There was a book about 30 years ago ( City of bits; Space, place and the infobahn , by William Mitchell) exploring ideas of a “ electronic agora” and what the architecture of the internet might look like. There was a willingness to see the internet for its potential more than the institutions and governments seeing it as an add on. With AI, bot farms and algorithmic preferences, reading the comments becomes a problem of separating signal from noise.
These are magnificent points, but it has been difficult to understand when the comments section actually reflected the genuine person’s feelings and wasn’t just the result of a troll using anonymity. I had the errr good fortune of starting a comms career in 2010. Ideas of engagement were being wrestled with, but there was no play book to follow then. We are forging it in realtime now and we are doing it too slow.
I appreciate the thinking that has gone into this article, but those slow responders in institutions and governments were not set up for success — innovation was never truly sought out. People had barely figured out TV and Radio when the internet upended everything. So, let’s give some grace and then rapidly start developing a shared story that can be shared to all corners of the internet.
The right-leaning ideology has an early adopter advantage — those looking to make up ground need to learn what doesn’t work (stage managed and for TV are the first tactics to die) and for the love of god — craft a shared identity as humans. This, from my perspective, has must be the loudest aspect of the story. Currently there is no shared human mythology just political ideology.
I was talking to folk in our bookclub about pretty much this the other day. I left them with me thinking 1) they don't have the digital literacy skills to interact online and 2) they think it is someone else's responsibility to do it (really!). Whatever media they choose to use they self define as consumers not producers
There was a book about 30 years ago ( City of bits; Space, place and the infobahn , by William Mitchell) exploring ideas of a “ electronic agora” and what the architecture of the internet might look like. There was a willingness to see the internet for its potential more than the institutions and governments seeing it as an add on. With AI, bot farms and algorithmic preferences, reading the comments becomes a problem of separating signal from noise.
I remember when sending an unsolicited commercial message was considered an extreme offense of etiquette. Now we call that LinkedIn. 😝
These are magnificent points, but it has been difficult to understand when the comments section actually reflected the genuine person’s feelings and wasn’t just the result of a troll using anonymity. I had the errr good fortune of starting a comms career in 2010. Ideas of engagement were being wrestled with, but there was no play book to follow then. We are forging it in realtime now and we are doing it too slow.
I appreciate the thinking that has gone into this article, but those slow responders in institutions and governments were not set up for success — innovation was never truly sought out. People had barely figured out TV and Radio when the internet upended everything. So, let’s give some grace and then rapidly start developing a shared story that can be shared to all corners of the internet.
The right-leaning ideology has an early adopter advantage — those looking to make up ground need to learn what doesn’t work (stage managed and for TV are the first tactics to die) and for the love of god — craft a shared identity as humans. This, from my perspective, has must be the loudest aspect of the story. Currently there is no shared human mythology just political ideology.
We need a better story to feed the internet.
I was talking to folk in our bookclub about pretty much this the other day. I left them with me thinking 1) they don't have the digital literacy skills to interact online and 2) they think it is someone else's responsibility to do it (really!). Whatever media they choose to use they self define as consumers not producers
Yes, the consumer mindset is an obstacle to Internet literacy