Hei Zim! Get Ready for ICT

Our first lecture by Peter was just food that my mind would crave for. He called it elementary knowledge, a hell lot of mountain of new stuff easy to understand and interesting as well. I figured out polishing the dirty out my newsroom when i go back home and introduce a little bit of taste of the digital revolution and its consequences. Peter took me through a journey and my mind was made to drift into another way. He said us (journalists) have been talking and society listening, but as a result of the digital revolution people are talking back. In other words the Internet is now controlled bottom up. While government legislation has often found its way in creating walls to ban what they call "unwanted material" like for example in China where Google was told to root out their so called politically incorrect material", to a very large extent the free flow of information is going unhindered. This scenario poses a tough question to many of us, "How does one balance control of information and its free flow?"

Society is ever changing and Zimbabwe and Africa at large should be ready. We are facing situations in the near future when newspapers like in the developed world fade away as people rush into the Internet for news. Like in Europe as Peter puts it "newspapers are now for old people". We were once hunters and gatherers and we moved on to agricultural revolution in 500BC, then to the industrial revolution 1600ac. Now we are in the 21c that is seeing the digital revolution taking charge. Information is now being produced and sold. This is coming with a lot of changes to our societies. For example, social relations are now changing. In this post modern age, i learnt that, the Internet has made communication two way. It was once, one to many, but now its many to many. Thank God Africa is not legging behind. According to a recent BBC survey, Africa is now the largest consumer of mobile phones. Such gadgets are vital for our development as a continent, so that we could stay abreast with time. We need fast connections to the Internet like, broadband, wireless, infrared and blue tooth. We need mobile phones that are 3G , GPRS compatible. Get ready.

As journalists we need to think as journalists to get information. I was left exposed by what i would call a rather dull way i oftern used to search information of the Internet. I used to just type words that i thought would lead me to my source on the search engine only to get a million names and pick up one i think falls into line randomly. What a horrible way to sell my reputation for free.They are better ways to look for credible information on the internet, thank heavens!.

I left the lecture room feeling somewhat exposed but comforted by the message from the popular saying that goes "people never stop learning" but threatened by the idea that Peter would insist that this is "basic" information that normally comes for free and i should have mastered during my teens. Sorry Peter, You have to be patient with me Bru!!!