Culmination? The Internet is the star for now

The idea to construct a website came, presenting itself as an apt culminating project. The decision was to create a site where each of five essays concerning communication technologies could be experienced, not as text, but as a graphic remix of the respective texts. By making word clouds – the size of the words being determined by the amount each word is used in each essay – the audience can see, perhaps more than read, the theme and significance of each essay.
The website itself consists of six pages: a brief introduction followed by the five remixed essays as well as being linked to the full text on my blog. To navigate between the six pages, I created a navigation bar below the main image. Each page is represented by an image of a communication technology: a clay tablet, a printing press, a radio, a movie house and a laptop. Though this website is concerned with words it is more concerned with communication. Much can be said through visual rhetoric.
Of interest though is that in web design, each site at its source is text. And by extension, the entire Internet is text written by web designers. I like to think of CSS (cascading style sheets) as the coding equivalent of haikus. Short and delicate, but packing a punch, CSS tells browsers how to render the code in graphic form. Texts become image, motion, and sound and increasingly touch. Though my website is not a miracle of modern times it is nonetheless an example of what the Internet offers and is framed by: efficiency, power, regulation and escape. Internet is the communication technology star for now.
EFFICIENCY

Undeniably, the hallmark of the Internet and its offspring is the incredible speed of communication. To paraphrase Jay David Bolter, a professor of language, communications, and culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Richard Grusin, a professor and chair of the Department of English at Wayne State University, at first the Internet was simply a reworking of previous alphabetic technologies, but the new and profound aspect that was added was the speed of transmission (Bolter and Grusin 297 – 298). Just like previous communication technologies, the Internet has built off its predecessors, incorporating, borrowing, adding and casting off. Speed in communicating information has always been a major driving force and is both demanded and expected to increase. Efficiency has become a synonym for speed. Of course, speed does not necessarily mean one is communicating efficiently.
Efficient communication, though, does not appear to be the driving force of the Internet and wireless communication. Manuel Castells, the Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication Technology and Society at the University of Southern California and Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Planning at the University of California, Berkeley explains “with the diffusion of wireless access to the Internet, and to computer networks and information systems everywhere, mobile communication is better defined by its capacity for ubiquitous and permanent connectivity rather than by its potential mobility” (Castells et al. 304). Connectivity emerges as the third point on a tri-part crown: efficiency, speed and connectivity. Not only can the Internet be accessed nearly anywhere and any when, but as a direct result nearly anyone and anything can be accessed or connected with including an unborn child’s Facebook page. So, is connectivity behind the wheel or just another guiding hand?
Most people have noticed the increase in smartphone technology. To generalize: everybody is walking around with a computer in his or her pocket if not in hand. As a result, information is constantly being published both to meet the demand (or need) of this new mass audience and by the device holders themselves. James R. Kalmbach, in “Publishing Before Computers” writes, “the typewriter had been conceived as a publishing device, an alternative to handwriting for everyday publishers” (Kalmbach 225). One can certainly view mobile devices as simply the new wave in “publishing devices”. The dissemination rate of our modern day publishers is startling. The instant an article is published on the Internet, comments appear posted on message boards, resulting in comments upon comments. Arguably, speed, efficiency and connectivity have come together to shed light on who is driving the information juggernaut: the self-publishing pro-sumers.

POWER

In creating my graphic remix of my five essays concerning communication technology, I realized the power inherent in the process. Just five months ago – though I did have a blog – I could not have created a web page so quickly and published whatever I chose. The process was empowering and liberating as well as relatively cheap. There are of course cheaper options than owning a domain and other services. In fact most web authors are publishing without paying anything. The direct result of this is that more voices can be heard or perhaps more prescient: more voices have to be listened to.
An obvious example of the presence of more voices is the so-called “Arab Spring”. People across the Arab world are protesting as well as revolting in grass roots, seemingly bottom-up, fashion. Castells et al. hit the nail on the head, “one of the most important communicative practices … observed is the emergence of unplanned, largely spontaneous communities of practice in instant time … This is, of course, most evident in flash political mobilizations” (Castells et al. 305). Having a voice is synonymous with having power and those who have been in power – think Mubarak and Qaddafi – want to hold on and hold down those raising their heads to speak.
As new technologies emerge, new fears emerge. These seemingly new fears though, are the same old fears repackaged. The powers that be tend to view emerging technologies as a threat; change is a threat to the status quo. Just like President Johnson did not appreciate Morely Safer’s coverage of Vietnam because it was unsettling, a shove to a building on a shaky foundation, Middle Eastern dictators do not want their people organizing through social media. In fact, attempts were made to isolate the people from the aforementioned social media sites. But the people are no longer buying what the dictators are selling.
Writing a new narrative rather than accepting or being defined by the prevailing narrative is power. By creating a site, I lead the reader through my narrative both revealing and concealing. Publishing, no matter how objective one tries to be, comes from a point of view. Nicholas C. Burbules, a professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, argues “every link excludes as well as includes associate points; every path leads away from other avenues as it opens one passage; every trope conceals as it reveals” (Burbules 119-20). What is more powerful than shaping reality?
To paraphrase James Beniger, professor of Communications at the University of Southern California, the control revolution increases centralization yet cedes economic and political control, but the arguably the Internet is a decentralizing force, yet another space that never was becoming so important (Beniger 278). His “control revolution” precedes the Information Age and in a sense creates it. With “economic and political control” ceded information followed closely behind. So, to answer the question posed at the end of the preceding paragraph: perhaps the only thing more powerful than the shaping of reality is the apparatus fighting to maintain control over the shaping process. Some would argue that here is more of a control apparatus now than ever before; Beniger would argue that increased control is not a necessary offshoot of the rampant growth of communication technology in the Information Age, but most certainly an inevitable outcome.
Considering Castells’ point “social choice, including communication choice continues to be framed by institutions and social structure” it is no surprise that the increase is arguably inevitable (Castells et al. 305). That is why the push for self-publishing to reframe or entirely rewrite the narrative is so essential and powerful, to be feared and to be controlled.

