The new media (computers, cable, and the Internet) can and should adopt him … [Thomas] Paine does have a legacy, a place where his values prosper and are validated millions of times a day: the Internet. There, his ideas about communications, media ethics, the universal connections between people, and the free flow of honest opinion are all relevant again, visible every time one modem shakes hands with another. Tom Paine’s ideas, the example he set of free expression, the sacrifices he made to preserve the integrity of his work, are being resuscitated by means that hadn’t existed or been imagined in his day.
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: ”Thomas Paine, professional revolutionary, was one of the first to use media as a powerful weapon against an entrenched array of monarchies, feudal lords, dictators, and repressive social structures. He invented contemporary political journalism, creating almost by himself a mass reading-public aware for the first time of its right to encounter controversial opinions and to participate in politics. Between his birth in 1737 and his death in 1809, enormous political upheavals turned the Western world upside down – and Paine was in the middle of the biggest ones. His writings put his life at risk in every country he lived in – in America for rebellion, in England for sedition, in France for his insistence on a merciful and democratic revolution … We owe Paine. He is our dead and silenced ancestor. He made us possible. We need to resurrect and hear him again, not for his sake but for ours … He made more noise in the information world than any messenger or pilgrim before or since. His mark is now nearly invisible in the old culture, but his spirit is woven through and through this new one, his fingerprints on every Web site, his voice in every online thread. If the old media (newspapers, magazines, radio, and television) have abandoned their father, the new media (computers, cable, and the Internet) can and should adopt him … [Thomas] Paine does have a legacy, a place where his values prosper and are validated millions of times a day: the Internet. There, his ideas about communications, media ethics, the universal connections between people, and the free flow of honest opinion are all relevant again, visible every time one modem shakes hands with another. Tom Paine’s ideas, the example he set of free expression, the sacrifices he made to preserve the integrity of his work, are being resuscitated by means that hadn’t existed or been imagined in his day – via the blinking cursors, clacking keyboards, hissing modems, bits and bytes of another revolution, the digital one.”
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: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: Journalism/Media
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