The Age of Paine: Thomas Paine Was One of the First Journalists to Use Media as a Weapon Against the Entrenched Power Structure. He Should be Resurrected as the Moral Father of the Internet. Jon Katz Explains Why | Imagining the Internet

The prediction, in brief:

The political, economic, and social implications of an interconnected global medium are enormous, making plausible Paine’s belief in the “universal citizen.”

Predictor: Katz, Jon

Prediction, in context:

In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Jon Katz ties the vocal media master of Revolutionary War times, Thomas Paine, to the need for activism and similar voices in the age of digital communications. Katz writes:”Paine called for a ‘universal society,’ one whose citizens transcend their narrow interests and consider humankind as one entity. ‘My country is the world,’ he wrote. The Internet has, in fact, redefined citizenship as well as communications. It is the first worldwide medium in which people can communicate so directly, so quickly, so personally, and so reliably. In which they can form distant but diverse and cohesive communities, send, receive, and store vast amounts of textual and graphic information, skip without paperwork or permission across borders. Where computers are plentiful, digital communications are nearly uncensorable. This reality gives our moral and media guardians fits; they still tend to portray the computer culture as an out-of-control menace harboring perverts, hackers, pornographers, and thieves. But Paine would have known better. The political, economic, and social implications of an interconnected global medium are enormous, making plausible Paine’s belief in the ‘universal citizen.'”

Biography:

Jon Katz was a 1990s technology columnist/journalist who wrote for Wired, Slashdot, HotWired and Rolling Stone. Part of his career was spent as a reporter and editor for the Boston Globe and Washington Post and as a producer for the CBS Morning News. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)

Date of prediction: January 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: Wired

Title, headline, chapter name: The Age of Paine: Thomas Paine Was One of the First Journalists to Use Media as a Weapon Against the Entrenched Power Structure. He Should be Resurrected as the Moral Father of the Internet. Jon Katz Explains Why

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.05/paine_pr.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney