This week…
It’s the year-end. How about a selection of fascinating thoughts? These are not 2022 predictions or a 2021 highlights reel. Instead, I consider them to be goings-on that will continue to shape (a) social media, (b) journalism, and (c) science communication in the near future. I came up with up to five items for each list; then I Googled recent articles and social media posts to make sure I’m not the only one with these thoughts. I discarded outlier items and settled with the top three for each topic. Here they are.
On social media
More link-in-bio to drive engagement metrics. “Even when you’re Justin Bieber, you only get one link in your Instagram profile,” writes David Pierce for Protocol, which is why it is one of the Internet’s most important real estate.
Everyone’s an investigator on the Internet, except they are occupied with non-stories and bad takes. Garbage Day’s Ryan Broderick explains the phenomena as “an interesting mix of old — British journalism’s compulsive need to knock down anyone who gains even a modicum of minor celebrity — and new — TikTok’s rampant ‘investigation’ culture, which has recently manifested in the doxxing and harassment of ‘Couch Guy’ (Robert McCoy, Slate) in the US.”
Gamers and streamers continue to share the ‘news’ — and conspiracy theories. Virtual environments such as Meta’s Horizon World, “will supercharge disinformation campaigns, espionage and surveillance,” write Zoe Weinberg for NYT ($).
On journalism
The blueprint for the future of journalism is going to look a lot like the creator economy game plan. No, creators will not crowd out other work. Investor and tech writer Rex Woodbury reminds us the creator phenomenon is a horizontal trend, not a vertical trend in this short thread:
Media 3.0 will compete in Web3 spaces because, writes Subtext’s David Cohn for Nieman Lab, “information wants to be free, but digital property won’t be.” There are Web3 sceptics, of course, such as Tim O’Reilly, the guy who defined Web 2.0, but the bit about not owning things we buy? That’s been around since his Web 2.0 time. When we pay for our music and video streaming services, we don’t buy physical records and DVDs. The service providers can, and often do, periodically remove titles to make room for new ones. I no longer have the complete Star Trek collection, even though I once thought I did through my Netflix subscription.
Climate stories continue to dominate the headlines. I don’t need links for this.
On science and society
A reminder that learning to live with covid being “the norm” means covid measures such as social distancing and personal hygiene become part of life; not that we revert to pre-pandemic unhealthy social and personal habits.
Ransomware increasingly shares the aims of disinformation campaigns, report Caitlin Thompson and Erica Hellerstein for Coda, that is to “spread popular doubt in governments and institutions, to undermine expertise, and to foster political and social instability.”
It is time the world takes this more seriously: People with some of the most powerful jobs in the world (aircraft engineers, IT specialists) are furries. 0w0
What I read, watch and listen to…
I’m reading the Shadow and Bone trilogy. I got that and the Six of Crows duology as Christmas gifts.
I’m watching Ann Reardon on the creepy “children’s stories” told over unrelated, fast-forwarded cooking videos for kids.
Chart of the week
From the Washington Post-Schar School poll on tech trust, reported by Heather Kelly and Emily Guskin: