Internet will be the most important prime mover of change for our print and electronic media as we cross the threshold of the next century. It will bring about the greatest revolution in mass communications since the invention of moveable type for printing. Unlike the previous one, which took centuries in reaching all parts of the world, the present revolution has already made its impact globally within a few years after its introduction.
The use of older technologies was primarily a matter of choice for the publisher or the broadcaster. The newspaper reader was not even aware of hot metal or photocomposing, and letterpress or offset printing. Similarly, a radio or television broadcaster could make his own choice of technology. The adoption of Internet, however, has become a compulsion for both the publisher and the broadcaster. This technology truly has a mass appeal and the readers and viewers expect its use as soon as they become aware of its advantages. Therefore, the Internet will take only a short period in transforming the mass communications even in the developing countries.
Inertia of conservatism Inertia, however, will be the biggest hurdle in the widespread use of Internet. Our editors, who are supposed to be the harbingers of change, are surprisingly themselves extremely conservative in adopting new technologies relating to their own job. Teletype, for example, was widely used by the EuroAmerican dailies for decades until personal computers replaced it. But our English newspapers never asked the news agencies to provide it despite its great advantage of automatic typesetting of news agency feeds. They could save much time and labor every day in composing and proof reading stories that did not require editing, such as stock exchange quotations, sports results, texts of official announcements and speeches, even many foreign and national stories.
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