The Third Information Crisis by Naomi Alderman 

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The Third Information Crisis by Naomi Alderman: The Box Pew Effect

Naomi Alderman argues we are living through the third great information crisis.

The Third Information Crisis by Naomi Alderman

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After writing and printing, Naomi Alderman argues that digital communication has brought about the third great information crisis.

In this wide-ranging series, award-winning novelist Naomi Alderman, author of The Power and The Future, argues we are living through the third great information crisis. Following the invention of writing, and then printing, we now have digital communications technology. In what she describes as a 'speculative historical project', Naomi traces the parallels between these moments, asking if we can learn from the past to help us cope with the 'enormous wave of information'  from the internet and social media that we are all faced with today. Drawing on the work of philosophers and historians, she explores the way new technologies open up new ways of thinking and their enormous impact on our society.

The Box Pew Effect

BBC Radio 4 - The Third Information Crisis by Naomi Alderman, The Box Pew Effect

The second great information crisis: the invention of the printing press.

Naomi Alderman takes us back to the Protestant Reformation to explore the impact of the second great information crisis - the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century.  
Thanks to printing, more people than ever before could access, and form a personal and private relationship with, the Bible. 
This move to individualism is, she argues, echoed by our online behaviour today 'once we're able to access more information for ourselves ..we start to trust ourselves in new way'.

Written and read by Naomi Alderman
Produced by Di Speirs and Nicola Holloway.

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The Third Information Crisis by Naomi Alderman

The Box Pew Effect

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