REGULATION
The sky is falling. The powers that be must be nervous. For the Internet is the ultimate free speech platform and as iterated above, the agency in shaping reality is empowering. Those in power have long realized this. To put it another way: the sky-is-falling argument is a means to an end. Fear is an incredible motivator.
The Internet has an anything goes feel, but that feel is a hold over, a residual effect held onto at the fringes. Of course, I can create and post or upload anything I want to my site, but to be taken seriously there are certainly norms to be adhered to. So in a sense the Internet is self-regulating. Castells et al. make an interesting point, “When government regulations, technological standards, and business pricing systems favor the diffusion of wireless communication, it becomes explosive” (Castells et al. 307). This idea has been embraced and forwarded with the continued push for net neutrality. The Internet may not be the Wild West, but certainly a hint of a laissez faire attitude permeates the pot.
In a laissez faire environment that is easily and cheaply accessed worldwide, choices are endless. However, considering that “each new technological innovation extends the processes that sustain life, thereby increasing the need for control and hence for improved control technology” is the Internet and by extension wireless communication unregulated? It would be naïve to say yes. As communication technologies change so do their regulators. Of course, the creation of new laws, adoption and application lag behind technology’s advancement, but nonetheless attempts at regulation and control never cease. In essence, laissez faire may be the perception, which allows for another form of control: are too many choices an impediment to making a choice at all? This is cynical, but distraction can be one of the more powerful forms of regulation.
Perception and reality are so closely intertwined. I won’t argue that there is much freedom involved with the Internet and wireless communication, but they are certainly regulated (just look at a cellphone bill). It is important to regulate considering the amount of information and speed in which it is disseminated. Anyone can recognize the power inherent in this form of communication technology. Regulation has a dark side that of censorship, no legislator (in this country at least) wants to labeled as censoring that perception would be damning. Consider what Castells et al. say, which at first appears to be a restatement of a previous quote, but is quite different, “As soon as regulatory, technological, and affordability obstacles are overcome, there is an explosion of usage. This places a serious burden on regulators because, in the absence of affirmative policy favoring diffusion, those countries, areas, and people left behind will clearly suffer from lack of connection to a fundamental network” (Castells et al. 307). The tone and language lead one to believe that the final word “network” could easily be substituted with “right” in the authors’ minds. This perception has most certainly become a reality.
Regulating a fundamental right is a tricky business – just about as tricky as stuffing a genie back in a bottle. A question arises: is the ability to connect to a network a fundamental right or a privilege? This debate is pointless; especially considering that fundamental could just as easily be substituted with human. But the debate will continue like the 1st Amendment in shades of gray. No doubt the end of legislation and therefore regulation of the Internet, connectivity and all the associated issues is nowhere in sight.
ESCAPE
Anyone who has sat in front of a computer screen until his or her back aches knows a person can escape into the Internet. On my site I could have included videos of my creation, links to television or movies online or user generated video sites. Richard Lanham, professor Emeritus as the University California Los Angeles, speaks to the seductive power of hypertexts stating that people are becoming less and less taken by books that create “a world that floats somewhere between the flat world of writing and the three-dimensional world of behavior” (Lanham 135). The Internet offers text, but also images, links to other sites, sound and the fourth dimension, time, in the form of movement. Conventional books still have the tactile experience and the “physical stuff of the book carries a profound electrical charge” (Lanham 134). Smartphones and tablet computers are already encroaching on the tactile experience with the increasing wave of touch screens. One can escape into the world of a book, but has a hard time competing with the full immersion offered by the Internet.
This idea of a fully immersive experience reminds of a different time. Movie houses offered an immersive experience from the posters, the lights, the architecture of the buildings themselves, to the lives of the stars and the lives they portrayed inside. Theaters were palaces of escape. Lev Manovich, associate professor in the Visual Arts Department at the University of California, San Diego, relates that “in Chicago and Calcutta, London and St. Petersburg, Tokyo and Berlin … film images would soothe movie audiences, who were facing an increasingly dense information environment outside the theater, an environment that no longer could be adequately handled by their own sampling and data processing (i.e., their brains). Periodic trips into … movie theaters became a routine survival technique for the subjects of modern society” (Manovich 290). Compare the “periodic trips” to theaters to the checking of mobile devices for those inclined to do so and the comparison is stark. The amount of information inundating the average person today is remarkable. Movies as a form escape seem inadequate compared to the content available on the Internet.
The Internet and its content is an entirely new space to become lost. Castells et al. describe this new space, “it induces a different kind of space—the space of flows—made of networked places where the communication happens, and a new kind of time—timeless time—formed from the compression of time and the desequencing of practices through multitasking” (Castells et al. 305). This metaphysical description seems like it could just as easily be applied to the experience within a black hole. In a place without place without time, how could one help but become lost? If one wants to escape there is no better place.
Once arriving in the place without place, the escapee can also create a new self. Avatars are a way to more thoroughly escape into the body of another. In a movie one’s actions are predetermined, but an avatar is an extension of the self. Being an agent of creation is empowering, an additional layer of escape. This new self, however, is still in a real world, which cannot be completely escaped from.
Castells et al. make an interesting point about the collision of these two worlds, the real and the created, “Since people build their own private space by simply ignoring others around them, a new m-etiquette (and its implicit norms of cultural domination) is struggling to be adopted, specifying when it is proper to isolate oneself from the social environment and when it is not” (Castells et al. 306). This leads to a question: what if the means to escape – the Internet – becomes what one needs to escape from? In a way mobile devices and other access points create a feedback loop: a person is anxious, he or she checks to see what’s being missed and inevitable there is something thus creating anxiety. With endless searches and endless sites, status updates and comments, at some point this all becomes something to escape from.
CONCLUSION
Essentially, people will be drawn to and embrace a new technology because it is new. A new technology will only stick around if it is of value; the Internet is undeniably valuable both literally and figuratively. Its value derives from equal parts, speed, connectivity, power and escape. Those aspects of its value also contribute mightily to the appeal, which goes beyond the moth-like assessment above that people will go to a technology just because it is new like a moth to a flame. The Internet “remediates” proceeding technologies making the old new (Bolter and Grusin 297). The Internet is a potent combination of aural, auditory, oral, visual and increasingly tactile technologies. As incredibly powerful it is the though, the only certainty concerning the future of the Internet is that change will occur and ultimately will not necessarily replace it, but usurp its position. In regards to technology that is the most recursive idea.

WORKS CITED
Beniger, James. “The Control Revolution.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 6th Edition. Eds. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon 2011. 278 – 288. Print.

Bolter, Jay David and Richard Grusin. “The World Wide Web.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 6th Edition. Eds. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon 2011. 297 – 304. Print.

Burbules, Nicholas C. “Rhetorics of the Web: hyperreading and critical literacy.” Page to Screen: Taking literacy into the electronic era. Ed. Ilana Snyder. London: Routledge, 1997. 102 – 122.

Castells, Manuel et al. “A Mobile Network Society.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 6th Edition. Eds. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon 2011. 304 – 307. Print.

Kalmbach, James R. “Publishing Before Computers.” Professional Writing and Rhetoric. Ed. Tim Peeples. New York: Longman Publishers, 2002. 221 – 232. Print.

Lanham, Richard A. “An Alphabet that Thinks.” The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. 130 – 156. Print.

