STS - INFORMATION AGE

informare

to give form, shape, or character to something

purpose of informare or information

• basis of communication

• convey representation of a reality

structure of informare or information

agent → sign → thing

German craftsman and inventor of printing press

Johannes Gutenberg (15th century)

Pre-Gutenberg Era

• Information was hard to replicate and distribute

• Transmission is mostly word-of-mouth

• Only small number has access to information

Timeline of Pre-Gutenberg Era

3000 BC - 105 AD or 1455(?)

3000 BC

Sumerian writing system used pictographs to represent words

2900 BC

Beginning of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing

1300 BC

Tortoise shell and oracle bone writing were used

500 BC

Papyrus roll was used

220 BC

Chinese small seal writing was developed

100 AD

Book (parchment codex)

105 AD

Woodlock printing and paper was invented by the Chinese

Timeline of Gutenberg Era

1455 - 1948

1455

Gutenberg invented the printing press using movable metal type

1755

Samuel Johnson’s dictionary standardized English spelling

1802

The Library of Congress was established

1830

• First viable design for a digital computer

• Augusta Lady Byron wrote the 1st computer program

1837

Invention of the telegraph in Great Britain and the US

1861

Motion pictures were projected onto a screen

1876

Dewey Decimal system was introduced

1899

First magnetic recordings were released

1902

Motion picture special effects were used

1906

Lee DeForest invented the electronic amplifying tube (triode)

1926

First practical sound movie

1939

Regularly scheduled TV broadcasting began in the US

1940s

Beginning of Information Science as a discipline

1945

Vannevar Bush foresaw the invention of hypertext

1946

ENIAC computer was developed

1948

Birth of the field of Information Technology proposed by Claude E. Shannon

Timeline of Post-Gutenberg Era

1958 - 1991

1958

First integrated circuit

1960s

Library of Congress developed LC Mare (machine-readable code)

1969

UNIX operating system was developed, which could handle multitasking

1971

Intel introduced the first microprocessor chip

1972

Optical laser disc was developed by Philips and MCA

1975

First Personal Computer for the public

1984

Apple MacIntosh computer was introduced

Mid 1980s

Artificial Intelligence was separated from Information Science

1991

Four hundred fifty complete works of literature on one CD-ROM was released

January 1997

RSA (encryption and network security software) Internet security code cracked for a 48-bit number

Gutenberg Era

• invention of the printing press

• mass distribution is possible but expensive

• rise of information mediation institutions

• traditional media (books, newspapers, CDs, news channels)

Post-Gutenberg Era

• invention of the computers and internet

• easy mass distribution through online media

• rise of social networks and crowd sourcing

Post-Gutenberg Era effects

• Because of the abundance of information, it was difficult to collect and manage them starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s

• 1980s - Richard Wurman called it Information Anxiety - the widening gap between what we understand and what we think we should understand

• 1990s - Information became the currency in the business world

• present - Information has turned out to be a commodity, an overdeveloped product, mass-produced, and unspecialized

Science and Information Age

• Information Age affected the scientific community. With the availability of computers and internet, vast amount of information is readily available in just a click.

• Researchers and scientists can now easily share their experimental results and recommendations, access and store Information.

• The availability of wide range of information at hand also entails the call for responsible generation of information and proper citation and recognition of authors and publishers.

Information Age and Cyberbullying

• Words are so powerful that they can either make or break people and relationship.

• It is undeniable that our social media has shaped recent events. It does not only update us of current events but can also provoke us.

• Indeed, such acts have legal implications under Philippine laws.

The Emergence of Fake News

• If truthful news is available, so does fake news. Pew Research Center showed that for people under 30, online news is becoming more popular than TV news while those people under 50 get half of their news online and the rest on TV.

• Sometimes it is easier and more convenient for people to share the fake news than to actually go over the information and evaluate for its reliability.

• One more factor that contributes to rapid dissemination of fake news is confirmation bias.

How to Spot Fake News

1. Vet the publisher’s credibility

2. Pay attention to quality and timelines

3. Check the sources and citations

VET THE PUBLISHER’S CREDIBILITY

1. Would the publishing site meet the academic citation standards?

2. What is the domain name?

3. What is the publication’s point of view?

4. Who is the author?

PAY ATTENTION TO QUALITY AND TIMELINES

1. Notice spelling errors and dramatic punctuations from the article.

2. Check if the story is current or recycled.

CHECK THE SOURCES AND CITATIONS

1. How did you find the article?

2. Who is (or is not) quoted, and what do they say?

3. Is the information available on other sites?

4. Can you perform reverse researches and images?