In an age of video dial tone and digital transmission, there may no longer be channels – only unlimited bits of information and data to be translated into any format one wants to call up. With digital transmission, signal compression, fiber optic transmissions, and expanded use of the electronic spectrum, information of all kinds in all forms will pour in and out, limited only by people’s ability to pay. It will travel via cable lines and telephone lines, through the air, and directly to and from satellites.
Predictor: Grossman, Lawrence K.
Prediction, in context:In his 1995 book “The Electronic Republic: Reshaping Democracy in the Information Age,” Lawrence Grossman, former president of NBC News and PBS, writes: ”Some go so far as to suggest that the new personal telecommunications media will soon displace the present-day mass media, as cars replaced horse-drawn wagons and airplanes replaces long-distance trains. Predictions about the future of the media, however, while often hyperbolic, are always hazardous. Thomas Edison thought his new invention, the phonograph, would be used as a dictating machine. Alexander Graham Bell looked upon his telephone as an entertainment medium. The New York Times predicted that television was unlikely to catch on as radio did, because of the size of investment it would require ‘dwarfs anything to which even American capital is accustomed’ … We are in the midst of a telecommunications revolution whose characteristics are yet to be clearly defined. There will be no shortage of channels into and out of the home. In fact, in an age of video dial tone and digital transmission, there may no longer be channels – only unlimited bits of information and data to be translated into any format one wants to call up. With digital transmission, signal compression, fiber optic transmissions, and expanded use of the electronic spectrum, information of all kinds in all forms will pour in and out, limited only by people’s ability to pay. It will travel via cable lines and telephone lines, through the air, and directly to and from satellites. This interactive telecommunications revolution is already in the process of permanently and profoundly changing our nation’s political system. “As the speed of information increases, McLuhan wrote, ‘the tendency is for politics to move away from representation and delegation of constituents toward immediate involvement of the entire community in the central acts of decision.'”
Biography:Lawrence Grossman wrote the book “The Electronic Republic: Reshaping Democracy in an Information Age” (Penguin, 1995). The former executive at NBC and PBS urged people to realize that digital communications had altered how things can and should be done. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: The Electronic Republic (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 5: Television and Beyond
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 118, 119
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne