Annoyed by the Internet

At the dawn, in the nineties, people believed that the Internet is a catalog of useful information. The zero Internet was perceived as the environment of communication and self -expression. In tenths, the Internet is perceived as evil.

Under the pretext of protecting state secrets, sovereignty or morality, but in fact - to protect themselves, power elites around the world are introduced by the mechanisms of supervision and control. The concept of “bad Internet”, oddly enough, finds support not only among those who never used it, but also among those who taste.

Palaces and temples are indignant

A normal reproach against the Internet is a devourer of time, he leads a person from real life. This is true. But the mechanism of domestic virtual enslavement is noticeable and obvious. Sticking on the lost time of life, a person nevertheless complains to his own inability to resist. This indignation does not bring much harm to others. In the end, you can pull out a plug or leave Facebook - and the obvious reason is eliminated. Units manage, but everyone still has such an opportunity.

The negative impact of the Internet, the result of which is, to put it mildly, is much more dangerous. And these mechanisms are not so noticeable, and to cope with them to a private person cannot do it.

Eighty years ago, in the “Uprising of the masses”, Ortega-i-Gasset described how, thanks to the progress of the household standard of well-being, even inaccessible even nobility, he freed the cultural and political claims of the mass person, to express these claims in no way prepared. Here is an alternative explanation of social shocks of the beginning of the 20th century. Something similar is happening now. The Internet freed the private opportunity to manipulate information belonging to the previous 6,000 years to palaces and temples.

Palaces and temples are frightened and outraged. Those that are laid, twist the "screaming" of the Internet itself into swords. Those who are more soaked, just repair obstacles. But the most remarkable is by no means a reaction of old authority institutions. They must resist the liberation of the "lower classes". The reaction of the released themselves is much more interesting, which with some fatal inevitability turns into reactionism.

A little Fomenovskin

You can explain the course of history by a change in socio-economic formations or the invention of a steam engine. But the binding of a social device to the dominant type of media works no worse. For example, Harold Innis, senior comrade McLuen, in the "Empire and Communications" indicates that the collapse of the Roman Empire was due to the loss of Rome Egypt and the exhaustion of papyrus reserves. The Roman rulers lost their cheap and light carrier, the document management was trite, and with it - administrative relations with the provinces. The messengers stopped driving, the roads ceased to be supported, the governors began to master, the empire fell apart. All curious are also known that the printing led to the Reformation and destroyed medieval Europe. The transition from one type of media to another is always accompanied by shocks. The formation of a new era is always expressed in the formation of the new media monopoly of new elites.

The Internet freed the private opportunity to manipulate information belonging to the previous 6,000 years to palaces and temples.

Before the Internet, the monopoly on information existed in the format of broadcasting media, that is, such sources that reported the information “from top to bottom”. Society recognized the right to form a summons for the media. And it was convenient: the picture of the world was definite, authorized. The fact that the media lie in the interests of elites was also known. But authorized lies of statistical masses are not annoying. Eka Nonvidal.

Irritate unauthorized.

Freedom comes to naga, and this is prohibited

The Internet freed authorship, and the media ceased to be a reliable barrier to diversity. Millions of people got the opportunity to report, comment, edit and disseminate socially significant information, which only specially authorized institutions - the media previously possessed privileges. Due to the desire for quick socialization, the possibility has become a duty. Now anyone can. But how to believe yourself? What are they (that is, we) have the right?

The tens of millions turned out to be commentators and editors, millions - reporters, hundreds of thousands - publicists, tens of thousands of writers, thousands - miltons and Goebbels. And all this fell on their own heads. It is impossible to understand what information is authorized by society, and which is a wild, self -"or provocation.

Elizabeth Eisenstein in his book “Printing Press as an Agent of Changes” writes that a century after the Reformation and before the newspapers, “People literally did not know what to think.” Exactly this situation is developing now. Previously, the function of the authoritative filter was awarded the media, no matter how scolded them. Now everyone has become a filter for himself. It is easy to release authorship. It is extremely difficult to consume a product of spontaneous editing.

