Rewriting history is only a few blogs away

After reading Stefanac’s chapter on the brief history of open discourse, I am fascinated to think about how different the world would be if we had computers, the Internet and most importantly, blogs, since humanity’s beginnings.

 

Imagine if instead of Jesus passing on his knowledge to only the 12 disciples, he went online, went to his blog Web site, and posted his thoughts and feelings for the thousands of persecuted Christian and Jewish followers throughout the lands.

 

Imagine if Thomas Jefferson posted the Declaration of Independence online and translated it into all the major languages for everyone to see. Would these words fomented just the American Revolution, or become one for the world?

 

Imagine if John Wilkes Booth had a blog where he posted anti-North and anti-Lincoln sentiments. Would Lincoln have been shot if federal investigators had seen Booth’s blog, followed him and stopped him from committing the assassination? Would Reconstruction have been such a failure if Lincoln had still been at the helm?  

 

Open discourse has never been more alive than it is now. We can go online, log in, and type whatever we want. We don’t have to post our names, addresses, and any other identifiers to who we are. We have little fear of losing our lives for what we type. This is where I think blogs have the most significance in that they can amplify the voices of those who didn’t have the ability to have their voice heard before. This is important, because everyone has a message, and with these new technologies, our democracy can only be strengthened by having more ideas and viewpoints passing through the marketplace.  Take for example SMS. It first started as a way to send simple, lightning-fast messages around the world. They are used to give people the local news, weather, or flight information. But they can bring down a country’s regime as well. They helped alert journalists to China’s SARS problem, and could help to bring to light China’s human rights problems as well.  

 

Finally, imagine you wanted to create your own alternate universe. So you log into Wikipedia, write that the American Civil War never happened at the top of the Civil War wiki, hit post, and log out. Wikipedia has parameters set up for where they can review your post, but what if it went through anyway. Did you just change history? Do we have possible time travel with the Internet? And as the Internet becomes more apart of our daily lives, what will history be – your blog or mine?

 

Questions:

1. As more printed informational materials like newspapers, books, magazines and pamphlets are published online, how will this change our traditional libraries?
2. Why do so many people object to Wikipedia, do you think? Several schools have banned it as a reference site, and it’s possible it could put encyclopedia companies out of business. Would we rather have someone else telling us what goes in our encyclopedias (which describe for the most part how the world is and what happened in it throughout history) or be able to participate in that creation ourselves?