According to a recent article in Time, by 2013 an additional 150 million individuals will have a television set in their household. By the same year, more than half a billion people will have television access through their mobile devices. In a country where televisions outnumber Americans, these may not seem like very high numbers, but the truth is that television is bridging the digital divide, and as it flourishes, print is suffocating.
In the early 80s, video may have killed the radio star. Although it is not acting alone, television sure is playing its part in print's demise.
With twenty-four hour news networks spanning the globe and even the poorest portions of the poorest countries in the world now have news access. Satellite services are provided inexpensively (and often as a free service provided by the government) all across the globe, and are quickly expanding. There are cases of people living in homes with no electricity who power their televisions using batteries.
Members of this new globalized society are expected to process massive amounts of information at an increasingly rapid rate. The global economy is twenty-four hours and the world can only run in unison through technologies providing us with instantaneous updates à la television, mobile phones or the internet.
While living in Morocco, whenever my host mother was home, the television was on. Despite rarely leaving our neighborhood, she dutifully sat every evening watching the evening news every night. Stopping by my favorite restaurant for lunch, I'd pass the time waiting for my food while watching al-Jazeera on the restaurant's big screen television. The only people who seemed to be reading newspapers were middle aged people and older.
A sea of satellites on rooftops in Fes, Morocco. This image is commonplace in major cities across the developing world.
What does this mean for democracy? For the moment, not too much. Despite spreading into the farthest reaches of the globe, it is still very easy for governments to manipulate media through the television (yes China, I’m looking at you). Regardless, where television fails, there is always the internet--sorry Mahmoud, now the world knows that even your own people realize you’re
crazy.
Jason Bourne carefully maneuvering around satellite dishes while kicking ass in Tangiers.
Print is sighing its last breaths as it prepares to fall into the eternal abyss of history. Don’t run off to write your eulogies yet. Although the digitization of information will become more and more commonplace in this new technological age, nostalgia is still a powerful force and there are many of us out there who prefer reading things on paper instead of a screen.
Just don’t expect your offspring to have the same sentiments.
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