A plea for quality – a chance for the Web?

When I read in the news that one of the most influential contemporary literary critics of German literature, Marcel Reich-Ranicki, had just refused a German TV-Award – on stage, as part of his acceptance speech – I was somewhat amazed. I’ve always enjoyed his salty sarcastic remarks in the literary talk show (Literarisches Quartett) which Reich-Ranicki had hosted from 1988 to 2002.

Only when I clicked through to the Youtube-Video I got a clue of what had really happened. The 88-year old connoisseur of qualities – in all philosophical characteristics – didn’t want to find himself in a setting of poor quality, such as the TV/stage program he had witnessed that evening. Applaudable and worth admiring I may say.

And this led me to the perception that – from a media viewpoint – the internet has a viable, if yet hardly exploited chance of putting „old media“ into perspective: Apart from all the other perspectives opening up at the moment, the web, as a pull medium where the user is in charge, is really offering new media aspects. And then a saying came to my mind that I was told many years ago by a charismatic IBM-Manager and that impressed my constructivist heart: “Wanderer, there is no road. The road is made by walking.“ Being part of (or at least tagging along with;-) a pace making community such as the Semantic Web community is a nice feeling.

Author: Marion Fugléwicz-Bren,