Media barons of today will be grasping to hold onto their centralized empires tomorrow. I am convinced that by the year 2005 Americans will spend more hours on the Internet (or whatever it is called) than watching network television. The combined forces of technology and human nature will ultimately take a stronger hand in plurality than any laws Congress can invent. But in case I’m wrong in the long term and for the transition period in the short term, the FCC had better find some imaginative scheme to replace industrial-age cross-ownership laws with incentives and guidelines for being digital.
Predictor: Negroponte, Nicholas
Prediction, in context:In his 1995 book “Being Digital,” Nicholas Negroponte writes: ”Media barons of today will be grasping to hold onto their centralized empires tomorrow. I am convinced that by the year 2005 Americans will spend more hours on the Internet (or whatever it is called) than watching network television. The combined forces of technology and human nature will ultimately take a stronger hand in plurality than any laws Congress can invent. But in case I’m wrong in the long term and for the transition period in the short term, the FCC had better find some imaginative scheme to replace industrial-age cross-ownership laws with incentives and guidelines for being digital.”
Biography:Nicholas Negroponte, a co-founder of MIT’s Media Lab and a popular speaker and writer about technologies of the future, wrote one of the 1990s’ best-selling books about the new future of communications, “Being Digital.” (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: February 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Role of Govt./Industry
Name of publication: Being Digital (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 4: The Bit Police
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 58
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne