The Grand Finale

Looking back over my blog posts from the semester, I find that “technology” is one of the tags that I used most frequently to organize my weekly journaling. Reflecting on this, it occurs to me that the development of communication could be viewed as an evolving relationship between the individual and technology. In this final blog post, I will examine this relationship as it unfolded around the technology about which we have read: writing, print, the telegraph, the television, and the Internet.

At the start of the semester, we studied the highly stylized and performative oral tradition of the ancient Greeks. This oral tradition served several purposes in society. It provided entertainment (and social commentary) for (male) audiences. It distributed information from one generation to the next. And it preserved and transmitted the history of the society as it was “recorded” by orators. The invention of the alphabet - and consequently, writing - revolutionized the way information was distributed. With writing, stories and information could be recorded, and this had important implications:

• Information was less subject to decay over time if it was written down.
• Government could begin to document laws, policies, legal proceedings, etc.
• Poetry and plays could be memorialized in writing (even if they were still being interpreted and performed in the oral tradition).

Additionally, writing gave individuals who were not orators a voice. This is not to say that everyone could read and write. However, writing allowed the customs, ideas, and experiences of society in a particular moment in time to be represented for both the current generation and those to come after.

If writing revolutionized what information was captured, then printing revolutionized access to that information. Once printing became readily available (both technologically and financially) then countless opportunities became available in many different industries. Governments (and religious groups) could produce and distribute propaganda. Educators could ensure that students were learning from the same text. Average consumers could borrow or buy books to read for entertainment. Printing also allowed for Anderson’s imagined communities to form, which spurred nationalism in ways heretofore unseen.

As we learned from Carey, the telegraph allowed for the separation of communication from transportation. Imagine how liberating it must have been to have a message telegraphed to someone (or to yourself) for the first time! Like printing, once the telegraph became widespread, its impact was profound. Local markets became national markets, subject to fluctuations in price, supply, and demand that were no longer fixed by geographic constraints. For perhaps the first time, the potential powers of technologically captured the imaginations of the masses, who talked about the telegraph in biblical terms, such was their awe.

No communications technology has been quite as profound as the television. To quote a colleague of mine, “Everyone’s an expert in television.” Television has characteristics of both the printing press and the telegraph. Like printing, the television opened up a whole world of information and entertainment to countless people. And like the telegraph, the television had immeasurable impacts on economic forces, though in very different ways. Advertisers, singers, writers, actors, producers, directors, hardware manufacturers and telecommunications giants sought the financial gains of the new industry. Behind the scenes, advertisers, producers, and members of the government did a careful dance with the American public in which either a) culture was put forth from the TV or b) the TV reflected existing culture back onto the public.

The Internet is the great communications frontier that we are currently exploring. We can identify important traits of this new technology:

• It is, in some ways, less subject to the whims of advertisers and governments.
• It is open to the production and consumption of content from amateur content producers.
• It is interactive.
• It is time-less, not subject to a scheduling grid.

Despite our ability to talk about what the Internet is, it is not easy to measure its impact just yet. Will it ultimately lead to the closure of brick-and-mortar stores and banks as more and more people shop online instead of in-person? Will more real schools close while more online schools open? Traditional media outlets - ABC, NBC, CBS, The New York Times - all have an online presence that doesn’t differ too much from their television presence. But we also have YouTube, blogs, and independent news and production groups that are publishing on the web without the oversight of big brother (whether that big brother is a news president or the President of the United States). This may represent the equalizing factor that television lacks.

Looking at how technology has woven itself through communications history, two themes emerge for me. First, communications technology has always been used as a way to control the public. Second, women are not represented in this history.

On Control
Are humans psychologically susceptible to manipulation? Are government officials, business gurus, and media magnates utilizing communications technology to further their own agendas? Or is it both? I think about Barnouw’s Tube of Plenty and Gitlin’s analysis of the television medium. We can extract from both of these texts questions that can help us to better understand the social dynamic that happens around these technologies.

Are people passive consumers of what is essentially propaganda spewed to/on them from the few people who control media programming? Are we conditioned to be acculturated in a particular way that is communicated to us through different media (television, radio, magazines, advertisements, etc.)? Or are we complicit in creating what is disseminated? Is media really just a mirror that lets us see more palatable versions of the “we” that already exists?

We watched All in the Family, and in an offline conversation with Frank, we discussed several interpretations of it. One is that the presentation of diversity essentially absolves liberals from confronting any real societal problems. After all, they showed the coming together of different groups in a popular way that reached - and was accepted by - millions of viewers. Another interpretation is that it reinforces racist thoughts and behaviors by projecting accepted forms of those thoughts and behaviors back to viewers. I think both interpretations are right, and that’s why both Barnouw’s and Gitlin’s texts are so important. It isn’t either/or. It’s both. Culture is disseminated to us via communications technologies. But our own culture is also often simply reflected back to us.

In this process of dissemination and reflection, we embody Marcuse's notion of one-dimensionality. "Private space has been whittled down by technological reality. Mass production and mass distribution claim the entire individual." (page 10) What is a consumer to do in the face of these assertions/realities? We can't just throw our hands up and walk away from all communications technology. But we can - and should - be aware of the ways in which they infiltrate and permeate our lives, so that we have the presence of mind to step away occasionally.

On Women
I would be remiss if I didn’t briefly mention in closing an issue about which I’ve written in several of my blog posts this semester. I am saddened, but not surprised, to learn how glaringly absent women are from the development of communications technologies. Nothing I write can remedy that. However, there are two areas of communication that women carved out for themselves in a way that men didn’t - simply because men didn’t have to.

First, women used letter writing as a major form of communication as far back as the 1600s. Letters were used for economic reasons (how to manage a house) as well as social reasons (reinforcing familial and friendship bonds across distances). Like other communications technologies, letter-writing began as an activity for the elite. With the rise of literacy, more women could participate in the medium. Of course, men also wrote letters. But in looking for the impact of women on communications - and vice versa - letter-writing strikes me as one of the most important places to start.

More recently women have participated in the creation of ‘zines (self-published magazines distributed throughout a community). The 1990s, in particular, saw a wave of feminist activity known as the riot grrrl movement. Women who identified with this group, and similar groups, used ‘zines to create and spread a culture of awareness around punk music and gender equity.

Letters in the 17th century allowed women to connect to each other. ‘Zines in the 20th century allowed women to connect to larger communities.

* * *

The bottom line is that the development of communications is a journey. We can document our history, and chart our course for the future. No one can say for sure exactly where we are going, only that we are traveling collectively, marching toward the next new technology that will be even greater than the last.

The Tube of All Evil

I really enjoyed reading Barnouw's Tube of Plenty. For me, this book synthesized the themes that we've been discussing individually throughout the semester: how communications is tied to oral traditions, written traditions, familial traditions, justice, technological advances, politics, nationalism, war, and collective memory. It also reinforced something I noticed a few weeks ago: that historically, the development of the way we communicate is the domain of white men. Neither of these statements is meant as a criticism, only as an observation.

I walk away from this week's readings feeling like television is just another vehicle by which the public can be manipulated by "the man." Television executives, advertisers, politicians, and government representatives are all in bed together. It's utterly exasperating! TV execs want to generate revenue from advertisers who only want to be associated with the most desirable programming which only gets funded if it meets certain criteria and can pass the litmus test of politics (should we reveal this information to the public?).

Barnouw writes about the television coverage in the wake of Kennedy's assassination. While I wasn't alive to witness that myself, I imagine that it felt a lot like 9/11. Is TV, then, responsible for the fetishization of national and international tragedy? A lot of evidence indicates that it is: during my lifetime alone, we have had exhaustive, overwhelming coverage of 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti, the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, and the Oklahoma City bombings, to name a few. Does television numb us to tragedy, or does it create an insatiable desire for visual representations of those tragedies?

Another question: Is the Internet the new television? I think the Internet actually has the potential to undermine television. If television is a tool by which the masses can be manipulated, then the Internet (while it can also serve that function), provides an opportunity to circumvent that system. Television projects the voices of few to the masses. The Internet projects the voices of the masses to the masses and sometimes projects the voices of the masses back to the few - without politics, governments, or business executives "cluttering the airwaves" so to speak.

Can the Internet catch up to TV? I think it has a fighting chance. In its heyday, the television replaced newspapers as Americans' primary news source. A recent study (March 2010) from the Pew Internet & American Life Project reveals that the Internet is now the third most popular source for news (behind local and cable television). If this week's WikiLeaks scandal is any indication of the public's ability to a) get news on the web and b) get news that other sources won't report, then I think the Internet has a fighting chance, indeed. I couldn't find a study about this, but I wonder how many people watch cable TV versus the number of people who seek entertainment from YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, CastTV, or other online entertainment sites.

