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Wealth, leisure and the attention economy in the 18C
A while back, Clay Shirky (Gin, Television and Social Surplus) invoked 18C England in arguing that gin was the enabling – and stupefying – technology of rapid urbanisation. Television, he argued, played the same role in – presumably, he doesn’t really elaborate – the suburbanisation of the US in the second half of the 20C.…
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An Unreliable History of the News in 500 words
Ever wondered where the modern news media started? Germany, 1450s – Johann Gutenberg invents movable type printing and brings out the Bible. Problem with the Bible? You only buy it once. New translations keep presses rolling. They also raise political problems (like Tyndale‘s translation in England). Readers can use their Bible to make up their…
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Why The Public Doesn’t Deserve The News
It depends on the habit of attending to and looking into public transactions, and on the degree of information and solid judgment respecting them that exists in the community, whether the conduct of the nation as a nation, both within itself and towards others, shall be selfish, corrupt and tyrannical, or rational and enlightened, just…