In this chapter I have attempted to sketch a broad introduction on the shift from oral means of communication to print and finally to electronic means. I have also attempted to highlight some of the characteristics of each of these periods and the way the means of communication influenced the lifestyle of society. I have paid special attention to the influence and power of electronic media, as well as attempting to show how electronic media have diversified and the impact it now has on society. Unlike other forms of media before the electronic ones, I have tried to draw out the things that set electronic media apart from the oral and print epochs. Electronic media develop rapidly, diversify rapidly and are open-ended. It combines a number of elements which can be found in oral and print media but presents them in a new way. I have suggested that we have, through the advent of electronic media, gone through a communications revolution.
An interesting example of one such challenge is the recent controversy surrounding the online encyclopaedia 'Wikipedia'. One of the contributors, who claimed to be a professor of theology and canon law, was exposed as a 24-year-old college drop-out! He had made an estimated 20,000 Wikipedia entries.
His biographical information was fake and, when recruited, no-one checked his credentials. The fake professor was exposed by a critic of the online encyclopaedia who knew his true identity and called The New Yorker magazine who had previously run an article on Wikipedia. This episode not only embarrassed Wikipedia but also called into question Wikipedia's reputation and accuracy. It shows one of the countless challenges which confront technological development. (For more on this controversy, see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.ihtml?xml=/news/2007/03/06/wwikil06.xml. Accessed 12 January 2008).
In the next chapter I will outline the work of a number of theorists who have studied and written extensively on human communications and the power of the means of communication, specifically electronic media, and how this influences the attitudes, behaviours and lifestyles of human beings.
CHAPTER THREE
TOWARDS A REALISATION OF THE IMPACT OF ELECTRONIC MEDIA ON HUMAN WORLDVIEW AND BEHAVIOUR
3.1 The Need for Critical Reflection
Electronic media impact on our interaction with the environment and our communications patterns, but also has an impact on the behaviour and lifestyle of society and the attitudes that develop as well as on the way people relate. Some of the impacts electronic technologies have are obvious, but others are more subtle and pervasive and have the power to re-shape and re-design human behaviours, lifestyles and societies.
More and more of our daily life consists of interplay between ourselves, others and the technologies we interact with and use. These technologies enable us, empower us, extend us, but also limit us and cause certain reactions and patterns of behaviour which are not always obvious and go by largely unnoticed. It would be rather meaningless to negate electronic technologies or simply demonise them and long for 'the good old days' when life was shaped by different forces. A critical examination of these technologies enables a better understanding of their effects - the obvious and subtle effects - and also empowers us to direct and use the technologies we interact with in a positive and life-giving qualitative sense. The ability to reflect, the philosopher Socrates suggests in his reported remark 'the unexamined life is not worth living', helps us not only to use technologies more efficiently, but also lays a foundation for a better understanding of the powers of persuasion that are part of their very character.
French radical theoretician, Regis Debray, created a discipline which he called 'mediology'. Debray investigates how abstract ideas can become world-changing ideologies. He developed a new theory of the transmission of ideas through history. He claims that powerful ideas need intermediaries: a whole set of technologies and
environments that translate the input (ideas) into output (ideologies). Debray (Joscelyne1) says:
I would make an analogy between what I call mediology and the strategy of the neurosciences. While the neurosciences are dedicated to overcoming the inherited duality between mind and brain, mediology tries to view history by hybridizing technology and culture. It focuses on the intersections between technology and intellectual life.
Debray would say that technologies of transmission (writing systems, printing presses, and computers) do not necessarily drive change in a predictably specified direction. A technology can lead to very different effects in different mediaspheres. For example, wood-block printing first developed in China but did not evolve into a movable type (presumably because it supported a calligraphic tradition). In Europe wood block printing appears to have led to the Gutenberg culture of typesetting and print shop. Hence context also influences technologies.
Various theorists have grappled with and attempted to assess the impact of technological development on all aspects of human life. In this chapter I will briefly present an overview of what some of these theorists say. Some are well known and others slightly less known. I hope that their ideas, which I now present, will help to uncover and underline some insights into the power of technology and the impact of communications technology, and hence create a basis for what follows.
'No date supplied. Interview by Andrew Joscelyne available at:
http://www.generation-online.Org/p/fpdebrayl.htm (Accessed 13 March 2008).