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thoughts on the uses of the new media
Traditionally the earliest uses of any new medium of communication is to promote heterodox religious, social and political views. Or, in the words of the over-culture: Heresy, pornography and treason.
This was true when the printing press was introduced and it's been true for every new medium since. Newspapers, the penny press, radio, and television have all in their time been used to promote heresy, pornography and treason.
As we're in the middle of another media-mediated upheaval, we need to understand that while technologies like the internet are producing seismic changes in our world, this isn't the first time it has happened. In fact many of the changes we're seeing are simply a continuation of trends we can trace back to the Middle Ages.
While some of the effects are radically new, we can find cognates by looking at what happened when the old media were the new media.
This isn't necessarily comforting. Heresy, pornography and treason seldom are. But it is helpful.
--RC
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