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"What television does is rent us friends and relatives who are quite satisfactory. This is quite something, to rent artificial friends and relatives right inside the house."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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| Citizen Journalism | ||
| The notion that ordinary people can make use of technological tools like cellphone cameras and the Internet to provide information. |
Can an ordinary individual influence a country?
| "But what can a single person do to influence events of such magnitude and momentum?" One answer might surprise you. We'll shortly hand over these channels, on loan, to the Federation of Amateur Observation Special Interest Groups...
It may surprise many of you how much science relies on amateur observers, from bird-watchers, to meteor counters, to hobbyists with private weather stations. But now, with so many weird phenomena taking place worldwide, these amateur networks are truly coming into their own. It's privatte citizens, with sharp eyes and ready cameras, who are even now tracing patterns the big boys think they can keep secret from us.. We'll show them whose planet this is! |
| Technovelgy from Earth,
by David Brin. Published by Bantam in 1990 Additional resources -
|
This is a very early reference to this idea; when this novel was published, ordinary people had very little chance of having their individual two cents noticed outside of their usual social circle.
Today, of course, anyone can place their work and their thoughts before a global audience. You are viewing an example of citizen journalism; twenty years ago, someone without a professional organization behind him could scarcely have expected that fifty thousand people a day would come to read what he had to say.
See this related article - amateur innovators - this is your century!.
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'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
'... oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.'