Manovich, Lev. “How Media Became New.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 6th Edition. Eds. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon 2011. 288 – 291. Print.

Efficiency in Communication: The mother of invention?

Humans are curious. Part of curiosity is the desire for understanding; the other side of the coin or token of curiosity seems to be the necessity to share, to communicate anything novel, anything abstract. When something new of value arises it must be communicated. As a result, the means of communication are changed. The idea that communication is always in flux in order to better understand the world around us, is a common thread throughout the readings. Because of this flux there is a push forever more efficient communication.
The human use of symbols to communicate is not only always in flux, but it is fleeting as well. Schmandt-Besserat explains in “The Earliest Precursor of Writing that symbols are “ephemeral and, as a rule, do not survive the societies that create them”(Schmandt-Besserat 5). For the uninitiated, the use of ochre, flowers or antlers may seem pointless or not worth the time to try to understand. That may be the case, but one could argue that the primitive means to understand the abstract are vitally important to our existence. The ritualized use of symbols presaged other more complicated communication technology.
To grasp at the fleeting, at the abstract is a basic human trait. The movement from found symbols like flowers or antlers for burials to incised bones are “important . . . because they constitute the earliest known examples of manmade symbols in the Near East” (Schmandt-Besserat 6). The progression is clear from found and placed to manmade or at least altered. Human culture had advanced. Though this advancement may appear to be minor, nonetheless, it is a whittling away toward increased efficiency in both communication and understanding.
This whittling away could also be described as a redefining or perhaps a refining of the given cosmology holding sway. Incising bones or placing objects helped control and ritualize in order to understand the world; in doing so, a more complex worldview was created. As was established previously when something of value arises it necessitates communication. It is not surprising that as humans became more sedentary, developed agriculture, forms of communication developed right along side – or a half step behind. The “one-to-one correspondence” (Schmandt-Besserat 7) was terribly inefficient, lacking “the capacity to indicate what item was being counted” (Schmandt-Besserat 7). Since “the practice of agriculture generated new symbols” a new form for understanding was needed and generated in the form of tokens and eventually clay tablets and writing (Schmandt-Besserat 8).
Technology marches forward, but to make a statement like that one must look back. In my feeble attempt to create a “clay tablet” I understand more thoroughly what Innis means when he writes, “Economy of effort demanded a reduction in the number of strokes, and the remnants of pictorial writing disappeared” (Innis 18). Working with the salt dough was not easy nor was my reverse engineered communication through pictogram. Frustration was immediate and I began to think of ways to improve the system. Robinson states, “ . . . writing developed as a direct consequence of the compelling demands of an expanding economy” in Sumer (Robinson 29). Looking at my tablet I couldn’t help but acknowledge its glaring inefficiency. Thinking critically, my mind wandered comparing clay, papyrus and string. I could wrap my head around arriving at using clay for writing – a culture based on the shores of a river would have ample experience with clay and it would be readily available – but papyrus as a communication material or string for that matter felt like quite a leap. Of course the clay tablet presaged both papyrus and the string method. Nevertheless there is a permanence involved in all three of those forms.
In terms of permanence nothing rivals the permanence of stone. For Egyptians writing in stone was a projection of power. A shift in Egyptian society deemphasized “stone as a medium of communication or as a basis of prestige, as shown in the pyramids” (Innis 14). Innis explains that “thought gained lightness” (Innis 14) meaning that with writing on paper thoughts and ideas were able to spread more rapidly. As the emphasis shifted to lightness the writing changed from “straightness or circularity of line, rectangularity of form”(Innis 14) to a more “cursive”(Innis 14) writing better suited for speed. Along with speed came efficiency. With the “increased use of papyrus and the simplification” of the written language “administration became more efficient” (Innis 15). The accounting of the empire like the accounting of Sumerian agricultural goods drove the more efficient means of communication.
Asher & Asher concede, “quipus probably predate the coming to power” of the Incan Empire (Asher & Asher 21). Nonetheless the Incas seized the quipus’ communicative power and incorporated them as “a part of state-craft” (Asher & Asher 21). The Inca must have recognized the efficiency for administration of an empire that such a communication device would provide and a complex device at that. Asher & Asher go on to compare quipus to both the Sumerian clay tablets and the Egyptian papyrus writing. One could argue for the superiority of any of three in terms of communication, but Asher & Asher would most likely argue that the quipus supersede the other two in complexity. Whereas the Egyptian and Sumerian systems used either little or no color to add layers to the communicated meaning, the Incan quipus used color to unite “the visual with the tactile” much like modern transistors (Asher & Asher 24). Regardless of whether one views the quipus as superior or inferior, it is hard to deny either their complexity or the sophistication of the culture that produced them.
Each of the cultures mentioned achieved a certain level of sophistication helped along by their forms of communication. Pushed forward by curiosity and an innate desire to understand the world better, every society grasps at ways to arrive in the most efficient manner at that understanding. Sometimes this efficiency is misplaced. Drucker & McGann explain that “graphic features of text are ancillary and transient forms – apparitions, as it were, that house textual essences as fleshly frames support immortal souls” (Drucker & McGann 2). Written words are simply stand-ins for the abstract and not always the most ideal or efficient forms of communication. Most often words are adequate and the best means of conveying thoughts, but occasionally it is evident other means can be more efficient. In the case of the Aztec Codex, as described by Drucker & McGann, one can clearly see that the pictorial depiction is more efficient than written description by Elizabeth Hill Boone. Drucker & McGann write “her depiction of the actions and events takes about five hundred words . . . that are indicated in the condensed form of pictographs” (Drucker & McGann 4). In this case a picture may not be worth a thousand words, but five hundred isn’t half bad.
The efficiency of Aztec pictographs was necessary due to the lack of a written language. Their goals were basic and fundamentally the same as the previously discussed cultures – not grandiose. In terms of grandiosity, efficiency can be taken too far. This becomes clear when one considers the goal of 17th century philosophers like Joachim Becher and Bishop John Wilkins to “find a set of signs that could encode a well-ordered (philosophical) representation of all the elements of the known universe” (Drucker & McGann 4). They had difficulty arriving at an efficient form of communication because “the signs were a code of a code” (Drucker & McGann 5). Curiosity and a desire for understanding urged them to grasp at straws nevertheless.
As humans we will never stop the attempt to better understand our environment. This compulsion is the impetus for change; when a mode for expressing the abstract is exhausted, we will simply move forward headlong, sometimes too far, but always far enough to pique our collective curiosity. Complacency is the death of humanity.

WORKS CITED
Asher, Marcia and Robert. “Civilization without Writing–The Incas and the Quipu.” Communication in History. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2011. Print.

