…With writing, shamans became priests and magic turned into religion. Thus, irrigation is the mother of writing, and the bureaucrat is the second oldest profession.
Media
Media recapitulation
Individual media development of children should repeat the evolution of the species – step by step, not leapfrogging to the last and most attractive stage, digital media.
The Mind Map of Media Ecology
A review of Lance Strate’s “Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition”.
There are no phenomena that we experience without mediation of our tools, interfaces, and technologies. So, what else, if not media, do we need to learn first and foremost about everything to get that everything right?
Subscription solicited as donation: a new cause of media bias
The decline in the media business caused by the internet has not distorted the picture of the world in the media. It has distorted the habitual distortion.
The Trump bump in the news media: commodifighting Trump
The commercial motives behind the media coverage of Trump remain unrevealed to the public. Business stimuli for the media to cover Trump’s every move contributed to a media environment favorable to Trumpism. Meantime, the media themselves became more and more… Read More ›
Media business: why subscription mutates into membership
Increasingly, the product of journalism will be paid for not by those who consume it but by those who want it to be delivered to others. A chapter from “Postjournalism and the death of newspapers” (2020). In the media markets… Read More ›
Old media and COVID-19: news demand surges, business crumbles
Because of the quarantine, newspapers are going to die tomorrow, not in 10 years. The forever-altered tactility of the millions will harm the press even more than the temporary physical isolation from its readers. Radio will struggle but survive and… Read More ›
AI to Bypass Creativity. Will Robots Replace Journalists? (The Answer Is “Yes”). Part I: Intro
Journalism is a creative human practice. This, according to widespread opinion, makes it harder for robots to replicate. However, writing algorithms are already widely used in the news media to produce articles and thereby replace human journalists. In 2016, Wordsmith,… Read More ›
Transcending Human Sensorium
People still act in virtual reality in a mostly natural way, as “physical beings”, which is obviously predefined by their (our) previous experience. Moreover, the content of the virtual reality is still the physical reality. This reflects McLuhanian ideas of… Read More ›
Robo-journalism: the third threat
A tie between cyber journalists and bio-journalists has already occurred. – Three threats to journalism. – News story on earthquake and tectonic shifts. – Generative journalism. – Two arguments about “robots’ incapability”. – Road map for robot journalism. – Forecasts… Read More ›