The Impact of Communication Revolutions on Society
Communication Revolutions
Profound changes involving new means of communication that permanently affect entire societies, changes that shake political structures and influence economic development, communal activity, and personal behavior (Irving Fang).
Examples:
- Oral to writing
- Scribal to print
- Electric telegraph
- Print to broadcast (TV/radio)
- Broadcast to digital
Theories of Communication and Technology:
- Technological Determinism: Tech causes change.
- Autonomous Tech: Tech is beyond human agency.
- Technological Momentum: Humans can shape new tech.
- Medium Theory: The social impact of tech.
- Social Constructionism: Humans determine how tech is used/developed.
The Medium is the Message
We are changed by new media technology, not by the specific messages delivered by the new medium.
Examples:
- Oral to Print: Emphasized sight over sound.
- Print to Broadcast: Restored emphasis on sound and images.
A medium’s content matters less than the medium itself in influencing how we think and act – Marshal McLuhan.
Television is entertainment that rewards visuals and brevity. It has made entertainment the natural format for the representation of all experience – Neil Postman.
Communications Technology Timeline
- Alphabet
- Early Printing
- Postal Service
- Mass Printing
- Electric Communication (Telegraph)
- Telephone
- Recorded Music
- Motion Pictures
- Radio
- Television
- Pay TV
- Computers
- AI
Paul Starr: Communication Revolutions
Communication revolutions happen because of radical changes in the framework of communication (a change in both communication and society resulting from the introduction of new media).
- The Digital Revolution is not new (latest in a series of communication revolutions).
- The US is the global leader in media development (fueled all communication revolutions in the past 200 years).
- Pursuit of profit determines winners and losers in media development.
- Modern media = array of powerful institutions, not just means of communication.
- Communication media has a direct bearing on the exercise of power and can’t be explained without politics.
Constitutive Choices
Key moments that required political choices for the current media system.
Examples:
- First Amendment
- Comprehensive postal system
- US Postal Act of 1792 (one nationalized industry – Postal Service)
- Low rates for the press (newspapers and magazines)
- Rise of popular press
- Public schools
- Freedom of expression
These were designed to connect the states and create a nation.
Origins of the US Media System
The US created a liberal constitutionalist state, designed to curb the rise of state power (prevent a new source of tyranny).
- Fear of tyranny and majority: limiting majority control, separation of powers, checks and balances, indirect democracy (republic).
- John Locke: Legitimate government required consent of the governed, majority rule without violating the fundamental rights of the system.
Alexis de Tocqueville:
“It is their power which impels circulation of political life through all the districts of the vast territory.”
“It is an axiom of political science in the US that the sole means of neutralizing the effects of newspapers is to multiply their number.”
Paul Starr:
“The public sphere did not emerge from material changes; it was created by politics.”
“America’s leading role in the information economy is at least partly a case of unexpected payoffs…In a country where politics is richly despised, a legacy of politically based competitive advantage lies at the foundation of new wealth.”
Wu’s Cycle
- Hobby to Industry
- Jury-rigged contraption to slick production marvel
- Freely accessible to strictly controlled
- Open to closed
Patterns:
- Content: Chaotic, vulgar, hard to monetize.
- Service: Unreliable.
- Security: Questionable.
Problems reach a critical mess, new media tech appears to underperform its potential, a corporation/cartel/mogul moves in, creates a centralized/integrated system that works, in return, receives a certain amount of control (usually with federal government support), allowed to exclude serious competition. BUT, a closed system can be reopened (usually with a push from the government and/or the courts).
Examples:
- Telephone and AT&T
- Motion Pictures and Hollywood
- Broadcast Radio and Television
Advantages of Writing
- Stores humankind’s transmittable knowledge.
- Knowledge is no longer limited to memory (potential knowledge has no limits).
- Written information in fixed form can be transmitted across time accurately (generationally).
- Literates own a powerful tool (or weapon) denied to illiterates and oral societies.
Elizabeth Eisenstein:
“By its very nature, a reading public was not only more dispersed; it was also more atomistic and individualistic than a hearing one.”
Greek Contribution to the Phoenician Alphabet
The addition of vowels.
- Simpler to learn (had a democratizing effect).
- Led to new ways of thinking in abstraction – opened up exploration of science, history, and complex literature.
