Preamble
Living with pandemics has become our new reality. As the human population explodes, poor people in third world countries will continue to live in slums and so they can never socially distance themselves, thereby providing a perfect breeding ground for new variants or new viruses. Moreover, we have never been more mobile in human history.
In Australia, if we bring in food or plants from other countries, border security confiscates them. However, we are free to bring in any virus. Go figure!
All is not doom and gloom. The first known clinical description of polio, by British doctor Michael Underwood, was not identified until 1789, and it was formally recognized as a condition in 1840 by German physician Jakob Heine. Physician Jonas Salk tested his experimental vaccine on himself and his family in 1953. The results were announced on 12 April 1955, and Salk’s inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) was licensed on the same day.
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was first identified in December 2019. By December 11, 2020, the Pfizer vaccine became the first to receive an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Nowadays, science is more sophisticated. No vaccine in history was so rapidly developed as this vaccine!
Santa's little helper!
No matter what your belief systems, I wish you a happy and joyous festive season.
With best wishes,
Marie-Therese.
Note: The next post will appear on the 13th of January 2024.
Media and Society
The first commonly accepted newspaper was the German-language 'Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien', printed from 1605 onwards by Johann Carolus in Strasbourg (then Germany now France).
A 1609 title page of the German Relation, the world's first newspaper (first published in 1605).
The earliest magazine appears to have been the German Erbauliche Monaths-Unterredungen (1663–68); “Edifying Monthly Discussions,” started by Johann Rist, a theologian and poet of Hamburg.
It is clear that as these information outlets developed, they became more specialized in content and in audience capture. For example, the Woman's Weekly was geared towards the interests of adult middle class Australian housewives.
The Woman's Weekly (Australian magazine) Volume 1 Number 1 November 4th 1911 Paperback.
On 13 May 1897, Guglielmo Marconi sent the world's first radio message across open water, and he did it while visiting a seaside resort in Somerset (England).
Marconi's radios were designed to appeal to the mass-market rather than to wireless amateurs who built complicated sets for themselves. It became more of a pastime for the whole family. You could hear news reports from all over the country as well as the world, without waiting for a newspaper. It was so revolutionary. Hence broadcast programs were aimed at a wide range of audience demographics - from children to teenagers to adults to seniors.
Films provided another source of information (e.g., newsreels) and entertainment as well as advertising. French inventor, Louis Le Prince invented the first motion picture camera in the 1880s. He shot several short films in Leeds, England in 1888. While travelling in France, he unexpectedly disappeared right before he was to show his work in New York in 1890. This event never happened and so his contribution was lost in history for quite some time.
Louis Le Prince: The father of cinematography.
In 1927 Philo Farnsworth patented his 'dissector tube.' It turns out to be an important component in the development of all-electronic television sets. Television's first drama,The Queen's Messenger, was broadcast from Schenectady, New York station WGY on September 11, 1928.
Philo Taylor Farnsworth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor and television pioneer.
What did these media outlets have in common? They were public and/or private companies whose output were scripted, edited and focussed on an audience demographic. They were structured from a personnel and organizational point of view and so incurred significant costs. Hence, within several decades, Massachusetts alone, had some thirty newspapers, which later became defunct - from the Boston Chronicle to the Weekly Journal (East Freetown) etc.
Boston Chronicle (Volume 1, Issue no. 3, Dec 28, 1767).
On October 29, 1969, ARPAnet delivered its first message: a “node-to-node” communication from one computer to another. The first computer was located in a research lab at UCLA and the second was at Stanford; each one was the size of a small house. The internet had arrived and with it the democratization of information exchange was created and had begun.
Internet technology was first developed in the USA. The Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (or DARPA) led to the formation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) in October 1969. ARPANET is the technology that we today know as the Internet. In the beginning, ARPANET was only accessible to the selected members of the Defense Department. So, eventually, other networks were created to enable sharing of information.