The transition from one type of media to another is always accompanied by shocks.

Broadcast media model means a limited number, authority and authority of sources. The involving model means the freedom of anyone to be a source, which is why a huge number of sources arise and a fatal uncertain level of their reliability. It is necessary to literally learn again who can be trusted in this world. It is difficult to learn, so much deception and disappointment along this path, the reaction of rejection and anger accumulates.

Now the information is checked not at the entrance to the distribution channel, but at the exit from it to the specific brain. Should be checked. But there is no skill or immunity.

The situation is aggravated by local features. In societies where there was a habit of open discussion of a social agenda, people adapt relatively easier, although there are not without stress. In societies where there are no habits for public discussion of private opinions, where the offline discussion is clamped, it is supplanted online and is inevitably radicalized there. The system of restraining emotions, developed by the view for survival, is not working online, the interactions are instantaneous, so radical judgments quickly enter the phase of mutual raising and threats. There are no suitable mechanisms for containing hatred in this environment yet, have not developed.

As a result, the frustration of the population nourishes reactionary sentiments and forms the support of the archaic of palaces and temples. Not in offline, not in the TV audience, but in the very environment of the liberated content before our eyes, an amazing prohibitive consensus of elites and masses ripens. This is not politics, it is the resistance of the old broadcast media paradigm.

What next?

Signs of psychological stabilization should not be expected. The old world of the broadcast media model will resist - not only by the efforts of the former monopolists of the content, but also the reaction of irritated mass consciousness. The World Economic Forum in the fresh report “10 main global trends in 2014” one of such global trends calls the rapid growth of misinformation on the Internet. The new world of involving the media model will capture new billions of victims as the Internet spreads, and now just in closed societies, since open and more or less familiar to the free particular opinion of society were digitized first. The problem of Internet irritation goes beyond domestic displeasure, becomes a socio-economic and political factor leading to an increase in radicalism, and often already violence, returning the global problem to the household level in a completely bad form.

Meanwhile, at least the trends of the future can be drawn. In open societies, a new monopoly on content will begin to form, which will be usurped again by political elites in union with digital taps, capable of accumulating and processing large volumes of data. Closed societies are included in the period of revolutions and/or the Middle Ages.

Possible cure methods should be associated with the formation of Internet gigines . It can be a product of both personal and educational efforts, as well as humanitarian programs of a new sense, on the success of which, in fact, the well-being of civilization depends no less than on the fight against hunger or terrorism.

This is not politics, it is the resistance of the old broadcast media paradigm.

The immune system of society must also react, although after a period of serious illness. Freedly authors are unequal. The “heavy authors” producing primary content will increase authority. Society will get used to include the testimony of leading bloggers in the navigation card. The number and status of sources will become more specific. (This is not about their objectivity - the media were also not objective - but about the transparency and familiarity of their position. “Transparency is the new objectivity,” Western colleagues say .) This will allow the public to save efforts and protect the nerves in the consumption of information. Thus, the comfort of consumption, characteristic of the translating model, will partially restore.

The “lazy authors”, editing and spreading someone else's content, will form a new audience. It will be much more active than the old public, because it will be interactive. Nevertheless, the semblance of the old broadcasting system “Authors/Audience” will arise, where some predominantly report, while others are mainly perceived, everyone with roles agrees, everyone is comfortable.

In addition, the public immunity to the ambivalence of the information field should still form. The society will be cured when all these millions of liberated authors will learn to condescending to the unreliability of random sources, which they themselves are. Moreover, condescension will be required with a margin-adjusted to compulsory provocateurs, inspirators and other Internet, hollowing the Internet, not spontaneously, like all honest people, but consciously.

One way or another, humanity will adapt to the new environment of its habitat, where everyone can be an author, editor, commentator and distributor. With the advent of this new habit, irritation from the Internet will decline. It will become comfortable, like a morning newspaper. More precisely, like a blog.