Information put to use

Last updated on August 6th, 2017 at 06:32 am

The Sunday Age’s Terry Lane – now reduced from writing weekly to writing every two weeks, which probably means he’s been half-fired since his last column debacle – muses on the nature of news dissemination:

Cultural critic Neil Postman, in Amusing Ourselves to Death, reckons that our news collection and dissemination technologies have turned the age-old problem of information on its head: where people once sought information to manage the real contexts of their lives, now they have to invent contexts in which otherwise useless information might be put to some use.

• Useless information: long-disproved claims by someone who never served in Iraq;

• Invented context: the war on terror is opposed even by US troops;

• Put to some use: Lane got a column out of it.

1. That was an intuitive observation by Postman. I’m already putting it to use.

   Useless information is John Travolta’s opinion on global warming. The invented context is a looming environmental disaster.

   Posted by Arty on 2007 04 01 at 09:57 AM • permalink

1. Useless information also gathers under furniture, if you don’t clean regularly.

   It’s sometimes distributed by the belly-button fairy.

   Posted by rhhardin on 2007 04 01 at 01:56 PM • permalink

1. now they have to invent contexts in which otherwise useless information might be put to some use.

   Such as Terry MacBeth Lane still actually having a job.

   Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 04 01 at 02:42 PM • permalink

1. Oh, you said that, didn’t you?

   Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 04 01 at 02:43 PM • permalink

1. Gee, the same may be said about so many “careers.”

   Posted by saltydog on 2007 04 01 at 03:25 PM • permalink

1. Terry is still presumably drawing a full pay packet at The Age, where he is lurking in the paper’s Green Guide predicting trends in technology:

   ‘From time to time a new type of gadget turns up in the shops and you say “Nah. No one’s going to buy that.” ‘

   He’s such a cynic.

   Posted by ilibcc on 2007 04 02 at 12:58 AM • permalink

1. die italics, die!

   Posted by wreckage on 2007 04 02 at 06:26 AM • permalink

1. BWAHA!

   Italics pwned.

   Posted by wreckage on 2007 04 02 at 06:46 AM • permalink

1. ilibcc @6
   Based on a discussion some time ago, I remember there being 2 Terry Lanes; the techie one is the sane one.

   CHeers

   Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2007 04 02 at 11:42 AM • permalink

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