No longer will the news editors and anchorpersons of television networks and newspapers solely determine what the mass audience learns and thinks about current events … This is not to say that the traditional mass media will lose their audience and become insignificant. They will continue to play a major role in the national news flow. However, they will lose considerable ground to alternative sources and alternative interpretations circulating on the Internet.
Predictor: Swett, Charles
Prediction, in context:In his 1994 report for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, Charles Swett, assistant for strategic assessment, makes the following statement in regard to policy planning:”No longer will the news editors and anchorpersons of television networks and newspapers solely determine what the mass audience learns and thinks about current events. Raw news reports from local, national, and international news wires and alternative news sources, and from unaffiliated individual observers on the scene of events acting alone, will be accessible by all Internet users. The filtering and slanting of the news currently performed by traditional media will give way to some extent to direct consumption of un-analyzed information by the mass audience, diminishing the influence now enjoyed by those media. An increasingly skeptical audience will be able to compare raw news reports with the pre-digested, incomplete, out-of-context, and sometimes biased renditions offered by television and newspapers. Another consequence of this is that the average consumer of news on the Internet will have a much wider cognizance of current developments worldwide than currently, and will be more likely to have an opinion on overseas situations. This is not to say that the traditional mass media will lose their audience and become insignificant. They will continue to play a major role in the national news flow. However, they will lose considerable ground to alternative sources and alternative interpretations circulating on the Internet.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Strategic Assessment
Title, headline, chapter name: Strategic Assessment: The Internet
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.fas.org/cp/swett.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Jagrup, Shavanna