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It is pretty obvious from listening to the mainstream media that the talking heads
don't understand the technology. They sure don't understand the Internet and its
freewheeling culture. More importantly, they fail to understand the principle that
"a big enough quantitative change eventually leads to a qualitative change,"
as one philosopher put it.
But above all, the mainstream media don't understand technology PEOPLE. They confuse
technology management with technology workers, in a way that does not seem to occur
with other industries. For example, when did a news article about technology issues
-- imported high-tech replacement workers, recruitment of high-tech employees, an
Internet sales tax -- ever interview rank-and-file engineers or programmers? Instead,
the media will typically talk to a consultant, or more often a corporate spokesperson,
a spinmeister. The media continues to promote the ideas, the values, and the agendas
of corporations and their front-men. They do not speak for the average techie.
This doesn't happen in sports. Sportscasters don't try to get the players' viewpoints
by interviewing the coaches, the owners, or the cheerleaders, do they? This doesn't
happen in schools. Newscasters don't try to get the students' viewpoints by interviewing
the teachers, the principals, or the custodians, do they? No, of course not. They
interview the actual individuals involved, recognizing that there is a schism or
difference of opinion between the viewpoints of management and the viewpoints of
workers, and between children and their elders. But in the tech world, newspeople
seem to totally miss the boat. They fail to recognize the far greater schism between
tech workers and tech management. The difference between the priorities and the
values of tech workers versus their "owners" is far wider than in any
other field.
Even the so-called "enlightened" or "non-mainstream" media
outlets (including those that are web-based) make this huge mistake. Look at the
example of Newsmax.com and its article, "Techies
like Ashcroft." The article claims that techies like the Digital Copyright
Act -- what a scream! Techies despise the machinations of the corporate-government
complex to restrict information exchange and the educational use of copies (fair
use and other such concepts). It is tech MANAGEMENT and OWNERSHIP who love such
Orwellian schemes and their supporters. Or how about the fallacy that techies like
having more foreign replacement workers, which Mr. Ashcroft voted for? What a foolish
notion! Nobody likes being replaced by a cheaper, less-experienced worker. It
is tech MANAGEMENT and OWNERSHIP who love to cut costs, lay off geniuses, and exploit
permatemps under the threat of instant deportation. Both mainstream and "counterculture"
forms of media are absolutely in the dark about the beliefs, the values, the opinions,
and the struggles of the everyday Joe's and Jane's who strive to overcome the oppressive,
anti-intellectual cultures in most companies (even high-tech companies).
How can the media be so ignorant and uninformed, even misled, about worker-management
schisms in the high-tech workplace? It is because the media people themselves are
out of touch with the average techie and his/her lifestyle. Think about the kind
of movies made about tech issues in the last ten years: "Hackers." "The
Net." "Sneakers." Yes, they were cute and entertaining, but they
hardly spoke for the real engineers, programmers, and scientists among us. Nobody
does. The media, both left and right, are somehow incapable of grasping the fact
that the people they shunned and despised when they were in school together -- the
smart people, the technically wired people -- have a culture, too. We have a culture
that is every bit as valid as theirs, and concerns and issues that are every bit
as valid as theirs. Most of all, our culture and our values are NOT the cultures
and the values of the managers and the owners who pay our wages. As long as the
media fails to grasp the huge chasm that separates our cultures, they will never
understand technology or technologists.
