Amedeo Giacomantonio's Essay: A world of actors

In order to have a look to a potential scenario of the information society, I would like to make use of the McLuhans'framework (Enhance,obsolete, retrieve, reverce).

Enhance With the birth and development of the TV first, and internet after, information have become available everywhere, in real time, in the format and with the detail level we look for. For example, if we think back to the Gulf War, we can remember TV channels broadcasting in real time the attack of the American trups in Iraq. Or again, a person from the Netherlands can consult by internet the papers which are present in one of the Public Library of New York. This is amazing!!!

Today, information are available in a text, in a sound or in a visual format. When speaking about the presidential elections of the United States, a person has a chance to read about them, to listen to the radio, or to watch the TV news.

What will be the format of the information tommorrow??? We can guess that 3D virtual images will exist, and that maybe we will be able to live the story of a murder in a 3D virtual format, or to be virtually closed to the American President during one of his speechs.

An interesting trend is arising not only from the TV, the radio and the Internet worlds but also from the Video Games industry: "Interactivity". The media technology development is making possible the real time interaction with other people from all over the world. The TV spectator wants to become the main character of the Saturday night show. He wants to be the one to decide the destiny of the Big Brother's partecipants.

Obsolete

The development of the TV, and Internet will probably make obsolete:

- books/newspaper. Today, this statement seems to be too strong, especially if we consider the emotional relationship that we can have with books. But if we consider that the next generations could study just on e-books, or read only e-news, everything can be seen in a more reasonable perspective;

- need to move from one place to another in order to find some information. This is already a reality. Thanks to Internet we can have access to almost all the information we want in real time;

- Internet/TV points. We can imagine a world in which we will be always and everywhere "on Line".

Retrieve

The big comunicational impact of images has already retrieved from the past the comunication of real stories true the use of actors.

If we think about the American President or the Californian Governor, we can surely say that they are great actors and story tellers. This is the real secret of their political success.

When looking at the future, I think that this characteristic will become more and more important.

Reverce

The current concept of TV has already reverced the "original story" in a new one. For example if we consider again the Gulf War, it is difficult to evaluate the real influence of the presence of the Media on the tactical decisions taken by the Americans. McLwan would say:"the medium is the message".

This tendency will probably increase because of the interactive trend which is going on. The spectators will probably be more focused to create the stories in the future and they will lose the possibility to get the real, original information.