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blogcutterIt's not easy to stay informed these days. Back at library school in the 1970s, we spoke with awe of the "Invisible College" and the "Information Explosion". Nowadays I'd ascribe rather more sinister connotations to those concepts. The invisible college, which in those days referred to one's (hopefully ever-growing) network of experts (all of them human) in a particular field, now seems to have been largely supplanted by social media. The information explosion sometimes feels more like an information implosion, or perhaps an information eclipse. Rigorous fact-checking and documentation of one's sources seems well-nigh impossible when you may have no idea of whom or what you're dealing with.
So it was with great interest that I read this article, apparently the first in a series, by Amanda Ruggeri:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240207-the-one-simple-change-that-will-improve-your-media-diet-in-2024?
I already avoid social media and have never had a Facebook account or Twitter "handle". Nor have I ever used Instagram or TikTok or WhatsApp or WhateverelsizApp for that matter. Yet the traditional media forms are getting more and more scarce. We no longer get a print edition of the Ottawa Citizen on Mondays. Many of the magazines and other print serials I used to enjoy no longer exist, in any format. For those that do, it's either difficult or impossible to casually pick up and browse an issue on the newsstand, since newsstands are shrinking or disappearing altogether. The ones I actually subscribe to and get delivered to me by snail-mail have in many cases reduced their frequency of publication.
I still get some news via TV and radio, but local and in-depth news broadcasts are increasingly scarce.
But back to that article on the BBC Future site. Having read all about the pitfalls of social media, I then see at the bottom of the page: "Join one million Future by liking us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter or Instagram." Oh, the irony.
Whatsup next? Media literacy courses delivered by AI chatbots? Or has that already happened?
So it was with great interest that I read this article, apparently the first in a series, by Amanda Ruggeri:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240207-the-one-simple-change-that-will-improve-your-media-diet-in-2024?
I already avoid social media and have never had a Facebook account or Twitter "handle". Nor have I ever used Instagram or TikTok or WhatsApp or WhateverelsizApp for that matter. Yet the traditional media forms are getting more and more scarce. We no longer get a print edition of the Ottawa Citizen on Mondays. Many of the magazines and other print serials I used to enjoy no longer exist, in any format. For those that do, it's either difficult or impossible to casually pick up and browse an issue on the newsstand, since newsstands are shrinking or disappearing altogether. The ones I actually subscribe to and get delivered to me by snail-mail have in many cases reduced their frequency of publication.
I still get some news via TV and radio, but local and in-depth news broadcasts are increasingly scarce.
But back to that article on the BBC Future site. Having read all about the pitfalls of social media, I then see at the bottom of the page: "Join one million Future by liking us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter or Instagram." Oh, the irony.
Whatsup next? Media literacy courses delivered by AI chatbots? Or has that already happened?