Drucker, Johanna, and Jerome McGann. “Images as the Text: Pictographs and Pictographic Logic.” Jerome McGann: Online. Jerome McGann, 2004. Web. 18 Jan 2011. .

Innis, Harold. “Media in Ancient Empires.” Communication in History. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2011. Print.

Robinson, Andrew. “The Origins of Writing.” Communication in History. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2011. Print.

Schmandt-Besserat, Denise. “The Earliest Precursor of Writing.” Communication in History. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2011. Print.

#10: Shout Outs

Enough cannot be said about the classroom environment.  The ability to bounce ideas off of one another and to see what one’s peers are doing is exciting and motivating. 

In terms of a shout out, I’d like to mention Mudd first because of his classroom presence.  One knows he has something to say, which in and of itself is not remarkable, but never knowing the angle he will be approaching whatever is being discussed be it the comic, photoshop or coding (both html & css) is valuable.  He provides a different perspective, a different avenue of approach that has benefitted me in that I know sometimes it is best to take a step back and try to look at the project or problem with a “new” set of eyes.

Though Mudd’s impact has been in a more general sense, Gutke has had a more specific impact.  It is one thing to read the HTML & CSS book or to watch Lynda, but to hear one of one’s peers break down how the div tags work in relation to absolute positioning helped me considerably.  I saw the bigger picture; she helped me see the forest and the trees.

When thinking about a book that I wanted to look into, I thought about how we haven’t gotten that far into video in class and something I haven’t pursued much personally.  I think video production for the web is important; moving images have much more visual presence than their static counterparts.  I took a look at Ken Dancyger’s The Technique of Film and Video Editing, Fifth Edition: History, Theory, and Practice.  Though the book doesn’t go into specific programs, it sheds light on the creative process with a historical perspective, ideas that can applied no matter what program is being used.

#9: Documentary Defined

Hampe states, “Making a documentary requires meticulous attention to what will ultimately be shown to the audience”, which comes to mean that the creator of a documentary is shaping reality (Hampe 69).  In shaping reality the documentarian must pay close attention to verisimilitude.  Without verisimilitude or the appearance of truth within the documentary, the credibility of the filmaker, and by extension the film, is shattered.

The definition of a documentary is a slippery beast.  I like to say that documentaries and their cousins, reality shows and docu-dramas only differ from fiction-based movies and television in the price of the actors.  The use of the word actors is intentional because the instant a camera is turned on, its unblinking eye pointed at any person, they begin acting.  Documentaries tend to have very cheap if not free actors or in the case of Ken Burns, hardly any actors at all (just panning shots of photos of long dead Civil War combatants).

I think the definition of a documentary comes down to its limitations.  In a Hollywood type movie with the script, the famous actors we go in with a certain frame of mind as a viewer: this isn’t real, but I’ll suspend my disbelief and enjoy the entertainment, the escape.  To the contrary, a documentary being defined by its limitations is required to stick to the appearance of reality, that the viewer is not coming into the experience ready or willing for that matter to suspend his or her disbelief.  The viewer expects to experience the truth through the eye of documentary filmmaker at the least and at most simply the truth.

Perhaps the expectation of the documentary viewer is a bit overstated and perhaps also an illusion too, but going back to Hampe’s assertion of the importance of what is presented to the viewer or the audience is paramount in the success of the film.  The viewer cannot question the veracity of the documentary; cannot say, “Oh, its just a movie”, because the power of the documentary and its meaning come from the audience or viewer experiencing it as real — not scripted, acted or even edited to shaped reality.

Works Cited

Hampe, Barry. Making Documentary Films and Videos: a Practical Guide to Planning, Filming, and Editing Documentaries. New York: H. Holt, 2007. Print.

Try and Keep Up: How communication technology outpaces regulation

The last Summer Olympics were a coronation of sorts for Jamaica’s Usain Bolt.  He was dubbed “the fastest man alive”, which is difficult to argue against (he ran a hundred yards in under ten seconds).  Perhaps the most astonishing part of his feat was not only that he crushed his opponents in route to setting a new world record, but that he did so as we was letting up crossing the finish line.  I chose to begin with Mr. Bolt and his speed to help illustrate a point.  When new technologies – such as podcasts or radio or telegraphy – come into being they leave laws and in general regulations in the dust – almost as if there were two races.  In essence, regulation of technology is always at least a step behind; the sprinting technology can usually ease a la Usain Bolt and still shatter existing speed records.

In any race, each and every competitor wants to win.  With communication technologies well in the lead, regulators try their best to keep up.  I began thinking along these lines when contemplating my first podcast.  Thirty years ago there was no such thing as a podcast, the word podcast reading like a group of whale actors or some such nonsense.  My impression of a podcast is that of a personal radio broadcast.  That anyone can create a podcast is powerful and if a communication technology is powerful (and they all seem to be), people will want to control it.  With that in mind, I began to see how these new technologies were being controlled – mostly through law and regulation.  In the telephone race, there was no bigger competitor and perhaps control freak than Alexander Graham Bell and did he ever want to win.

Bell exploited the lack of laws governing the emerging telephone industry.  By controlling “both the service and the consumer’s equipment”, Bell had built a working stranglehold on the fledgling industry (Fischer 119).  Claude S. Fischer, professor of sociology at UC Berkeley goes on to assert that with this power over the industry to “set rates and to dictate technical and other features”, allowed Bell to establish a powerful monopoly.  (Basically, it would be like me inventing podcasts and forcing everyone who was clamoring for the new technology to use my podcast machine and requisite service.  I can only imagine how fun it would be if Internet providers also sold computers.  Most likely I would have skipped the podcast.) Later, paraphrasing Fischer, Bell went so far as to use patent law to regulate in the suing of Western Union, his competition (Fischer 120).  So, instead of patent laws regulating Bell, Bell was using patent laws to regulate the competition.  Essentially, by exploiting gaps in the existing law Bell was able to enjoy thirteen years of monopoly.  Communication technology had outpaced monopoly laws, but eventually the monopoly was busted up.

Law and regulation, though behind, are still running the race.  Stephen Kern, professor of history at The Ohio State University, writes on regulation and the power of wireless communication.  It is interesting to consider two points he introduces: first, “the simultaneity of experience” and second, that “business and personal exchanges suddenly became instantaneous” (Kern 188-189).  Both of these points speak to the speed of these new technologies and to the shrinking of the world.  The implications of the speed of communication makes one think of the 1^st Amendment and free speech and also of the Internet.  With so much more information flying about, can speech even be regulated?  Can it be protected?  These questions are just as important when considering radio, podcasts, telephone and telegraph – they increased the speed of transmission of information and also the amount.  This two-fold increase is interesting considering a few dates Kern touches on: 1876, 1894, and 1903.  The first date is the year the telephone was invented; the second, the year Marconi “devised an apparatus to transmit and receive” radio waves and third, the year “an International Congress on Wireless Telegraphy was held at Berlin . . . to regulate” what Kern calls “wireless instruments” (Kern 188 – 189).  Sure, regulation may be still running, but is it in the same race?  Much like Bell and his enjoyable thirteen-year monopoly, there was a sizable hole where a regulatory window would eventually go.

