Journalism, technology, and cognitive change…

Matt Welch reviews four (fairly) recent books about the problems of modern journalism. He’s not impressed. Of the four, I have read “The Elements of Journalism,” and I have read others of its genre as Welch describes it. He’s annoyed with all the professional gloom and doom, and he makes a few excellent points. I’m concerned that some of his criticisms, however, too readily accept the new information technologies as positive advancements. We just don’t know that yet. Every new information technology offers a new model of cognition, a new way of thinking. Sometimes that new cognitive model is inferior to the old model it would supplant. For example, TV is inferior to print as medium of propositional content. We embraced TV before we really understood it. (Not that we have much choice. Create “space” and humans will fill it; build it, and they will come.) Do we really understand how rapidly-advancing computer technologies are changing our thinking? Hmmmm…and here I sit typing into a computer and posting to a blog. (via MediaMinded)