In addition to the mainstream media, there are alternative media ranging from the lunatic to, in my opinion, the accurate. We know about Earth Real through whichever part of the media we pay attention to and about the Psychotechnic History timeline through the instalments of Poul Anderson's first future history series but what are the media like in that alternative timeline?
There are only two political units in the Solar System:
the Solar Union, governing Earth, Luna, Mars and Venus;
the Jovian Republic, based on Ganymede, not on Jupiter.
In the Solar Union:
the Psychotechnic Institute has been outlawed although the government still employs psychotechnicians;
Humanists had seized power but have been overthrown;
the social problem of technological unemployment that had generated Humanism persists;
the Cosmic religion has begun although we are told nothing about it;
breakthrough discoveries in the Institute of Biology are suppressed but might be exposed by investigative journalism.
So what might the Solar Union newspapers and TV be like?
10 comments:
Poul was probably wise not to go into detail. There would probably be a lot of 'web' sites.
Sure. It's an interesting thought. How to extend a fictional world into its media. Alfred Bester's novel, TIGER! TIGER!, has an interplanetary war. A graphic adaptation showed reports of peace protests. That did not contradict Bester's text but extended it in a plausible direction.
Kaor, Paul!
We also see mention, I think in MIRKHEIM, of Chee Lan buying a print out of the London TIMES. Which would be updated day by day for those who wanted print outs.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Yes but we would like to read a page of that TIMES.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
A pity Anderson did not do that! I recall how Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in works like AUGUST 1914 and NOVEMBER 1916, sometimes quoted extensively the headlines and articles from Russian newspapers of that time.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
That is the right thing to do in history and could be repeated in future history.
Paul.
Few people -- including journalists -- 'get' what's happening at the time. If you read British newspapers from the period of the Battle of the Somme, for example, you'd think it was a great British victory. And the people writing the articles genuinely believed it.
Kaor, Paul!
Or at least add some color and background to a story. We would have to keep in mind how often journalists get things wrong. With Stirling mentioning above how the Battle of the Somme was a disaster, not a victory for the British.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But that would add diversity, including even errors.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That I can agree with.
Ad astra! Sean
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