THE INTERNET AND THE INFORMATION EXPLOSION
Objectives
§How did the computer/Internet and World Wide Web develop?
§What impact has the computer, Internet and World Wide Web had on the social and political fabric of the nation?
§What is the state of the alternative press?
§What impact does media mergers have on the media, the public and the nation?
§ “If you cannot calculate “you cannot speculate on future pleasure and your life will not be that of a human, but that of an oyster or jellyfish.”
Plato in Philebus
(“On Pleasure”)
Some Men Dream of Things and Say Why Not!
§Dreamer: Charles Babbage
§Father of the modern computer
§Dreamed of a machine that could do more than calculate math problems. Why not?Computer games? Chess?
Charles Babbage
§Invented “analytical engine
First Electronic Digital Computer
Needs of World War II Push Computer Development
§Simple, reliable, fast method of cracking enemy communications.
§Accurate gun aiming.
§Solution to simulation problems.
§Intercept enemy aircraft by radar.
Harvard’s Howard Aiken
UNIVAC
Dreamer Vannevar Bush
§Computers were an enlarged supplement to memory.
Dougls C. Englebart
World’s First Personal Computer
Steve Jobs
§Helped popularize the personal computer in the late1970s.
The Internet
Sputnik 1 and Computers
Joseph Licklider
§It seems reasonable to envision, for a time 10 or 15 years hence, a 'thinking center' that will incorporate the functions of present-day libraries together with anticipated advances in information storage and retrieval.
§The picture readily enlarges itself into a network of such centers, connected to one another by wide-band communication lines and to individual users by leased-wire services. In such a system, the speed of the computers would be balanced, and the cost of the gigantic memories and the sophisticated programs would be divided by the number of users.
J.C.R. Licklider, 1960.
Vint Cerf: Father of the Internet
§Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn designed the architecture and communication protocol that gave rise to the modern Internet.
Tim Berners-Lee
Social Networking in Cyberspace
§MySpace
§Craig’s List
§Digg
§Second Life
YouTube
§Founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim
§Acquired by Google for $1.65 billion
§Daily uploads 150,000-200,000
§350 million monthly U.S. visits
§Sends 1,000 gigabytes of data every second
Media Mega Mergers
§The BIG FIVE
§Time Warner
§Walt Disney
§Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation
§NBC Universal/GE
§CBS Corporation
Mega Mergers
§Why did it come about?
§What impact will it have on the social and political environment of the nation?
The Old Coffeehouse
The New Coffeehouse