The prediction, in brief:

I see the current situation as containing enormous potentials for expanding domains and extents of freedom but also as fraught with harrowing dangers. Just at the time when it appears to many that we are stalled politically, the limits of what can be done are in my view broadly expanded.

Predictor: Poster, Mark

Prediction, in context:

In a 1994 e-mail interview with Erick Heroux, Mark Poster, a member of the humanities faculty at the University of California at Irvine and author of “The Second Media Age,” talks about the future of the Internet and the freedom it provides:”I regard myself as both utopian and pessimistic at the same time. I see the current situation as containing enormous potentials for expanding domains and extents of freedom but also as fraught with harrowing dangers. Just at the time when it appears to many that we are stalled politically, the limits of what can be done are in my view broadly expanded.”

Biography:

Mark Poster wrote the paper “Cyberdemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere” in 1995 while teaching at the University of California, Irvine. He also wrote about technology for Wired magazine. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)

Date of prediction: October 1, 1994

Topic of prediction: Community/Culture

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: University of Oregon Web site

Title, headline, chapter name: Interview With Mark Poster: Community, New Media; Post-humanism

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.uoregon.edu/~ucurrent/2-Poster.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Schmidt, Nicholas