Category: culture

Tech companies in American media

A new research by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism has come up with several interesting findings. The study “was designed to examine the media coverage that occurs when technology news crosses beyond technology-oriented outlets or news sections to the top of the American news agenda—to front-pages, the national nightly news, cable prime-time and other general interest news outlets. It did not delve into specialty publications or sections.”

  • The press reflects exuberance about gadgets and a wonder about the corporations behind them, but wariness about effects on our lives, our behavior and the sociology of the digital age.
  • The mainstream media’s coverage of technology was not vast. It made up less than 1.6% of the total coverage over the course of the year, ranking it 20th out of the 26 identified topics. That puts technology news in same range as the environment, sports and education. And while it trails far behind crime (4.7%), it comes in ahead of religion (.6%) and immigration (.9%).
  • The study examined which technology companies generated the most media attention in these venues. Apple, with its flashy press events and often drawn out releases of new products, narrowly outpaced Google in total coverage. Twitter and Facebook ranked third and fourth. Microsoft, on the other hand, once the feared technology behemoth, fell far behind—attracting just a fifth of the coverage of Apple and less than half that of Twitter.
  • For Apple, the most heavily covered technology company, 42% of the stories described the company as innovative and superior, and another 27% lauded its loyal fan base. But there were doubts. The most common such negative thread, that Apple products don’t live up to the hype, appeared in 17% of stories about Apple. For Google, the company’s advancements in making content easier to find topped its coverage at 25%. But it was only half as likely as Apple to be framed as having superior, innovative products (20%).

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Slow IT, did we actually even ‘think’ today?

Technology is culture – as Basile Zimmermann explained at Lift10 (find the video here) – and it starts to be obvious there is a gap between the Anglo Saxon and the European vision. Here comes slow IT, inspired by the slow food movement that started in Italy. The beginning of adaptation of IT to the old continent’s culture?

Dinner in the US is a one-hour business. Therefore when Americans spend time in Italy they really suffer. First they have to wait until about 9 o’clock for dinner time and then they have to stay put at the table for hours. In a way it highlights a cultural clash between the Anglo Saxon world, which is all about speed and a ‘just do it’ attitude, versus the Rhineland model which is more contemplative and reflective.  Not that the one is better than the other off course. The Anglo Saxon approach tends to be more dynamic and innovative while in the Rhineland model we can get stuck in endless discussions.

I come from the IT sector so in a way we helped create the fast, chaotic world we live in today. Clearly there is opportunity to reflect on the way we interact with technology, both on the side of the producer and the consumer.  As consumers we are bombarded by impulses.  But also at the producer side we often run ahead of ourselves. At Capgemini we increasingly receive requests from clients to produce fast, for the short term. There is no time anymore for strategy, for vision and architecture; when these elements are so important.

[Nicholas Carr] is arguing that the internet is changing the way we think. You can clearly see that in the way young people think.  They’re very good at finding information quickly, online obviously, but they lack depth in understanding. The internet offers access to a huge amount of information but we tend to use that information very superficially and that is gradually turning us into superficial thinkers.

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