Thursday
Jan222009
The CopyDesk
Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 8:45PM
200 Words with Douglas Rushkoff.
November 6, 2001
Douglas Rushkoff is the author of seven books on new media and popular culture, including Cyberia, Media Virus, Playing the Future, and the novel Ecstasy Club. He is professor of media culture at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program and writes for magazines and newspapers including Time, The Guardian, Esquire, Paper, GQ and The Silicon Alley Reporter.
The Copydesk: In 200 years time, how do you think people will remember the current era of global communications, with respect to the internet, email and the World Wide Web?
Douglas Rushkoff: Well, I guess that's the question I've been exploring with everyone over at the Exit Strategy 'open source' book project. How will people 200 years from now view our obsession with communications?
I think they'll see through it, entirely, and understand that we are a society obsessed with money, not communications. The 'Internet' became a buzzword for pyramid schemes a public relations scam for the NASDAQ stock exchange, which siphoned off a lot of the capital and energy that could have been going into developing a genuine telecommunications infrastructure. I think people from the future will be amused, and maybe saddened, by how easily we were sidetracked by our own greed.
As for our communications, I think they'll look at what we're doing with the Internet, cell phones, and email in pretty much the same way we look at the 'town crier' or the church bell. They'll understand, even better than we do, how a society's form of media dictates, to a great extent, its understanding of the world.
I don't think they'll look at our little era as characterized by the Internet, though. We are still a television culture. If anything, they'll see the Internet as an extension of our TV culture a way to discuss the latest plot changes on Ally McBeal, or write fan letters to Pamela Anderson.
They may never know anything about the tiny but well-intentioned little cluster of people who created a technology we hoped would reintroduce communication to communication.
November 6, 2001
Douglas Rushkoff is the author of seven books on new media and popular culture, including Cyberia, Media Virus, Playing the Future, and the novel Ecstasy Club. He is professor of media culture at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program and writes for magazines and newspapers including Time, The Guardian, Esquire, Paper, GQ and The Silicon Alley Reporter.
The Copydesk: In 200 years time, how do you think people will remember the current era of global communications, with respect to the internet, email and the World Wide Web?
Douglas Rushkoff: Well, I guess that's the question I've been exploring with everyone over at the Exit Strategy 'open source' book project. How will people 200 years from now view our obsession with communications?
I think they'll see through it, entirely, and understand that we are a society obsessed with money, not communications. The 'Internet' became a buzzword for pyramid schemes a public relations scam for the NASDAQ stock exchange, which siphoned off a lot of the capital and energy that could have been going into developing a genuine telecommunications infrastructure. I think people from the future will be amused, and maybe saddened, by how easily we were sidetracked by our own greed.
As for our communications, I think they'll look at what we're doing with the Internet, cell phones, and email in pretty much the same way we look at the 'town crier' or the church bell. They'll understand, even better than we do, how a society's form of media dictates, to a great extent, its understanding of the world.
I don't think they'll look at our little era as characterized by the Internet, though. We are still a television culture. If anything, they'll see the Internet as an extension of our TV culture a way to discuss the latest plot changes on Ally McBeal, or write fan letters to Pamela Anderson.
They may never know anything about the tiny but well-intentioned little cluster of people who created a technology we hoped would reintroduce communication to communication.
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