Send me a link for a wake ?

On twitter @ 1.45pm (GMT) today, received an interesting tweet in my stream from one of the apparent stars of the Irish Blogosphere. Whether 'in jest' or in partial seriousness; he mentioned that he'd be offering the following advice to some multimedia students on Monday next:

" My message: TV is dead, newspapers are dead, quit your course."

Now perhaps not what you'd expect to hear if you were one of the aforementioned multimedia students, after all (at least when I lectured to multimedia students approx 10 years ago) the 'discipline' isn't specifically focused on either TV or Journalism, but that's exactly the thing about today's asynchronous web communication technologies - by design, they demand immediate responses, not disciplined, mediative, considered or meticulously planned replies, rebuttals or slow... grinding.. to... a..... halt, next day, ponderous yabber yabber, two weeks to script, six weeks to schedule - trying to catch up on what's already gone - old slow as a one legged donkey media - so whether joking or serious, in my view, in terms of his spontaneous twitter advice to students, the blogger could be correct.

However for me it becomes a little bit wider, College educations were once upon a time about, creating critical thinkers, producing independently minded individuals, equipped with specific life skills and knowledge (back in the days when the book was the only accepted repository of knowledge). However now it's all about bits and bytes and bits of stamped paper or specific skillset fits - ironic that the area of criticism flourishes on-line yet withers in the classroom. Just check out any of the active criticism in the guise of video responses/replies/comments available everywhere on the web, personally I don't think it is any longer acceptable to just say: (as it did several times yesterday in the ticket film reviews) "It might be worth crossing the road to see this film."

I mean ok, we may come to respect the 'informed' opinion's of individual critics but such a 'critical appraisal' of a film is just god damn lazy at least and space filling at best. I remember reading Anthony De Mello's awakening several years ago, and it's central tenant was very simple: Wake up, to what's actually around you. - I think web apps like twitter encourage that, encourage those of us connected by the web, to wake up and stay awake.

It also encourages each of us to, do a TED and 'spread ideas worth spreading,' the trouble for the blogger and I is, when it comes to twitter, we're preaching to the converted, the vast majority of those in the stream already recognize the stuff I'm waffling on about, but it's genuinely empowering - to someone like me, who grew with the evolving, 'electronic business equipment revolution' to see Bill gates 'A PC on every desk 'become 'A PC desk in every home' but by far the most exciting and independently liberating aspect of today's web culture is the potential and probability for 'active criticism' i.e. forget the crossing the road or passive opinion, the ability to make things, to build things, to 'create' in response to the work, and opinions, of others..... and all within a couple of hours.

my image above based on FUNERAL © Higyou | Dreamstime.com