believe that it is reversible.

    Thank you all for your attention.



    I hereby transmit the foregoing text to the public domain.

    Also popular now: