I just watched the movie Contagion again, I like that movie but I can understand why people werent thrilled by it, its more realistic and a lot less action story than anything like it or before it, for instance Outbreak, but I like features like this one.
I liked it because in part some of the characters are supposedly similar to the stories of people involved in fighting the Avian Flu outbreaks in asia, which werent covered a lot outside of the scientific/epidemiology (spelling) community or in the western media, I read, years after the fact, about someone who worked closely with victims, long after they were likely to have been infected themselves and then died researching the disease. There knowledge marches on though.
Anyway, I think the movie did a very good job of protraying issues to do with populism versus accuracy and accountability in reporting, there's a character who is a blogger and conspiracy theorist who eventually profits massively from the public's trust of him, or more like their distrust of everyone else, however, bigger than this still, as they rightly say his overnight fortune was liable to be wiped out by civil suits once people got wise to him after the emergency, was the fact as an opinion former he was likely to be able to influence people's uptake of the eventual vacine. Which could have jeopardised the actual recovery.
What are your opinions on phenomenon like this? Does the reach of social media rival conventional media and what are the consequences? At any time and at times of emergencies? Should people be able to do the equivalent of "cry fire in the theatre"? Its become more feasible than ever before with new technology, I'll give my own opinions in a moment.
I liked it because in part some of the characters are supposedly similar to the stories of people involved in fighting the Avian Flu outbreaks in asia, which werent covered a lot outside of the scientific/epidemiology (spelling) community or in the western media, I read, years after the fact, about someone who worked closely with victims, long after they were likely to have been infected themselves and then died researching the disease. There knowledge marches on though.
Anyway, I think the movie did a very good job of protraying issues to do with populism versus accuracy and accountability in reporting, there's a character who is a blogger and conspiracy theorist who eventually profits massively from the public's trust of him, or more like their distrust of everyone else, however, bigger than this still, as they rightly say his overnight fortune was liable to be wiped out by civil suits once people got wise to him after the emergency, was the fact as an opinion former he was likely to be able to influence people's uptake of the eventual vacine. Which could have jeopardised the actual recovery.
What are your opinions on phenomenon like this? Does the reach of social media rival conventional media and what are the consequences? At any time and at times of emergencies? Should people be able to do the equivalent of "cry fire in the theatre"? Its become more feasible than ever before with new technology, I'll give my own opinions in a moment.
