Can Science Fiction Predict The Future Of Journalism?

from the yeah,-but-most-people-won't-recognize-it-until-it's-too-late dept

Tue, Aug 17th 2010 6:18pm — Mike Masnick

On The Media has an a short interview with journalism professor Loren Ghiglione, who recently wrote a paper examining whether or not science fiction writers are a good place to look for the future of journalism. Unfortunately, I can't easily find a copy of the actual paper anywhere. I believe it was put online here, but the link to the actual file turns up a page not found, unfortunately. The interview itself is a bit short, and I actually find that it's more telling in what it doesn't include, than what it does. That is, it does point to examples of science fiction writers successfully predicting some elements of today's media world from the past:

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Albert Robida wrote The Twentieth Century in 1887. What was his vision?

LOREN GHIGLIONE: He's the one who had the all-electric home with telephonographics, news bulletins delivered automatically through telephones, and he had wall-sized telephonoscopes, which were televisions --

[BROOKE LAUGHS]

- that were interactive so people could react to the news and communicate with other people who were seeing the news.

But when it comes to looking into the future today to figure out what science fiction says about the future of news... well, that comes out a lot more vague:

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Is there any prediction that struck you as more likely than another?

LOREN GHIGLIONE: Oh, I don't know what's more likely, but I am intrigued about moving beyond the handheld devices. I remember hearing somebody who'd invented the handheld device talking about implanting various devices in the human body that might take care of delivery of news and everything else. So who knows where all of this is headed?

I definitely think that there's plenty to learn from science fiction -- just look around at how many modern technologies today seem to come straight out of science fiction -- but I'm not convinced how much predictive value such things have. Yes, they bring up all sorts of cool ideas, but many of them never actually come to pass. It's neat to cherry pick examples of science fiction that were way ahead of their time in predicting new technologies in the real world, but you can't ignore all of the predictions that did not come true (flying cars!) in the timeframe predicted. So picking which sci-fi ideas from today will really matter to the media in the future still seems quite tricky, since there are so many (cool, unique and creative) ideas that won't actually come true.

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Filed Under: journalism, science fiction

21 Comments

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Hippy Hop, 17 Aug 2010 @ 6:36pm

I had read on a blog the same thing, a certain Robert Sloss back in 1910 had an amazing account of an iPhone. It is really amazing how people can imagine things on the future and comes close to predicting what will really happen. I might say now that I don’t buy the idea of putting gadgets inside my body but who knows, that might be the trend in the future.
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 17 Aug 2010 @ 7:17pm

Philip K Dick
Inventor of the news clown and the homeopape.
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Bruce Partington, 17 Aug 2010 @ 7:19pm

The Jagged Orbit, 1969, John Brunner and Bug Jack Barron, 1969, Norman Spinrad, would be apposite.

And in the related field of reality TV, The Year of the Sex Olympics (teleplay), 1968, Nigel Kneale.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2010 @ 8:10pm

Science fiction can non-deterministically predict almost everything...
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2010 @ 8:30pm

In the future there will be no news.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2010 @ 8:35pm

While a lot of science fiction is bunk, you'd be surprised at the reliability of results you get when only looking at writers who take the "science" portion seriously.

Basically, look at the writers who actually do their research, and try to delve into hard sciences. And, of course, ignore the ideas that exist as the central plot-point. (So ignore the killer AI from 2001, but pay attention to the space travel)

The ones that write about things that "would be cool" can be tossed out pretty easily.
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davebarnes (profile), 17 Aug 2010 @ 8:47pm

I love SF
But, only the winning predictions are remembered.
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Orr (profile), 17 Aug 2010 @ 10:01pm

I can't resist a straight line ...
I know! I will write an SF story about a technology (superAI, anyone) that reads SF stories, analyzes them, and tells us which ones do in fact predict the future, and which will not pan out .....
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Michael Ward (profile), 17 Aug 2010 @ 10:07pm

More of Robida on the Future of Publishing
Robida illustrated, and Octave Uzanne wrote, a piece in 1895 predicting that printed books would soon be replaced ... by audio streams and recordings....

Here's one version:
http://www.hidden-knowledge.com/titles/contesbib/

The illos are hilarious!
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G Thompson (profile), 17 Aug 2010 @ 11:31pm

Mike,

Via the neo-majik of Google Docs.. I bring you this new fangled SCi-Fi cached version of the actual paper.

Just click on print and you too can have a shiny new PDF copy delivered to your door via the new media ;)

Clicky for SCI-FI paper

If the above link doesn't work (or this cut down version) reply and will email you my copy.
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Crosbie Fitch (profile), 18 Aug 2010 @ 2:36am

I predict the abolition of copyright
If as a computer scientist I predict the abolition of copyright and no-one believes it at all likely to happen in their lifetimes, is that science fiction?

