Friday, November 14, 2014

"The Means of Information": Freedom of the Press and Control of Social Media

Freedom is guaranteed only to
those who own a (Word)Press?
One of the most relevant--and trenchant--things I have heard on this topic is the quote:
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.
That quote is from an older age, and I feel that in this day, age, and point in our technological evolution, you should read that with "media" instead of the first "press" and think of the second "press" as the platforms—Facebook, et al, so to speak.

Which to me overlaps or parallels Marx and his crowd's observations about the means of production. In the Industrial Age, he who owned the mean of production ruled the roost; in the Information Age, it is the platforms and the networks.

Definitely stuff to think about.

Thanks go to Mike Cherba for making me sit down and have to sort this out enough in my head and write it down during an exchange on Facebook.

1 comment:

Md. Shazzadur Rahman said...

Media was, is and will be for a class of people but social media speaks to everyone small, big, rich, poor. Controlling social media means keeping everyone's mouth shut, which is not desirable. Do you know what happens? When the ruling class of the country is afraid of the people of the country, it seeks a way to get rid of it. They use all these methods to eradicate corruption and misdeeds.
Anyway, let's turn off social media? Books should be a tool of knowledge. Even if they stop everything, they will not be able to kill the acquisition of knowledge. Only knowledge can get rid of it. Let's read books as a medium of knowledge. Order books online, the book will reach you.