And the battle to control our minds rages on. . .

EDIT: Barnouw writes that "The advent of television was widely compared, in its impact, with that of the Gutenberg printing press centuries earlier. Television was beginning to be seen as the more revolutionary innovation." (page 467) We can obviously substitute the Internet here and have a contemporary version of the sentences: The advent of the Internet was widely compared, in its impact, with that of the television. The Internet was beginning to be seen as the more revolutionary innovation.

I've been thinking a lot about whether or not the Internet can really unseat television in a meaningful way. And I think it can. But it will be tricky to measure. On the one hand, the Internet can become just another screen we look at. Whether we watch NBC on a TV or online is irrelevant if the content is the same. But once we utilize the web to go beyond the content that corporations feed to us, then the Internet will have truly become a "revolutionary innovation." If it's just another screen by which we absorb the same material that's on the television, then it falls short of its potential to unseat the manipulative machinery behind the television.

Edit #2: It is absolutely incredible how much attention this book has gotten. Whether I was reading on the train, during lunch, or around relatives, everyone felt comfortable commenting on it - after seeing only the title! One of my colleagues described the phenomenon: That's because everyone's an expert. We all have TV experiences. We've all invested in it.

Gazing Down on the Present from the Top of Telegraph Hill

I really enjoyed this week's reading and videos. The arguments were clearly articulated and described in the essay, and the rationale behind the essay was made evident in the short video clips. I find it fascinating that Carey came to study the telegraph because of a desire to understand the intersection of technology, international banking, and the airline industry. He speaks of "notions of mobility" (first video clip) and how the 19th century equivalent of airlines, banking, and satellite was the emergence of the telegraph. He essentially looked backward in order to identify a framework that he could project onto the development and emergence of other (more modern) technologies. We can similarly use the telegraph to understand some of the technological communications trends that we are experiencing today.

Carey talks about several ways that the telegraph changed "culture and individuals living in culture." (second video clip) Two of these changes are 1) the way in which transactions are executed and 2) the ability for people to participate in the same "system of social relations." (second video clip) The telegraph drove down the costs of transactions in many industries by allowing people to communicate more quickly and by removing the element of transportation that had been tied to communication prior to the telegraph. The telegraph also let people participate in a single system by providing a platform for the new communication and by eventually leading to the establishment of standard time upon which people all over the world could rely.

If we look at our own new technologies, we will find that they, too, are becoming embedded in our culture by the way we perform transactions and by allowing people to participate in social systems. The Internet has drastically changed the way financial transactions are completed - both for institutions and for individuals. Pennies to millions can be moved (transported) with a few clicks of a mouse. Moreover, we are no longer constrained by time. Even when markets and banks are closed, we can still initiate financial transactions. With the Internet, we can save money, spend money, and send money - actions that impact many, many industries.

We can also look to the web to see the changing ways in which we are now able to participate in social systems. Facebook is perhaps the most obvious example. People can connect online without regard for time, geographic location, or transportation. But Facebook hasn't cornered this market. Many companies are jumping on the social system/network bandwagon. There is lots of money to be made connecting people and networks.

Carey writes that the telegraph was able to reconcile people's opposing desires for "peace, harmony, and self-sufficiency with the wish for power, profit, and productivity." (p 207) We can see how our own technologies are positioned to do the exact same thing. We love the self-sufficiency that comes with managing our lives online. And the founder of Facebook is managing a company that was recently valued at nearly $34 billion dollars. Self-sufficiency, meet profit.

Imagine That!

I love Anderson's notion of imagined communities. The text is chock full of goodness, such that no matter how often I re-read it, I always stumble upon something that I missed previously. This go-round, I was preoccupied with two concepts: first, that the boundaries of an imagined community are both elastic and finite, with other imagined communities (i.e. nations) just beyond the borders. Second, the importance of the newspaper in creating imagined communities is fascinating. However, each of these is not without its own problems.