Of course, laws and regulators of technology can attempt to slow down the fast pace of progress.  If ever there was an entity to up to this task it is the FCC.  John Durham Peters, professor of Communication at the University of Iowa, states that the FCC finally answered the question “Was radio a common carrier or something else?” in 1934, going with “something else”, namely broadcasting and not common carriage (Peters 192).  Now, it only took a mere forty years, but radio was defined.  The distinction between broadcasting and common carriage is interesting, “broadcasting . . . involves privately controlled transmission but public reception, whereas common carriage involves publicly controlled transmission but private reception”, which basically boils down to watch what you say on the radio or the FCC will fine you (or watch what article of clothing you remove on national television).  Nothing like heavy fines to add stumbling blocks, but hurdles can always, well, be hurdled.

It is not surprising that the “boom years of radio” took place before many of the hurdles we know were in place (Douglas 195).  Which leads me to the idea that law and regulation by their very nature are reactionary.  That may be a no-brainer, but nonetheless interesting.  Susan J. Douglas, professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan, mentions that many events shaped regulation of radio, most notably the sinking of the Titanic and the resulting radio hoaxes and World War I (Douglas 198-199).  The Titanic sank, and “four months later, the Radio Act of 1912” was passed, clearly showing how law and lawmakers react and how profound the experience was on the nation (Douglas 198).  Amateurs were dealt a blow.  A more powerful blow, though, was on the horizon that of World War I when the “federal government banned all amateur activity” (Douglas 199).  This reaction came in a time of war when the government almost giddily overreacts.  The radio genie was out of the bottle though, and amateurs relegated or regulated to the short waves were not dissuaded; despite the increased and reactionary regulations, their numbers only increased.  The power of the human voice projected through time and space is undeniable, why else would people manipulate wires and crystals, wearing crude headphones?

Thinking of reactionary regulation makes me think of new communication technologies, namely, the Internet.  Free speech, the foundation of America, extends to the Internet and therefore podcasts, but what if it didn’t at first? What if free speech was initially extended to podcasts, but then curtailed? The questions keep coming: are there attempts by regulators to anticipate the next big thing? For, necessarily, there will be something next, striding as if without effort right passed the winded.  The short answer to the last question is no.  The aforementioned speed of the Internet outpaces all previous communication technologies and with anyone able to post anything – I could have said anything I wanted in my podcast – how can an ever-expanding info-universe be regulated?  The short answer to that question is a tentative no. Perhaps the better answer is not fully, for the Internet, through its users, is self-regulating to a degree.  Anticipation is essentially out the window; law and regulation are not suited for speculation.  A course on speculative communication technology law would break brains.

So, as we speed into the future, somewhere between Mr. Bolt and regulation – the bulk of humanity seems to ride the thundering coattails of the swiftest – one can’t help but think of the recursive white elephant in the room.  Though lumbering, this elephant keeps pace explaining that each and every communication technology is a regulatory can of worms.  Attempts can be made to keep pace through regulation or to slow down the pace, but the reactionary nature of law can’t cope with the speed.  The first instinct is to apply existing law, which is often forcing square pegs in round holes.  Then there is the whole messy sausage making business of enacting new law – adding a hurdle to an already lopsided race is tantamount to waving the white flag.  Perhaps another cliché will help: Pandora’s box . . . we can hope that this race continues relatively favorably for everyone, that regulation does not get too much in the way of progress.

Works Cited

Douglas, Susan J. “Early Radio.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 6^th Edition.  Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon 2011. 194 – 200.

Fischer, Claude S. “The Telephone Takes Command.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 6^th Edition.  Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon 2011. 119 – 124.

Kern, Stephen. “Wireless World.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 6^th Edition.  Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon 2011. 187 – 190.

Peters, John Durham. “The Public Voice of Radio.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 6^th Edition.  Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon 2011. 190 – 194.

What I Learned . . .

First, it is important to know the difference between bitmapped or raster programs and vector programs.  I learned that raster images are pixel based and vector images are mathematically based.  Also, ”many designers . . . create art in a vector program . . . then open it in Photoshop . . . to ‘rasterize it’”, which leads me to believe — and from the look of the two sample images in the text — that an image may be more easily created or drawn in a program like Illustrator, but in terms of how it looks are the website, the imaged should be bitmapped, or processed through Photoshop or a program like it (Williams and Tollett 187).  One does not want to negatively impact his or her authorial ethos by displaying pixelated images . . .

Second, I learned that GIFs are “cross-platform”, which is important because they can be seen on any system (Williams and Tollett 188). Without this “cross-platform” ability the beauty of the internet would be diminished since only some and not all could view the image content of one’s site — again, another knock against one’s authorial credibility.  Therefore, the importance of knowing about GIFs is two-fold: the images on a site are a major part of the aesthetic, and lets just say red X’s on a page are today’s scarlet letter.  GIFs can also be compressed making the image files smaller, which “allows files to be tranferred quickly”.  Speed on the internet is essential because with so much other information around, one doesn’t want his or her audience waiting around for a page to load.  They will leave.

Third, JPEGs are better than GIFs in regards to color; “Whereas GIF files are limitied to a maximum of 256 colors, JPEG files can contain 16.7 million colors” — the difference is clear (Williams and Tollett 191).  This is important to know because it helps determine which format is better in terms of compressing files since both GIFs and JPEGs are compressors. If I want to place a photo or artwork, it seems the clear choice would be to format either as a JPEG to insure the highest quality image for my website.  And in the end that is the goal.

Works Cited

Williams, Robin, and John Tol­lett. The Non-Designer’s Web Book: an easy guide to cre­at­ing, design­ing, and post­ing your own web site. 3rd ed. Berkeley, CA: Peach­pit Press, 2006. 185–239. Print.

Different Problems

What’s the difference?

The difference between looking at and looking through is a matter of surface. First, we most often look through when reading a bound book, or print out.  The text is there and of course stylistic concerns exist in regards to formatting or font; mostly the concern is that the surface is as standard as possible allowing for easy entry into the world of the text.  The standard codex book asks the reader to look through the surface and arrive at the content or as Lanham puts it, “a world that floats somewhere between the flat world of writing and the three-dimensional world of behavior” (Lanham 135).

