I’ve been watching the evolution of ’swine flu craze’ with an increasing amount of interest. There is much talk from various media outlets about it being a global pandemic, but with some voices of reason chiming in, such as the New York Times Lawrence K Altman. The world seems a-twitter with people blowing the scare out of proportion, and this has in turn produced some amusing commentary on the instant-know, vacuous updates that seem to permeate so many lives in the always-connected world. I am not a big fan of twitter or updating my facebook status, but then again, it was a good way to tell people about my new position at Harvard, and for them to comment on it.

Jon Stewart pokes his usual fun at the cable news networks for grabbing up the story and making news of it, rather than doing a little investigation before going on air. It is another example of the drive to create news rather than taking time to think through what is actually worth putting on air. Some argue that the 24-hour news networks mean that news comes with less filters, allowing the person watching to make up their own minds on what they are seeing. But I find it unconvincing that there aren’t at least institutional filters through which news is selected for airing. Actually, it is probably the case that the institutions do most of the thinking on these cases instead of the people informing us (I won’t say ‘reporting’). What do you think are the values embodied in the institutions that govern news flow? There are likely right-wing/left-wing biases, and in a competitive market place viewer count is probably another value. But what happened to values like integrity, consideration for multiple viewpoints, and a reflexive view e.g. on the effect scare-mongering can have on the public?

I am also fascinated by all of the thermal imaging equipment in use at airports to monitor who has fevers when coming out of customs. I have a large section of my thesis discussing the dual-use capabilities of thermal imaging systems, and this is a clear case of how they can be very helpful in a non-military setting. Many airports installed (or at least bought) thermal imaging systems after the SARS outbreak in 2003. That they could suggests that multilateral export controls are either a) lenient enough for such legitimate uses to be realised, or b) ineffective because they just bought them from China. I’m not sure there is a way to tell which is the case.