Social media companies captured the popular information platform market. The Digital 2022 April Global Statshot Report found that there were 4.65 billion social media users on our planet. That’s 58.7% of the global population, many of whom are using social media as a primary source of information. From news (and disinformation) to lifestyle tips, decision-making to product research, social media users can gather all the information that they need, without ever leaving their platform of choice.
By and large the media companies running these sites have taken a hands off approach. Ex-President Donald Trump's use of Twitter (now X) to spread falsehoods is legendary. Eventually US President Donald Trump's Twitter account was "permanently suspended... due to the risk of further incitement of violence", the company asserted. Twitter said the decision was made "...after close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account". It came amid a Big Tech purge of the online platforms used by Mr. Trump and his supporters.
The account, which Twitter banned following the January 6 (2021) attack on the Capitol, was restored after Twitter CEO and new owner Elon Musk posted a poll on Twitter on Friday night asking the platform’s users if Trump should be reinstated.
Suddenly new descriptors were invented for people's unedited insults. A 'troll' is Internet slang for a person who intentionally tries to instigate conflict, hostility, or arguments in an online social community. Platforms targeted by trolls can include the comment sections of YouTube, forums, or chat rooms.
Trolls often use inflammatory messages to provoke emotional responses from people disrupting otherwise civil discussion. Trolling can occur anywhere on open forums where people can freely post their thoughts and opinions.
'Trolls' painted by John Bauer(1915).
Some of those who were targeted by so called trolls committed suicide whilst others were psychologically damaged (but for what purpose?)
Now there are lots of different forums on the internet where one can express oneself. In fact, a new category of internet users has recently appeared. These are the 'Influencers.' Generally, they are defined as follows: 'In social media influencers are people who have built a reputation for their knowledge and expertise on a specific topic. They make regular posts about topics on their preferred social media channels and generate large followings of enthusiastic, engaged people who pay close attention to their views.'
Some might question whether they have the knowledge or expertise that they claim. For example, anti-vaxxers never are able to publish their findings in internationally refereed medical journals of high repute. Is it because their views are unscientific?
Flat Earth: How a 19th-Century meme turned Into TikTok’s strangest conspiracy theory.
Author Kelly Wiell talked to flat-earthers and discovered how conspiracy theories really took off on a whole new level thanks to YouTube and TikTok.
Conclusion
Every platform can be used for good, evil or indifference. It often reflects who we are, rather than what we actually know.
Confucius said, 'Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.'
We are blessed if we embrace and understand his wisdom.
Living with pandemics has become our new reality. As the human population explodes, poor people in third world countries will continue to live in slums and so they can never socially distance themselves, thereby providing a perfect breeding ground for new variants or new viruses. Moreover, we have never been more mobile in human history.
In Australia, if we bring in food or plants from other countries, border security confiscates them. However, we are free to bring in any virus. Go figure!
All is not doom and gloom. The first known clinical description of polio, by British doctor Michael Underwood, was not identified until 1789, and it was formally recognized as a condition in 1840 by German physician Jakob Heine. Physician Jonas Salk tested his experimental vaccine on himself and his family in 1953. The results were announced on 12 April 1955, and Salk’s inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) was licensed on the same day.
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was first identified in December 2019. By December 11, 2020, the Pfizer vaccine became the first to receive an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Nowadays, science is more sophisticated. No vaccine in history was so rapidly developed as this vaccine!
No matter what your belief systems, I wish you a happy and joyous festive season.
With best wishes,
Marie-Therese.
Note: The next post will appear on the 13th of January 2024.
Media and Society
The first commonly accepted newspaper was the German-language 'Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien', printed from 1605 onwards by Johann Carolus in Strasbourg (then Germany now France).
The earliest magazine appears to have been the German Erbauliche Monaths-Unterredungen (1663–68); “Edifying Monthly Discussions,” started by Johann Rist, a theologian and poet of Hamburg.
It is clear that as these information outlets developed, they became more specialized in content and in audience capture. For example, the Woman's Weekly was geared towards the interests of adult middle class Australian housewives.