Of course the alphabet that thinks asks just the opposite of the codex book (for the most part).  An alphabet that thinks is much more concerned with the surface.  For the surface is the hook to be set in the “torrent of information” (Lanham 143).  As readers we are drawn to the surface through color, word, image and sound; each aspect of this surface acts as a both barb and lure for the hook.  We are the fish.  Looking at though is not entirely superficial, we can still look through to the content.  And the surface should be considered content just as there is a component of looking at in the codex book.

What’s the problem?

Oh, the problems with the C-B-S model . . . as was discussed in class, this model is first and foremost impractical.  The pitfalls of a system that excludes basics human qualities are small enough to twist an ankle and large enough drive a truck into.  In terms of being impractical, the C-B-S model is easier said than done because no matter how hard we try to be objective, people are always hinting at subjectivity if not out and out declaring it (think the shift of news shows to opinion).

The analogy I used in class was that C-B-S strips the mannequin of the dress or maybe the meat from the bone.  Along with the meat and the dress or in the case of Lady Gaga the meat dress, so much of communication is lost.  How much of argument relies on pathos, on the painting of a mental picture, on humor?  All of that feels lost with the C-B-S model, leaving just the being without the human.

Works Cited

Lanham, Richard A. The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information. University of Chicago Press, 2006. 130-156. Print.

Raven V. Writing Desk

I’d like to begin with a quote from Mr. Burbules, “Every link excludes as well as includes associate points; every path leads away from other avenues as it opens one passage; every trope conceals as it reveals” (Burbules 119-20).  This quote reads as both thesis and conclusion; the quote is also hard to argue against.  So I won’t.

In regards to how links reveal, I thought the idea of how links in a way create the other page, that links have agency in determining the existence was a moment akin to looking at the stars and someone saying, “Look at the stars,” and someone else responding, “They’re looking back at us” — ‘they’ being aliens.  OK.  What Burbules is getting at is that links are gatekeepers that “control access to information”.  Therefore links reveal outside information (but also conceal, oh double-edged link sword).

In this revealing of outside information, or other sites, links can also reveal agenda or bias.  Revealing of this sort lifts the veil of perhaps an otherwise subtle subjectivity of the web author to full blown opinion.  Links can, in other words, reveal an author’s lack of objectivity on a subject — say linking satanism with rock music, commonplace in the 80′s — and thus stimy attempts at achieving credibility.  On the other hand, that might be right up the alley of the hypothetical web author’s intended audience.  This kind of “cause-and-effect” linkage can be very effective, especially when employing a argument heavy on the pathos — what parent wouldn’t be afraid of his or her child being seduced by Satan (Burbules 115)?

Of course, the same sort of argument is concealing and therefore the link as well.  Rock music can also be used in a Church environment — the debate over which rock music is worse that of Christian or Satanic shall be for another day — so focusing on the negative seems counterproductive.  Scare tactics are effective though. 

Another aspect of the web and links that are effective in concealment is hyperbole.  Burbules seems to mean that through hyperbole, the web and links conceal or diminish what is lacking within the network.  The web or links for that matter are hyperbolic in that both claim to be exhaustive (the list of all books, all movies available etc.), but at what point does saying you are something make it so?  I think most people at one point or another have said, “You can find everything on the Internet.”  The concealing quality of hyperbole is very thorough.

Although this is somewhat off topic, I found catechresis — quite the crossword puzzle word if there was one — quite interesting.  This idea spoke to the power of links and I guess could be a form of revealing in that perhaps an otherwise unrelated pair of objects could be related . . . the link between ravens and writing desks is not that “far-fetched” though Lewis Carroll joked about it 100+ years ago (Burbules 116).

So anything can be linked and the act of linking is both revealing and concealing.  One can link to establish credibility; one can link to persuade or transform; one can link to appear to know everything, but watch out, we’re getting more savvy with more and more web authors out there.  I’ll give the last word to Burbules though, “ironically, the tool we have created to serve us actually shapes us” (Burbules 119).

Works Cited

Burbules, Nicholas C. “Rhetorics of the Web: hyperreading and critical literacy.” Page to Screen: Taking literacy into the electronic era. Ed. Ilana Snyder. London: Routledge, 1997. Print.

Aspects of Power–From Alphabetic Literacy to Print

The image of a colossus astride the continuum of human history is an apt image to begin an essay on power.  This metaphorical behemoth has one foot in the past and one in the future, possessing the ability to negotiate a space, to designate an area that is produced by the oscillation between those two points.  The given name is the present.  From this vantage point one can argue that the technologies of the alphabet, paper and printing are amongst the most important and influential in human history – ask the colossus.  This essay will examine the intersection of power in its many guises and the aforementioned technologies.

When the Greek alphabet (if ever there was a colossus) – begat by the Phoenicians begat by Semitic slaves begat by Egyptian hieroglyphics – came on the scene, the prevailing technology was primary orality.  Walter Ong, the late Professor of humanities at Saint Louis University, argues for the innate power of orality, however, alphabetic technology was able to usurp it.  The method of attack was two-fold to achieve what Ong says as quoted by Thomas Bertonneau, who teaches English Literature at SUNY, to separate “the knower from the known” (qtd. in Bertonneau 115).  First, the alphabet provided external storage of information, like my little gold book, abolishing “the need for memorization” and thus increased efficiency by removing the limiting nature of memorization (Havelock 40).  And second, through symbols and signs, humanity was able to think more abstractly.  This potent one-two punch makes possible for humans the advancement beyond mnemonics – though not without its own power – to the more intrinsic power of alphabetic technology that of novel thought.  Havelock explains, “the advancement of knowledge . . . depends upon the human ability to think about something unexpected—a “new idea” (Havelock 40).  The power of being able to write that novel thought down is illuminated when writing in my little gold book. Moreover, the true power of alphabetic technology becomes clear, because with novel thought, comes a recursive quality in thinking, one can build directly upon preceding ideas as a form of endless perpetuation of thought.  Technology relies heavily on this recursiveness and may be its prime mover.

As mentioned above, Ong argues for the power of orality, how sound unifies and has impact.  It is hard to discount the power of orality, its primal quality. Humans are hardwired for orality.  Moreover, Ong would argue that orality is the springboard from which alphabetic technology bounded and therefore subsequent technologies.  To push further, orality is still present and resonates.  When one hears a speaker, he or she employs mnemonics both to remember the speech and to impact the audience.  What Ong calls “secondary orality”, music, radio etc., “generates a sense for groups immeasurably larger than those of primary oral culture” (Ong 54).  Clearly illustrates how orality is a potent force in human culture.

