I made a few important edits to my post yesterday. Added links that gave context. Removed a typo here and there. Did you notice?

Well that’s your fault you see. You’re not media literate.

You are expected to revisit my posts to see edits and updates. As a good host, I should indicate my edits in one fashion or another (which I didn’t do).

See Dan Farber: Media literacy in a media saturated world.

Very, very related if you want to see the societal shift this is part of: BusinessWeek: “I Want My Safety Net”.

We are shifting risk from institutions, the producers of things, to the consumers of things.

The expectation is that since we are all now producers, we must individually keep BS meters up and running at all times, otherwise, it’s our own damn fault if we get fooled by something.

While people point to blogs as the primary purveyors of this kind of thought, in actuality, it seems prevalent in all forms of media.

Scott Rosenberg: Amateur hour:

…saying the answer to the crisis in journalism today is “better media literacy” is like saying the answer to the crisis in education is “better learning skills.”

He says this sarcastically but the redistribution of risk is a trend in everything from the food we give our dogs, to the education we give our children, from what we expect from our government (just re-look at Katrina), to the relationships we have with our neighbors.

The lesson – keep your guard up. You are on your own. Trust nothing and no one except yourself.

Good or bad? You decide.

The title of this post refers to a “law of data smog” in David Shenk’s terrific book, “Data Smog”. He was referring to the libertarian impulse that was prevalent in the late 90s Republican movement. He should have said “Cyberspace is Libertarian” and it would have been timeless.

Update:David Shenk posts a comment in this post’s thread that in the paperback version of “Data Smog” he put down Law 13 of Data Smog to be “Cyberspace is Libertarian” instead of “Cyberspace is Republican”!