The Rise of Ignorance (Week 2.0)

This week's lecture was about the wonders of New Media. This excludes old media, eg. newspapers and magazines and TV. Firstly I would like to put my 2 cents in, and say that I would never have guessed that TV would already be classified as "old media". I am 18 years old and that makes me feel ancient.

We then went on to discuss the Web Point Ohs. These are my (fantastic) summaries of each type:

Web 1.0- ads ads ads reading ads ads ads ads

Web 2.0- SOCIALIZINGGGG

Web 3.0- the web knows what you want, where you want it, when you want it, how and with whom.

I apologize for the informal description, but as we have already established- anyone can put anything on a blog. And the summary cannot be completed without the comic that was on the slideshow:

(http://husseinahmed.com/2010/09/web-1-0-2-0-3-0-and-counting%E2%80%A6/)

Where we are headed, is Web 3.0, where all the information we are given by the wonderful Interweb, will be specially customised to our personal likes. This is great for advertisers and lazy students (who really only want to know when the last Twilight movie is coming out). But for society, I think that this could be incredibly damaging. And I don't just mean damaging in the way that it is embarrassing getting ads for Justin Bieber tickets, when you only watched one of his videos as a joke. Getting information only about things you already know or care about means that's it; your horizon will never be broadened. Your knowledge limit now, will be your limit forever.

Maybe I am just pessimistic by nature, but there seems to be something slightly backwards about breeding a secluded, blissfully unaware generation. It automatically made me think of something I saw mentioned on the Daily Show with John Stewart a few months ago. He briefly mentioned how Time magazine had different cover stories in America compared to every other country. Here are a few examples I could find:

And then I saw that the same thing was happening with Newsweek:

(http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/12/02/american-vs-international-news-time-and-newsweek/)

Now I don't know about you, but I think there is something slightly disturbing about an international, well respected NEWS magazine having a cover story about a crisis in Pakistan, whilst America happily reads about "What makes a school great". America is already stereotypically known for their ignorance about world news, and here is an obvious example of how mass communication is enabling it. If this is already happening, and has been happening for years, the whole 'catering to your cares and needs' ideology of Web 3.0 seems to be moving in the complete wrong direction.

And the same thing is happening in Australia. I only moved here 2 years ago, and I was actually shocked by how little of the rest of the world Australians seemed to care about. I came from South Africa, where (just to use one example) we heard about the crisis (and it is a crisis) in Zimbabwe every day. The killings, the poverty, the dictatorship, the suppression, the illegal immigrants in South Africa and the unbelievable xenophobia that came paired with it. For years I had grown up with a knowledge of this. And when I came to Australia I did not hear one single word. It felt like the crisis must have disappeared somehow, even though I know it did not. Instead I was bombarded with "How much hormones is in your chicken?" and "One person mugged in the Gold Coast, seeking psychological help". 

I am not comfortable with the Web 3.0 silencing so much information, simply because we want to make people's lives more enjoyable and easy. Why would we, as journalists, be content with enabling people to stay in their bubble of ignorance? I believe we should want to inform the public of everything, honestly and ethically. I know that it is not all in our hands. But I believe we should aim to inform.