No fool, Ong acknowledges the power of print, the progeny of alphabetic technology stating, “only after print . . . would human beings, when they thought about the cosmos or universe or “world”, think primarily of something . . . ready to be explored” (Ong 54).  Print, therefore, widened humanity’s worldview and cosmology not only readying for exploration, but also allowing us to begin to explore.

One cannot easily deny the influence of orality on communication technology, just like one cannot deny the influence of the Greek alphabet.  Equally undeniable is the influence of the Chinese, the colossus of paper and print technology for paper, as Thomas F. Carter professor of Chinese at Columbia University put it, “is the most certain and most complete of China’s inventions” (Carter 67).  Influence is synonymous with power; without China it is difficult to imagine if one could even discuss paper as it is now understood, the idea of printing or even write in the same manner.  The influence over the means of print is absolute, from the development of rag paper, to paper proper, to the rudiments of block printing (paper rubbed on stone), to the more full-blown block printing, and all of this some five hundred years before Gutenberg.  It is laughable to think that paper was invented around 105 A.D. in China, but rag paper was thought to be “a German or Italian invention of the fifteenth century” (Carter 69).  One can see clearly the power or influence China held over printing technology when another date is considered.  Carter says that the T’ang dynasty’s “reduplication of sacred books and texts . . . reached its climax in block printing some time before the end of the ‘golden age’” or sometime before 906 A.D. (Carter 70).  Also visible is the power of materials to change ideas and how ideas change materials, another example of how the power of these technologies are borne of a recursive nature, the oscillation between looking forward and back to advance.  To paraphrase Carter, information became encumbered by the technology present that of bamboo, wood and silk, a “new writing material was needed” (Carter 68).  This new material of course was paper, arguably part of the impetus for block printing, therefore, ideas begat new materials and materials begat new ideas.  China, more than any other civilization, has impacted the technology of paper and print.  These technologies are “a force in the advancement of civilization” both locally for China and globally (Carter 71).

Perhaps the only institution to rival China in terms of power or influence is the Church – the Church in this sense being the Catholic Church, the predominant colossus in Europe after the fall of Rome.  If influence is synonymous with power then the cliché knowledge is power only grows in strength.  The Church maintained the knowledge that survived into the Dark Ages—mainly the Bible.  James Burke and Robert Ornstein, both authors speak of the Church’s influence as a “magic power . . . able to persuade people” (Burke & Ornstein 56).  So, considering the verb choice of to maintain knowledge with its connotation of benevolence, Burke and Ornstein would argue to replace it with to control for the Church controlled both knowledge and its dissemination.  Indeed, there was nothing to “compete with the educational system controlled by the Church” (Burke & Ornstein 57).  The Church through the literacy of its clergy had been “inserted . . . into every aspect of secular life” so pervasive was its power.  Burke and Ornstein also make sure to point out that control existed in both the “highly centralized . . . Islamic society” and the Mandarins who thought, “the only purpose of education was to prepare for service to the state” (Burke & Ornstein 58).  It is important to note that through these two civilizations, the Church’s leadership was presented with “unprecedented power . . . thanks to the Christian belief that they had a God-given right to subjugate the world” (Burke & Ornstein 59).  Thus was delivered a justification for subjugation and further control.

Pre-print communication was dominated by “an extensive network . . . established and controlled by the Catholic Church” to keep information free flowing, at least for the select few (Thompson 96).  Only through the filter of the Church hierarchy and the pulpit did information reach the largely illiterate masses.  At this time the Church was the source for both earthly and divine concerns or as James Burke put it, “the news of the world, both ecclesiastical and civil, came from the pulpit” (Burke 75).  Talk about control, most people being illiterate and untrusting of texts – not surprising in world where “documents were often forged” – relied on the trust vested in the Church.  In a world where opinion was fact and people hardly ever travelled beyond their immediate surroundings, the Church monopolized power of information.

Unsurprisingly, in a world dominated by a religious colossus, the Church, the first book printed by Gutenberg was the Bible.  The implication though is that the most valued if not most important text of the time came closer than ever before to the populace, thus furthering the gradual process of bringing power of literacy, of information to the people.  But interestingly, Gutenberg and others like him mimicked the preceding and at the time still predominate technology, that of the scribe.  Lewis Mumford, a respected humanist scholar, states, “early type designers and printers . . . were still under the spell of the old manuscripts” (Mumford 76).  More credit should be given; the scribal institution had, of course, built up an amount of credibility.  To establish credibility, like that of the scribe, what better way than to piggyback off the existing and credible technology or ideology. However, it goes further than that: by mimicking the handiwork of the scribes not only does the printer build of off the pre-existing, but there is an acknowledgement of the talismanic power of the established technology, much like how e-books mirror the technology of the bound, tactile book.  Through mimicry one can see the nod to the power of prevailing technologies, the oscillation of looking back to move forward.

Another aspect of power present is clearly stated by Mumford, “printing broke the class monopoly of the written word, and it provided the common man with a means of gaining access to the culture of the world” (Mumford 77).  That sounds dangerous, especially considering the colossal storm of the Reformation brewing.  A potent driving force of the Reformation was printing the Bible in the vernacular, the local language.  Harvey J. Graff, a professor of history and humanities, goes so far as to call “publishing in the vernacular . . . a major preoccupation” of the Protestant Reformation (Graff 88).  This local language publication increased literacy and had an almost counter-intuitive result: an increased worldview.  Because the Reformation emphasized publishing in the vernacular, the control of information moved away from the Church – though the information was “narrowly religious and theological” – putting it in the hands of the people.  And as has been established, knowledge is power.  To further illustrate Graff suggests, “printed texts could standardize church practices . . . or could reveal . . . the gap between official doctrine and clerical practice” (Graff 89).  Not surprising the end result was a split from the Catholic Church.

This shift in the dissemination of information continued away from the church. To paraphrase John B. Thompson, the author of several works on social theory, after the Church’s network of communication came those established by “political authorities” and then by commercial entities (Thompson 96).  Information began to spread more easily through the establishment of “regular postal services, which became increasingly available for general use” and when printing was applied “to the production and dissemination of news” (Thompson 96).  People, who had perhaps never traveled forty miles from their home, nonetheless were able to experience broadened horizons simply having increased information delivery along trade routes.  One could argue that news traveling along trade routes feels more organic than gathering at the village church and receiving the news; this sort of information delivery system smacks of a primarily oral culture, one dominated by the Church’s power.

Print continued to transform the landscape, shepherding in the genesis of the information age or the precursor thereof.  The combination of the control of information being wrested from the Church along with the printing press allowed for the rise of papers and periodicals, a further democratization of information.

