Free News in a Linked World Essay -- Internet Web Media Papers

Free News in a Linked World We usually classify communication media in three categories: published media, broadcast media and what Chris Chesher calls â€Å"invocational media†.1 The published media include newspapers, magazines and books. Radio and television are broadcast media — I would add speech as a nontechnological broadcast medium also. Invocational media represent communication tools used on interactive and networked digital computers.2 News delivery is present on every communication medium. I will look at the difference in value of the content between the media. And I will explain how the World Wide Web — as a new invocational medium — will bring back a public discourse based on logic and reason. And how it will re-democratize the libertarian press. Comparative Descriptions In published media — the oldest technological news distribution method — news is provided on a physical support on which alphabetical characters and images are printed. The support — a newspaper for example — must be distributed, and the user must acquire it. There is a sense of possession, of ownership evoked by the object. The content is made of texts, photographs and illustrations. It is self contained and can be consulted anywhere, at any time and in any way. Broadcast media are part of late nineteenth and twentieth century’s technological innovation. The technology behind broadcast news is based on linear streams of communicative content emitted from a base and transmitted through different means — copper cable or wave for example. To be able to view or hear the news, the user must acquire a receiving machine. Content is sent in real time and has no physical representation. News can be transmitted as it happens, but the user must be avai... ...a.org 14. From rabble.ca [www.rabble.ca] References Chesher, Chris â€Å"Why the Digital Computer is Dead† ctheory.net 04-04-2002 http://ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=334 Howe, Denis editor, Free On-line Dictionary of Computing http://www.foldoc.org/ Mann, Steve eyetap.org http://www.eyetap.org Mann, Steve with Hal Niedzviecki, Cyborg: Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in the Age of the Wearable Computer Double Day Canada, 2001 Markoff, John â€Å"Chapter 23 The Scribe† in John Brockman, Digerati http://www.edge.org/digerati/markoff/markoff_chapter.html Negroponte, Nicholas Being Digital Vintage Books, 1996 Postman, Neal Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business Penguin Books, 1986 Sormany, Pierre Le mà ©tier de journaliste: Guide des outils et des pratiques du journalisme au Quà ©bec Borà ©al, 1990