Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-ncis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!MARTIN-DEN.ARPA!seida
From: seida@MARTIN-DEN.ARPA (Steven Seida)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Who Controls The Network?
Message-ID: <8901161726.AA00799@martin-den.ARPA>
Date: 16 Jan 89 17:26:11 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 33


Nick Taylor writes:
>Some of the recent postings seem to be assuming that the future net will
>remain a news service. I very much doubt that. I think that we should
>always bear in mind that the news service is likely to represent a smaller
>and smaller proportion of the network's 'value' to society as time goes on.

I sure trust the net for news a lot more than the tv and even newspaper 
news people.  The purpose of tv and newspaper news is to get people to
look at the commercials.  This of course helps to generate the desire
to make everything "sensational".  This is one of the strong reasons that
my friend who recently received a degree in journalism is returning to
school for a degree in Computer Science.

I subscribe to a family oriented publication that reports on the government.
It has no advertisements, it is dependent on contributions.  The news
sure is different and more realistic out of this journal than anything
I see on TV or in the papers.  This as well as the experiences that I 
have that involved national attention indicate that the whole story is 
seldom told in the media.  

I have also heard the networks are accused of setting the national agenda.
I don't know of any studies of the subject but it wouldn't surprise me
if it were true.

How about the coverage that the Hacker's Convention got? (Discussed
recently on the info-futures list.)

Maybe things are better in the U.K., but I think the net will have to continue 
as a news service just so we can determine the real from the imaginary.


			Steven Seida