Of course, attempts by those in power to control print continued.  People fled to the New World in response, but others stayed to fight on. Once freedom is tasted, rarely does on go freely back into the cage.  In England policies like the Stamp Act were enacted as a stopgap “to exercise some control over the proliferation of newspapers” (Thompson 99).  The battle for the status quo, in this case, was an uphill battle – imagine trying to force the genie that is the Internet back in the bottle, good luck.  Thompson’s statement, “The Stamp Acts were bitterly opposed and became a rallying point in the struggle for freedom of the press” leads one to the inevitability of the battle to remain in control, to have the power over the source (Thompson 99).  The democratization of information, an idea with its roots firmly in the Greek tradition, marches on.

Without the democratization of information even conceiving of making my own book would be foreign, even alien.  Through the process of crafting the book – I cut pages out of the back of an existing book to add a twist of jest – the power of the technologies came to life.  In this little gold book, I can write whatever I choose (the power over content) and build upon each one of those minor, yet novel thoughts by referring back to my previously transcribed information.  Paper is taken for granted now to the point where the staggering achievement is diminished, even ignored and perhaps even more so is the alphabetic technology because they are such a part of human culture. But what about printing, so democratized that most people with a computer have a printer – printing has become a given, not thought about unless the computer doesn’t communicate with printer and we have to wait longer than a moment.  Making my own book then, broadened my perspective on the technologies, allowing me to see their power in a myriad ways.

So let us return to the colossus astride human civilization, one foot in the past, one in the future.  Our metaphor sees how recent these communication technologies of the alphabet, of paper and of printing have entered from somewhere off stage.  It knows the power of orality and knows that it has been usurped, but not abandoned.  It knows that the battle, the human battle is always over the most seductive, most desirable things in creation: power.  And it knows, perhaps with a brain to match its brawn that no matter what the technology, there will those who want to control it, influence it, change it, advance it and have power of it.  The Greeks could have come up with a potent yet preposterous communication technology that took off in combination with a ridiculous means of dissemination provided by the Chinese and this hypothetical would have been wrangled, controlled, harnessed, harassed and used by authority to wield power and maintain it only to be lusted after by those who were exposed to it, the spread of which and adoption of becoming an inevitably like the end of this sentence.

Works Cited

Bertonneau, Thomas F. “Orality, Literacy, and the Tradition.” Modern Age. Spring 2003. 113 – 122. mimsi.org. Web.

Burke, James. “Communication in the Middle Ages.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 3^rd Edition. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer.  New York: Allyn & Bacon, 1998. 74 – 82. Print.

Burke, James and Robert Ornstein. “Communication and Faith in the Middle Ages.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 6^th Edition. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon 2011. 56 – 62. Print.

Carter, Thomas F. “Paper and Block Printing—From China to Europe.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 6^th Edition. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon 2011. 67 – 72. Print.

Eisenstein, Elizabeth. “Aspects of the Printing Revolution.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 6^th Edition. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon 2011. 78 – 86. Print.

Graff, Harvey J. “Early Modern Literacies.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 6^th Edition. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon 2011. 86 – 95. Print.

Havelock, Eric. “The Greek Legacy.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 6^th Edition. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon 2011. 38 – 43. Print.

Mumford, Lewis. “The Invention of Printing.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 6^th Edition. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon 2011. 74 – 77. Print.

Ong, Walter. “Orality, Literacy, and Modern Media.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 6^th Edition. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon 2011. 49 – 55. Print.

Thompson, John B. “The Trade in the News.” Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society 6^th Edition. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon 2011. 95 – 100. Print.

Tres Text-y

My addition to the history of writing technologies is the missing chapter on texting, titled Text-novation?, an exploration into how texting has changed how people read and write.  Before I proceed I want to admit something: I do not text and I believe that statement covers both transmission and reception.  I have opted out so my opinion is most certainly biased, but I will attempt to be as objective as possible.

I have heard many arguments in favor of texting: everybody’s doing it, convenience and also how it streamlines communication.  Granted many, many people are texting, but that is no reason to do anything — we’ve all heard the parental logic: if you’re friends jumped off a bridge would you too? — however, this form of reading and writing is nearly omnipresent.  One of the major effects on writing is the near total lack of punctuation or capital letters.  Admittedly, I have read a few texts, but mostly I hear about this brand of complaint from older generations speaking about the younger.  The question arises, are we so used to having computer programs capitalize and spell for us that in a texting format all that goes out the window? Or, is this a result of the streamlining of communication?  Arguably both answers to both questions are yes.

In terms of convenience, because many people participate in texting, the technology is convenient.  On top of that phones or texting devices are highly portable; a person is not required to be anyone one place to write — at a computer desk — but can be at work, at school, driving, ignoring everything and everyone around them.  Something like a traditional journal is just as portable as a text equipped device; however, the big difference is transmission or publishing which is instantaneous.  Whereas a printing press takes quite some time, one could send a text or post a comment and immediately ding a response.  Your embarrassing missive is sent around the world with all your spelling mistakes, grammar errors etc.

Our theoretical message is stripped down and hurtling through time and space.  This streamlining of the language seemingly matches the rate at which the text flows, language mirrored in technological speed.  If the typewriter and printing press are a dirt road, then texting — creation, transmission and reception — is the German Autobahn or the Japanese Bullet Train or whatever analogous fast, fast transportation method.  Because there is a receiving end of the text transmission, people are reading also reading all over the place and equally ignoring arguably more important activities and people.  Of course, any time a person is reading or writing said person is removed from the action unless you are a proponent of Gonzo Journalism, but even Thompson said he was never fully able to participate.

Another argument for texting is that of instantaneous publishing.  When reading Kalmbach I couldn’t help but notice how long it took for information or copies thereof to be exchanged.  I’m not sure how text messaging was initially conceived of, but Kalmbach writes that “the typewriter had been conceived as a publishing device, an alternative to handwriting for everyday publishers”, which at the time was a definite need (Kalmbach 225).  The argument for the necessity for texting is not something I want to go into here, but it certainly meets the demand for instant publishing that matches an ever increasing speed of information sharing. 

That being said, with texting there seems to be an addictive quality.  We’ve all seen people compulsively checking for messages or writing messages.  My perception of the compulsion is a desire to be omnipresent or maybe just to not be where one is or not to miss out.  The expectation I guess is to be constantly stimulated, and because most of our most powerful stimulation comes from screens we are compelled to read and write constantly.  Humans are always searching for the next thing.  Arguably texting is a digressive technology when compared with cellphone and speech technology — the implications therein are better left for another time.

Works Cited

Kalmbach, James R.. “Publishing Before Computers.” Professional Writing and Rhetoric. Ed. Tim Peeples. New York: Longman Publishers, 2002. Print.