A World in Flux

I have to admit, I didn't find out about the July 7th bombings last year until 3pm when my mother called me from Canada (I was still asleep in bed).

From all that has, can and will be said about the events, I think one of the most interesting articles to come out of it is this one.

It's about how July 7th was really the first time that the mainstream media accepted 'user-generated content' over professional journalism (largely because it all occured underground and they couldn't get 'professionals' on to the scene). I think this is fascinating, however what interests me even more are the cutural and technological circumstances which were necessary to make this a reality.

What I mean is, if there had been a hypothetical accident when the London Underground first opened in 1863 and you wanted to document it with a camera, you would have had to haul one of those old, big-ass suckers down there to take pictures. Then you would have had to physically develop the photos, send them to a newspaper to publish, which would then be distributed in the local city/county. Whereas these days, almost everyone in the UK has a mobile phone and almost all of the phones have crappy little cameras in them. Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection could then upload these photos for the world to see. It's the persasiveness of technology, and global reach of the Internet which fascinates me.

In fact, I'm interested to see how the institution known as 'the press' will change over the next 50 years. Obviously there is still a need for some sort of centralized distribution system (the argument against the scenario I described above is that there are so many websites, how would anyone ever find the pictures and the person's description of them?) and I don't have anything against professional journalists (someone who's trained to relay events is probably better at doing so than someone who's not trained) however I think there is real potential for a paradigm shift -- a dramatic, far-reaching one.

On a similar note, I recently realized that I belong to the last generation which will remember life before the Internet. It's crazy to think that the worldview developed by the next generations will be so deeply entrenched with global connectivity and information at their fingertips. It's a fascinating time to be alive...