In the past, editorial credibility and governance dictated that if some data was printed, it had to be true. As media continues its evolutionary excursion from the centuries-old printing technologies to primarily electronic, some people may interpret that premise to be true for digital information as well—if it’s in R&D Daily it has to be true. Paper magazines and newspapers are quickly being replaced by e-versions hosted on e-mail attachments and websites. Similarly, books are being replaced by devices like the wireless Amazon Kindle or the Cybook. Technologies for electronic paper also continue their rapid development with increasing sizes and resolutions. With multiple demonstrations already made, flexible e-paper is expected to be widely commercialized within the next decade. Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, for example, announced earlier this week the development of high-resolution flexible organic TFT arrays by microcontact printing techniques.
The continued development of these and other hardware-based ICT technologies over the next decade will change the entire look, feel, and structure of the media industry. Most of these enhancements will provide increased content and network management capabilities. Initially, many of the applications will simply be digital versions of existing media products, like magazines, newspapers, movies, and legal documents. But as the technologies mature, entirely new applications will be developed for more personalized social interfaces.
On the other side of the coin, some of these enhancements will include greater identity monitoring, control, and management capabilities. They’re likely to intrude more into our personal freedoms as well, but still be considered legitimate.
In the movie “Minority Report”, the extent to which personal freedoms could be falsely compromised, however, is demonstrated—citizens are accused, judged, and sentenced before any crime is committed. Because the baseline data will be digital, its credibility could be considered unimpeachable.
But, media information is already coming into question, with services like wikipedia being shown to have false data more often than we might like. As advanced media becomes more pervasive with these new technologies, we should always question the validity of the information we’re receiving on them since it could be corrupted by a multitude of groups, not the least of which could be our own government or special interest industry groups.
