Michael Jackson's Death: A Historic Event -in Communication

Michael Jackson passed away, and for about three days, this was the ost important event in the world. At least it was the most important event in the news. Of course, in this day and age, the media are less concerned with politics, and more concerned with celebrities. Recently, 100 years of a national newspaper have been made available online, and the early editions have whole transcripts of debates from the House of Commons. Of course, people are still interested in the workings of government and the national and intenational economy, but if one compares the content of a newspaper today with the contect of a newspaper of the early 20th century, it is difficult to find so much gossip and descriptions of new celebrity couples from the earlier paper. What has changed in society? Well, society has changed. A wider demographic can read now, and they also have the money and time to buy material to read. The press must cater to wider tastes.
A bigger sign of social behaviour for me can be seen in how society reacted to the death of Michael Jackson. When Lady Diana (Queen of Hearts) died, thousands of people collected around Buckingham Palace to leave flowers and console each other over the passing of their icon. Within hours of Jackson's death, hundreds of facebook groups had been started to commemorate the King of Pop and to share the grief. Now, setting up a group on a social website is the equivalent of taking time off work and travelling to a focal grieving point to lay a wreath (I'm sure somebody has written a 'lay flowers on MJ's tomb' application for facebook already!) . Facebook and other similar social networking sites are not so much a sign of the times, more a sign of the people. This is what people want to do in their free time. We have alread had people meeting and marrying over the internet. People grieve through the internet. Although the Catholic Church officially opposes it, people with guilty consciences can confess online, too. It seems there is nothing we don't prefer to do online. If this is just another sign of the death of face-to-face contact between real, living people, then I'll meet you in the online grieving site.