Eric Havelock:
“Made democracy possible” in Greek society.
Printing Innovations
- Papermaking invented in China.
- Printing using wooden blocks in China.
- First newspaper printed in China.
- World’s oldest book (The Diamond Sutra) block printed in China.
- Movable metal printing in Korea.
- First paper mill built in Christian Europe (Italy).
- Europeans use block printing to produce books.
- Gutenberg creates a printing system from existing inventions (Wu’s cycle?).
- Gutenberg prints the Bible.
- Book banning in Mainz.
- Catholic Church orders papal bull ordering the burning of all books that questioned church teachings, banned any printing without church approval.
Spread of Literacy
Literacy began to spread further than the elites.
- Virtuous and self-fulfilling cycle: The more printing, the more literacy, and the more literacy, the more printing.
- As literacy began to spread, feudalism lost its grip.
- A merchant class began to rise (print helped fuel a nascent market economy).
Elizabeth Eisenstein:
“The effects produced by printing have aroused little controversy, not because views on the topic coincide, but because almost none has been set forth in an explicit and systematic way.”
- Changed how knowledge was preserved and conveyed.
- Allowed for the accumulation of knowledge for the first time.
- Fundamentally altered the mentality of early modern readers.
The Reformation
- More people reading scripture on their own (in their own language).
- Martin Luther’s 95 Theses.
- Luther published the Bible in German (the pope did not approve).
- Reformation was a product of “Literacy and the new printing press.”
- Luther launched a social reform movement which was fueled by print.
- Primarily against corruption in the Catholic Church (selling indulgences).
- Material printed in vernacular languages (not Latin).
- Allowed ideas to spread quickly.
- They were popular (role of emerging capitalism).
Benedict Anderson:
Book publishing jump-started capitalism (print-capitalism).
- Publishers are eager to sell more books.
- Printed books in languages used by the largest number of people.
- Newspapers in common print languages grew in popularity.
- Enhanced the sense of simultaneity (people reading about the same events at the same time), a sense of shared culture.
- Books and newspapers in common languages fueled the growth of shared ideas and values.
- Sense of connection to those whom you would never meet in person.
- Idea of belonging to a nation (something that gave meaning to life).
The Telegraph
Originally, the public’s reaction to the telegraph was split into three categories:
- Celebrants
- Critics (this is black magic)
- Practical Critics (telegraphs are so expensive that when we DO get them, they are always bad news, so we don’t happily receive them)”
More than 50 telegraph companies initially formed, sending messages over great distances (messages called telegrams). Many investors strived to make a fortune here (unreliability led to bankruptcy).
After the Civil War, Congress allowed only Western Union to have control over the system (became a regulated monopoly).
- Built, maintained, and operated the telegraph system, for a profit.
- Established US Model: Government financial role in the creation of communication technologies (but, limited regulation of communication industries).
Impact of the Telegraph:
- “Locomotive and telegraph” made travel and communication cheap and easy…and the exchange of ideas has created “an intellectual revolution.”
- They linked the US like never before (united the nation).
- Turned politics from sectional to national.
Daniel Boorstin:
“The telegraph and the power press and the mass-circulating newspaper brought the same information to the same people thousands of miles apart. Human experience for millions became more instantaneously similar than had ever been imagined possible.”
Why was the Telegraph Important?
- Separated communication from transportation (communication moves ahead of transportation).
- Symbols (language) could arrive well before physical objects.
- It radically changed the way people communicated.
- And it radically changed the way people thought about communication (that changed the way society functioned and the way people lived their lives).
Cultural Impact:
- Public imagination (how the telegraph changed imagery of communication).
- Technological marvel perceived to have almost religious power.
- The mystery was “electricity”…misunderstood by the public and therefore believed to be magical.
Who Used It?
- Primarily businesses and communities, not families and ordinary individuals, therefore effects commercial and political, not so much personal and emotional.
- Regular folks rarely lived more than a few miles from where they were born. Had no reason to send messages over long distances.
High Culture/Elite Culture
“The best that had been thought and known” (Matthew Arnold).
- Express support for the rule of law…show that the accumulation of wealth was natural (the rich deserved their affluence).
- Elites wanted to widen the diffusion of culture (but they worried about debasing it).
Common Responses to New Media
: fear of civilizational decline, fear of moral rot, fear of impact on vulnerable groups (children)