I predict that journalists will soon get paid directly by their keenest readers, despite their published work being free.

Perhaps the question is not whether science fiction can predict the future for journalism, but whether predictions of its future must necessarily be regarded as science fiction?

Any sufficiently advanced business model for the exchange of intellectual work is indistinguishable from charlatanism.

(cf Clarke's Third Law)
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JEDIDIAH, 18 Aug 2010 @ 4:49am

Predicting the Future.
My personal take on this was something more along the lines of a small wearable device that would project it's interfaces into space rather than using physical screens. It didn't need to be implanted. It just projected stuff and measured your reactions to the projections.

That was my idea of more-advanced-tech-than-Trek in the early 80s. There are some prototype devices now that are along those same lines.

OTOH, there are tons of predictions by futurists and authors that are really wrong and have been forgotten about.
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Jezsik (profile), 18 Aug 2010 @ 7:00am

Sci-Fi is a terrible predictor
I used to have a voracious appetite for science fiction and read countless books on the near and distant future. The one thing I can say about them is that they do a lousy job at predicting the future.

One case in point is the internet. There is not a single story I can remember that predicted this, arguably the most important media advance since movable type. There were plenty of stories about gigantic databases that required special skills to pull information, plenty more stories with artificial intelligences of varying ability and lots of high-tech communication tools, but nothing that came close to the internet and what it accomplished.

As another poster pointed out, the hard science fiction writers do a good job of describing future technology (e.g., Clarke's space elevator), but as far as predicting how those technologies affect our society? Not so much.
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Michele, 18 Aug 2010 @ 7:07am

a contemporary sci-fi novel
Check out the novel Feed by M.T. Anderson. It takes place in the near future where social networking and the internet become literally fused within our brains and bodies. Instead of carrying around smartphones and laptops we have everything we need in our mind's eye. It takes the whole "big brother" route too where our thoughts essentially dictate the advertisements we are forced to view on our "feed."
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Adam, 18 Aug 2010 @ 7:08am

The prediction from the '60s that I'd love to see is Frank Herbert's (of Dune fame) formation of a Bureau of Sabotage or BuSab. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Sabotage for a summary.

This government body's purpose is to frustrate the workings of government in order to give sentients a chance to reflect upon changes and deal with them. Having saved sentiency from its government, BuSab was officially recognized as a necessary check on the power of government. It provides a natural (and lucrative) outlet for society's regular crop of troublemakers, who must be countered by society's regular crop of "do-gooders".
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A. Coward, 18 Aug 2010 @ 7:56am

Why there are less...
The reason there are less Science Fiction artifacts in real life (ie. flying cars) is regulations and lack of funding. There is already a Flying car (or a driving aircraft if you will) almost ready for mass production: http://www.terrafugia.com It was supposed to hit the streets and air this year, but FAA and National Highway regulations keeps holding them back.

Same issue with many other things, we don't yet have wireless electricity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_transfer)because of regulations and how difficult it is for the average inventor to get a patent, get testing permissions, and find funding for experiments on this kind of technology.

Back in the Tesla, Graham Bell, and other inventors they would be allowed to test and try many different things, the US brought them from wherever they were to try their experiments here, helped them get funding, and made it somewhat pleasant for them to try new ideas. Nowadays is a PITA to try to implement any new idea.

And that's why we have less and less Science fiction type technologies!
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Aug 2010 @ 7:59am

Re: Sci-Fi is a terrible predictor
Robert Heinlein predicted it. His version was less automated (ie, it involved people talking to librarians, who would then research the information, then send it to the person who requested it via series of pneumatic tubes) but the end result was the same. It was in one of his earlier novels.

There is also the version that Friday (the titular heroine) used.

I want to say that there was a version in Methuselah's Children, as well.
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Roy, 18 Aug 2010 @ 11:18am

Re: Sci-Fi is a terrible predictor
Try Murray Leinster's 'A Logic Named Joe' from 1946
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 18 Aug 2010 @ 6:47pm

Re: Sci-Fi is a terrible predictor
It wasn’t fiction, but a guy named Vannevar Bush predicted a device he called the Memex back in 1946. The idea was to have all human knowledge at your fingertips.

OK, this is getting beyond journalism, which is specifically what the article was asking about.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Aug 2010 @ 8:27pm

Which is the cause?
Moving beyond journalism again, it may be worth considering how much yesterdays sci-fi stories inspired todays technologists. Some of the seamingly ridiculous ideas that appeared in sci-fi stories inspired someone to try to create the item described in the story.
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Jose_X, 19 Aug 2010 @ 4:15pm

Promoting my progress
Quick, let's grab for free some of these revolutionary thoughts and patent them or slight variations of them!

That'll promote my progress for sure!
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