Where’s the Meaning?

Posted on March 9, 2006 in Journalists & Pundits Pointers The InterNet

Norman Solomon wonders if writing about the Internet is nothing more than dazzling digital hype:

News outlets routinely provide breathless accounts of the latest digital dazzles. But precious little media attention focuses on the deeper qualities of the human experience, the content of the lightning-fast communications or the ultimate end-product. Data streams move faster than the eye can see. Information doesn’t flow, it rockets. But what’s it all for?

Even the most wondrous media technologies can’t supply an iota of meaning. Yet the prevalent media discourse keeps equating digital breakthroughs with human breakthroughs. But that’s a very dubious proposition.

(I’ve long suspected that journalists hate bloggers and other smalltime net advocates because we do supply meaning where they produce fluff and propaganda. Thomas Friedman are you listening?)