On 13 May 1897, Guglielmo Marconi sent the world's first radio message across open water, and he did it while visiting a seaside resort in Somerset (England).
Marconi's radios were designed to appeal to the mass-market rather than to wireless amateurs who built complicated sets for themselves. It became more of a pastime for the whole family. You could hear news reports from all over the country as well as the world, without waiting for a newspaper. It was so revolutionary. Hence broadcast programs were aimed at a wide range of audience demographics - from children to teenagers to adults to seniors.
Films provided another source of information (e.g., newsreels) and entertainment as well as advertising. French inventor, Louis Le Prince invented the first motion picture camera in the 1880s. He shot several short films in Leeds, England in 1888. While travelling in France, he unexpectedly disappeared right before he was to show his work in New York in 1890. This event never happened and so his contribution was lost in history for quite some time.
In 1927 Philo Farnsworth patented his 'dissector tube.' It turns out to be an important component in the development of all-electronic television sets. Television's first drama,The Queen's Messenger, was broadcast from Schenectady, New York station WGY on September 11, 1928.
What did these media outlets have in common? They were public and/or private companies whose output were scripted, edited and focussed on an audience demographic. They were structured from a personnel and organizational point of view and so incurred significant costs. Hence, within several decades, Massachusetts alone, had some thirty newspapers, which later became defunct - from the Boston Chronicle to the Weekly Journal (East Freetown) etc.
On October 29, 1969, ARPAnet delivered its first message: a “node-to-node” communication from one computer to another. The first computer was located in a research lab at UCLA and the second was at Stanford; each one was the size of a small house. The internet had arrived and with it the democratization of information exchange was created and had begun.
Social media companies captured the popular information platform market. The Digital 2022 April Global Statshot Report found that there were 4.65 billion social media users on our planet. That’s 58.7% of the global population, many of whom are using social media as a primary source of information. From news (and disinformation) to lifestyle tips, decision-making to product research, social media users can gather all the information that they need, without ever leaving their platform of choice.
By and large the media companies running these sites have taken a hands off approach. Ex-President Donald Trump's use of Twitter (now X) to spread falsehoods is legendary. Eventually US President Donald Trump's Twitter account was "permanently suspended... due to the risk of further incitement of violence", the company asserted. Twitter said the decision was made "...after close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account". It came amid a Big Tech purge of the online platforms used by Mr. Trump and his supporters.
The account, which Twitter banned following the January 6 (2021) attack on the Capitol, was restored after Twitter CEO and new owner Elon Musk posted a poll on Twitter on Friday night asking the platform’s users if Trump should be reinstated.
Suddenly new descriptors were invented for people's unedited insults. A 'troll' is Internet slang for a person who intentionally tries to instigate conflict, hostility, or arguments in an online social community. Platforms targeted by trolls can include the comment sections of YouTube, forums, or chat rooms.
Trolls often use inflammatory messages to provoke emotional responses from people disrupting otherwise civil discussion. Trolling can occur anywhere on open forums where people can freely post their thoughts and opinions.
Some of those who were targeted by so called trolls committed suicide whilst others were psychologically damaged (but for what purpose?)
Now there are lots of different forums on the internet where one can express oneself. In fact, a new category of internet users has recently appeared. These are the 'Influencers.' Generally, they are defined as follows: 'In social media influencers are people who have built a reputation for their knowledge and expertise on a specific topic. They make regular posts about topics on their preferred social media channels and generate large followings of enthusiastic, engaged people who pay close attention to their views.'
Some might question whether they have the knowledge or expertise that they claim. For example, anti-vaxxers never are able to publish their findings in internationally refereed medical journals of high repute. Is it because their views are unscientific?
Author Kelly Wiell talked to flat-earthers and discovered how conspiracy theories really took off on a whole new level thanks to YouTube and TikTok.
Conclusion
Every platform can be used for good, evil or indifference. It often reflects who we are, rather than what we actually know.
Confucius said, 'Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.'
We are blessed if we embrace and understand his wisdom.
