"Who owns information - he owns the world"
Nathan Rothschild
The immortal aphorism clearly expresses the importance of timely receipt of information, this is quite obvious to modern residents of the information age. We live in an amazing time when the search for information has turned into entertainment, people take pleasure in finding new facts without any practical purpose. A considerable part of their free time, they spend scrolling through the endless feed of a news site or channel, periodically switching between different sources. But it was not always so.
For much of human history, information has been available to a relatively small number of people. Receiving it was a privilege that not everyone could afford. The most complete and up-to-date data was received by those who could pay for it, the speed of news dissemination was equal to the speed of physical delivery vehicles, which at all times were expensive, and only a literate person could read the information. With the development of progress, not only the means of delivery changed, but also the means of perception of information, with the advent of radio and television, it became not necessary to read, it was enough just to listen to or watch the news on the screen. Information became cheaper, everyone could afford to subscribe to a few newspapers or buy a simple radio. With progress, the number of channels for transmitting information also changed.Nowadays, it is still possible to buy a paper newspaper or magazine, although their range and circulation have been greatly reduced, you can watch TV or go to a news site on the Internet.
The change in information transmission technology has always caused the division of people into several groups: some remained faithful to the old source, others completely abandoned it in favor of the new method, and still others combined both methods in different proportions. For a very long time, ordinary paper newspapers owned the minds of people, they were publicly available and democratic in the sense that a servant brought newspapers to some, while others bought them themselves, but the newspaper itself was the same and the speed of their receipt was approximately the same. The discovery of radio waves has led to a major gap in news availability. Those who, due to inertia or lack of funds, continued to buy newspapers, lagged behind those who could afford a teletype, and then a radio. The backwardness and lack of efficiency of newspapers served as a target for many jokes, such as: “Do you want to know whatwhat are we telling you now? Buy a newspaper tomorrow. " The editorial offices of the paper press, in turn, reproached the radio for the fact that the information was presented extremely poorly, in contrast to a large detailed article.
But a start was made: people were divided according to the method of obtaining information. A person who reads newspapers and neglects radio or television, could not communicate on an equal footing with someone who was at the forefront of progress. This difference was not very great, only one day between the release of news on the radio and the publication of the newspaper, but it did exist.
Each new delivery vehicle caused the division of the mass of people into those who use it and those who are lagging behind progress. In the era of the development of the Internet, this is happening even faster and there are more and more different groups. Some prefer to read news sites, others are hooked on the news feeds of various social networks, others read channels in instant messengers, the relevance of information on a site may differ from a social network like Twitter for a few minutes, a meme or news reposts around the entire Internet almost instantly. There are people who do not like social networks, there are people who use instant messengers only for communication between acquaintances, but the time gap is getting smaller.
It would seem that now everyone receives relevant information more or less evenly. But, nevertheless, the difference still exists and, paradoxically, it reaches a scale comparable to the times of opposition between newspapers and radio. The next frontier is Telegram. The messenger created by Pavel Durov's team turned out to be too comprehensive, it not only communicates between familiar people in the format of a traditional chat, through it you can transfer photos, music and video, there are a huge number of channels for every taste, bots provide a wide variety of services, people use it as a music player, watch movies and TV series in it, download books and, of course, read various articles and news.
The convenience and versatility of Telegram has led to the fact that a lot of people have appeared who hardly go beyond it or do it very rarely, for example, post a photo on Instagram. The messenger has created its own "internal Internet", almost as good as the original one. And here's the catch. Although the Telegram audience is growing, it is still not absolute. A lot of people do not use this messenger for a variety of reasons. They still read websites, watch YouTube videos, and receive traditional content that is significantly different from what can be found on Telegram channels.
The problem with traditional content is that it is released centrally and according to an outdated ideology: the editors of a news site, YouTube channel, blog, Instagram or Twitter account, Vkontakte or Facebook page are subject to many rules. On the one hand, they are limited by the legislation of the country to which they distribute their broadcasting, on the other hand, by the management of the service that provides them with a platform. Any social network can ban the editorial account if it violates the rules of the service, becomes overly politicized, post scenes of a violent or sexual nature, and so on and so forth. Legislatures can put pressure on both the editorial office and the social network, traffickers can run into for the use of video and audio. In short, this is a world in which censorship rules everyone. Explicit or not, it exists.The decision to publish this or that information takes some time, requires the participation of several people, and, as a result, the information may never be published.
The second problem is the sources of information. One way or another, but traditional content, at times, requires the work of a journalist who will arrive at the scene of the event and pass what he saw to the editorial office. Information can also be obtained from local sources such as “the video was shot by one of the participants in the events,” but this requires verification not only for veracity, but also for compliance with the editorial policy.
Almost all of these problems are absent from the editorial offices, which deliberately limit themselves to the Telegram channel. It is necessary to post absolutely outrageous game there so that the management of the messenger would close the channel. Provided that anonymity or remoteness from the broadcasting country is maintained, the legislature cannot put pressure on the editorial board, press and threaten the company that develops the messenger, it is practically useless, some semblance of censorship is only in the clients for the Apple mobile platform, but this is simply bypassed through the web version messenger, which is practically not inferior to the native application.
All this has led to the fact that Telegram news channels are incomparably faster than all other methods of obtaining information on the Internet, they are not limited to political and moral censorship, information has finally become free. In addition, they can publish orders of magnitude more content than pages on social networks or a YouTube channel, conduct literally second-by-second reports, several posts per minute, when events are developing very rapidly.
But, interestingly, information from these channels to the regular Internet is very limited. There are several reasons for this, the main one being censorship. The editorial board itself is not interested in “legalizing” and registering as a media outlet, but there is no need for users, they see everything anyway, and reposts from Telegram to a regular Internet are not very convenient. Thus, information from Telegram channels remains available in full only to those who use the messenger and subscribe to the channel, a scanty part leaks out, offhand - a fraction of a percent.
As a result, people were again divided into very unequal parts, using news channels in Telegram and not using them. Personally, I was shocked at how big the difference was. It happened during one of the
Summing up, we again found ourselves in a situation where another information transmission channel was created, which is strikingly different from the usual ones, both in terms of quantity and speed of delivery of news. The chasm that divided people is only partly comparable to the epic struggle between newspapers and radio / TV. Because a newspaper buyer could easily listen to the radio or watch television, most did so. And the absence of a Telegram account cannot be compensated for, this is a binary separation, almost without gradations. While it is difficult to say what this will lead to, the freedom of telegram channels editorial has problems, namely, reliability. While their information raises more doubts than what is on the news sites, but perhaps this is a matter of habit, as old as the world "The newspaper will not lie."
Anticipating a fair question: “Where have you been before? Telegram channels were not invented yesterday. " Yes, I slowed down a little with the analysis, the channels have been there for a long time and there are already a lot of news agencies like Mash. But for the first time, I was confronted with how huge the difference in awareness can be and how it can greatly affect communication. Post links to interesting channels in kamenty! :)