The idea of technological change is captured, for many of us, by a series of well-known images. Travel on foot gives way to travel by horse, the horses are hitched to buggies, and the buggies become cars. Smoke signals are replaced by telegraphs then telephones, and recorded music moves from records, to cassettes, to CDs. New technologies replace inferior technologies, and progress marches on.
In keeping with this conception, the introduction of online news has been accompanied by dire predictions about the fate of more primitive media, with print newspapers singled out as the most likely victims. In his 1999 speech entitled “The Death of Print,” Time, Inc. Editor Daniel Okrent commented, “Twenty, thirty, at the outside forty years from now, we will look back on the print media the way we look back on travel by horse and carriage” [1]. Warren Buffet echoed the point, saying “I love newspapers… But that is not the way the world is going… Newspapers are very threatened by the internetâ€? [2].
Symposium: 2003: Cambridge, Massachusetts, Session 5 - Internet Effects
Authors: Collins, James, Gentzkow, Matthew A.
Organisations: Department of Economics, Harvard University
Topics: Multi-platform Measurement