Media, News, Paranoia, and the Consequences of Y2K
Media, News, Paranoia, and the Consequences of Y2K
As Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his first inaugural speech,”…The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Though the speech delivers a passionate affect towards the American public for years, it seems like it lost meaning 60 years later. The 1990’s era is one of the most significant decades of the early modern era where the general public begins to fixative their lives with technology. Upon as early as 1998, various individuals begin to ponder on what will happen to their lives as they reach the beginning of a new millennium. Many think about what new horizons await them in the year 2000, others think about the historic event in general, and others worry about how their getting home after New Year’s Eve. Many people are concerned about the sudden paranoia about the dangers of reaching the year 2000; panicking and driven with fear about what may be the end of all humanity. The Y2K Bug has driven many people to go crazy and go to extreme lengths to protect themselves because of rumors, the government, and the media itself. The role of media in covering the event has cause tensions between the common people and the government in terms of business and their safety. The beginning of the Y2K coverage depended on technology that we’re familiar today such as satellites, color television, and the internet. The internet was one of the dominate forms of information due to its quick updates and communications towards the whole world. Because of it, many people would be aware of the possible conclusion of a possible apocalypse; where the world will end with the rollover of x99 to x00 in the computer’s date everywhere. The media itself has portrayed Y2K as a negative connotation, describing the events as dangerous and horrible. Many companies would predict the collapse of their business when the year 200 will strike such IBM. They predicted that the failure of their mainframe computers on January 1st will spell disaster
As Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his first inaugural speech,”…The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Though the speech delivers a passionate affect towards the American public for years, it seems like it lost meaning 60 years later. The 1990’s era is one of the most significant decades of the early modern era where the general public begins to fixative their lives with technology. Upon as early as 1998, various individuals begin to ponder on what will happen to their lives as they reach the beginning of a new millennium. Many think about what new horizons await them in the year 2000, others think about the historic event in general, and others worry about how their getting home after New Year’s Eve. Many people are concerned about the sudden paranoia about the dangers of reaching the year 2000; panicking and driven with fear about what may be the end of all humanity. The Y2K Bug has driven many people to go crazy and go to extreme lengths to protect themselves because of rumors, the government, and the media itself. The role of media in covering the event has cause tensions between the common people and the government in terms of business and their safety. The beginning of the Y2K coverage depended on technology that we’re familiar today such as satellites, color television, and the internet. The internet was one of the dominate forms of information due to its quick updates and communications towards the whole world. Because of it, many people would be aware of the possible conclusion of a possible apocalypse; where the world will end with the rollover of x99 to x00 in the computer’s date everywhere. The media itself has portrayed Y2K as a negative connotation, describing the events as dangerous and horrible. Many companies would predict the collapse of their business when the year 200 will strike such IBM. They predicted that the failure of their mainframe computers on January 1st will spell disaster