One of the worries associated with the Age of Information is the decay of print publication. Santa Barbara has noticed the loss of the giant downtown Borders bookstore, in part due to the prevalence of e-readers such as Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPad.
This technological development has also caused students to constantly drool over the possibility of a textbook-free education environment.
While lighter backpacks would be favorable, the decline of print signifies a major point in the course of mankind, as methods of communication continue to make leaps and bounds.
In the world of journalism, the Age of Information has proven to be a double-edged sword.
The side which would be considered self-inflicting is somewhat outweighed by the attacking side; while some smaller news sources — and even large print publications have seen reader populations shrink, the new possibilities that the Age of Information has brought about distract from these unfortunate fallbacks.
Before the Internet boom, journalism was restricted to the old-fashioned, hard-copy newspaper, magazine, or newsletter.
Cyberspace changed things.
Now there are blogs, podcasts and tweets. Whether new online formats like blogs create more work for journalists versus the traditional article format remain to be seen.
Internet reporting requires more work as one may include audio, video and links.
The presence of a keyboard and a Wi-Fi connection has enabled the masses to not only keep in touch with everything going on everywhere, but also to contribute to the gyre of information.
That’s right; you, we, the entire world can now report the world’s very happenings as they happen in real time.
Webmail, smartphones, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook: these are only some of the many platforms that support our population’s growing connectedness.
Just in the past few years we’ve seen Wikileaks, the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement, all of which were revolutionary occasions, all fueled by and reliant on our modern flow of information.
The world of reporting has galvanized so that people all over the world can communicate with each other freely. Let’s hope they seek the tenants of good journalism: accuracy, clarity, balance, fairness and most importantly truth.