Nations' Borders
The version of the text that I read was revised in 1991. Were Anderson to revise it again, today, I wonder how the impact of globalization would change his ideas. I agree that boundaries are elastic. I don't, however, agree that they are finite. The borders are porous, and if a person follows the rules of entry, s/he can join other imagined communities. Let's think about America. There are several borders that define who is/is not America/n. One border is geography. If you live in a particular location, you are American (though you can also live in America and not be American). Another border is place of birth. If you were born in a particular location, you are American. Another border is ancestry. If your parents are Americans, and your birth was registered with the American consulate in the country where you were born, then you are American. Though it is admittedly difficult, one can also meet none of these criteria and still become an American citizen. We cannot predict exactly how many people will apply for citizenship, nor can we predict how many people will be granted citizenship. But we do know that the number of citizens is always growing. In this way, it is not finite. There are also people who reject imagined communities. While some people want to become Americans, others may reject their citizenship in order to become members of other nation-communities. As I said, borders are porous. Even if we agreed that everyone in the world could be American, the total number of Americans would continue to grow every time a baby was born.

Two Communities in Newspapers
First, I disagree with Anderson's claim that a newspaper is simply an "extreme form" of a book that has "ephemeral popularity" (Anderson 34). This claim is unfair to both books and to newspapers. News writing is a distinct genre. Journalists aren't trained to write novels, and viceversa. Moreover, a single book doesn't have nearly as many authors as a single newspaper.

Anderson also writes that the linkage between articles in a single newspaper is imagined (p. 33). I disagree with this, too. (Sorry to be so disagreeable, this week.) There are two real linkages that exist between newspapers articles:

• the fact that they appear in the same paper (which Anderson mentions)
  
• different articles about the same topic in the same paper

All articles are linked by virtue of the fact that they appear in the same paper. This is not an imagined linkage, at all. Articles that are about different topics don't have to have linkages connecting them.

Anderson writes eloquently about different people reading the same newspaper around the country at any given time, creating an imagined community of people who know of each other without knowing each other. The ability for the newspaper to create this type of community is one reason why it (the newspaper) is so important in the formation of imagined national communities. I think that the newspaper also creates imagined communities in another way. When an earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince in January, newspapers throughout America reported on the physical damage, loss of life, and recovery efforts. Thus, two imagined communities were created. The first is the community of readers that read the same paper. The second imagined national community was the representation of Haiti to which those readers were exposed: an imagined community defined by journalists and editors who portrayed Haiti in the sensational way that would increase sales.

All of this is just fodder for my own understanding of imagined communities. I look forward to hearing others' thoughts on Wednesday night.

On Print

Disclaimer: This post was written with a kidney infection, after spending eight days at the hospital with my grandmother. It is not as cohesive as it would be if I were well.

This semester, in addition to taking The History of Communication, I'm also taking a class called Written Culture. These two courses complement each other very well, particularly this week as we look at the impact of print on thinking, writing, history, and culture. I think that we can substitute the word print with technology and look at the ways in which the evolution of communications technologies generally have shaped and continue to shape our lives.

Cochran writes that "The multiplicity of media, whether cinema, video, audio recording, or software, involves new ways of transcribing human thought for posterity and alters understandings of historical continuity. . . [M]any aspects of cultural production have become visible for the first time." (page 2) We can add to this list e-mail, blogging, tweeting, and many other forms of communications technologies that we currently use. Two things stand out: 1) new ways of transcribing human thought for posterity and 2) visible cultural production. How do our new technologies (our print replacements, so to speak) fall into these two arenas?

This past year, the Library of Congress decided to archive all public tweets. Many authors are now bypassing publishing houses and self-publishing their manuscripts as ebooks instead. These are just two examples of new ways in which we are transcribing human thought. But it begs a question. Can something digital actually be preserved for posterity? How long-lasting is a 140 character tweet, even if it is saved on a server somewhere at the LoC? While some of our technology is replacing print, I think we can safely argue, for now at least, that print is not, in fact, replaceable.

We have yet to see if/how our new technology will stand the test of time, but we can't dispute the fact that they expose cultural production in new ways. We have access to more information, and more importantly, we have access to the people who produce information. We not only see an online exhibit at a museum to which we don't have access; we also see a video with the curator describing how the piece was assembled. We can listen to an interview with an author online, but we can also submit questions that we'd like that author to answer. News is disseminated faster than newspapers are printed and (for better or worse), one doesn't need a degree in journalism to be a "reporter." The production of culture is visible now, but that doesn't mean it's good quality, or easy to find. Consumers - and producers - must be discerning in this Web 2.0 world.