What's News? - The Convergence of Information - Part 2

[This article relates to Craig's (who?) appearance on the "What's the Big Idea?" segment of Western Reserve PBS's NEOtropolis, Tuesday 1-24-12 @ NEOtropolis.org]

On January 24, 2012 the "So What's the Big Idea?" segment of NEOtropolis dipped into the pool of information & news - to explore the Convergence of Information.

Just as technology has converged (you remember the Convergence of Technology - right?)... It looked something like:

Typewriter (+ paper + envelope + stamps) ==> Dedicated Word Processing (DWP) (+ printer + paper + envelope + stamps) ==> Email joins your DWP (eliminating the envelope & stamp) ==> Merging your Computer with your Phone ==> Smartphone becoming part of the Internet ==> (next?)

The Convergence of (news) Information looks something like:

• Jim writes an article for a news outlet. 
  
• Betty includes it in her blog, adding some thoughts and opinions of her own.
• Seven others add their comments and perhaps, additional articles. 
• Carl then tweets Betty's post (including the comments of others) - adding his own thought. 
• Steve cites the tweet in his article.  
• You read Steve's article.

Somewhere along the line - fact, opinion, news, information are meshed together.  Where does the one end, and the next begin?  Opinion looks like fact.  Fact appears to be opinion.  All at break-neck speed and in multitude of places.

How much and what information/news we put in out heads is as important as the food we put in out bodies.  That is what Clay Johnson, author of The Information Diet, contends. 

We would add, just as it is important to exercise the body, it's important to exercise the brain.  Smart.Simple.Mobile can help you do so.  Here's a couple resources for starters:

Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age by Maggie Jackson  

Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys by Sandra Aamodt, Ph.D. & Sam Wang, Ph. D.    

                                                         image by ralph solonitz 

SOPA and PIPA prove to us that it's essential we better understand what hits our in-box... lands at/on our front door step via print... or presents itself to our web browser when pressing "return" (Clay Shirky does an amazing job talking about SOPA & PIPA and helps us understand what we need to know).

craig arthur james - SeaJames 2012

Every Tuesday at 9:00 PM, live on Western Reserve PBS and live-streamed on the Internet: NEOtropolis - Making sense of the forces of change that impact our lives.

The above are not necessarily the views of NEOtropolis or Western Reserve PBS, but rather are the views of this author related to the topics he may have discussed on NEOtropolis as a contributor