To blog or not to blog, that is the question. It's been over a month since my last post here on Blog Time Passing. I guess it has something to do with fatigue, maybe health, maybe too many other things vying for my time and attention, maybe my interest or desire to blog has dissipated, or my inspiration's gone. No doubt, it's a combination of these and other factors.
The question before me now is, do I take this as a hiatus, not all that long in real time but seemingly so in blog years (which are akin to dog years), and pick up again? Or should I call the whole thing off? When you write a book, it has a beginning, middle, and end, the book itself, and also the process which comes to an end when the book is finally in print.
Blogs, on the other hand, are potentially a neverending story. But not necessarily so. Could you start a blog that consists of only one page, just one post? Sure! Why not? Of course, that would not be using the medium to its fullest capacity.
But that's besides the point.
Just, now, do I pick up where I left off, more or less? Do I blog on, dudes and dudettes?
To blog or not to blog, that is the question.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
The Creative Power of Media Ecology
It's been a busy time, preparing for the Ninth Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association, which will be held next week (June 19-22) at Santa Clara University in California. The program is posted on the MEA website.
And we have been fortunate to have received some advanced publicity from an Los Angeles area periodical called Wide-Eyed. My friend, colleague, and co-conspirator in the MEA, Corey Anton of Grand Valley State University, is a regular contributor, the editor being one of his former students, and the current issue, which can be viewed or downloaded from their website, includes a couple of pieces by him, an interview with MEA Board member Doug Rushkoff, and a piece that they asked me to write. So, you can go take a look, even download the PDF, but for everyone's convenience and my own archiving purposes, I'm going to paste the short essay in below.
And there you have it, minus the cool and groovy layout and graphic design. Many thanks to Wide-Eyed editor Benjamin Hunter for getting the word out about the MEA over on the west coast.
And we have been fortunate to have received some advanced publicity from an Los Angeles area periodical called Wide-Eyed. My friend, colleague, and co-conspirator in the MEA, Corey Anton of Grand Valley State University, is a regular contributor, the editor being one of his former students, and the current issue, which can be viewed or downloaded from their website, includes a couple of pieces by him, an interview with MEA Board member Doug Rushkoff, and a piece that they asked me to write. So, you can go take a look, even download the PDF, but for everyone's convenience and my own archiving purposes, I'm going to paste the short essay in below.
The
Creative
Power of
Media Ecology
BY: LANCE STRATE
Chances are, you’re reading this alone.
Even if there are other people nearby, I
doubt they are reading this along with you.
Even if they happen to be looking over your
shoulder, they aren’t reading the same
words at the exact same time as you are.
Reading is an alienating experience, turning
us into individuals.
Speaking, on the other hand, brings us
together in the simultaneity of sound, and
physical presence. Speech immediately
places us in a relationship, makes us kin,
forges tribal bonds. The reader is an
isolated individual, the audience a
collective, a group united by the experience
of listening.
In speech, we are joined in the moment,
which is fleeting. As Walter Ong said,
“sound only exists as it is going out of
existence.” Writing fixes words in a
permanent form, material and visual, so
that I can communicate to you from a
distance, and a time now past.
And as for me, I am little more than a
figment of your imagination. I am not
present for you, nor can you see or hear
me. In reading this, you are essentially
bypassing the physical, and reading my
mind, thinking my thoughts, or rather,
thinking thoughts that I once had, and set
down in writing.
Of course, to me, you are even less real, a
barely imagined fantasy, a glimmer of a
possibility, an abstract and generalized
other. I jot these words down on a pad,
addressed to no one in particular. By the
time you read this, these words will have
been typed into my computer, revised, sent
on to the editor, edited and copy-edited,
put into page layout, proofed, reproduced,
and distributed.
By the time you read these words, the me
that wrote them will be gone, replaced by a
slightly older version of myself, and I
myself will read them as if they were
written by a stranger—as Eric Havelock
put it, “writing separates the knower from
the known.” By the time you read these
words, I may not even be alive. But through
these words, a trace of me can live on.
The written word, independent of the
specific content or uses it is put to, is
fundamentally different from speech. And
a handwritten document is fundamentally
different from the impersonal technology
of print. And the printed page is fundamentally
different from text appearing on
your computer screen.
A picture is not worth a thousand words,
contrary to popular wisdom, as Susanne K.
Langer has shown us. Pictures may serve
as evidence, but they cannot present
arguments. They do not make statements,
unless we add a caption or interpretation.
They can be faked, but they are neither true
nor false, they just are. As Neil Postman
argued, the reason why the Second
Commandment forbids the use of all
imagery is that it represents an attempt to
change the way people think and view the
world, from one rooted in imagery and the
concrete, to a more abstract and literate
approach that open the door to monotheism
and ethics.
Every medium has its own bias, influencing
how and what we communicate. Artists
know that the same subject will yield
different results if they use oil paint or
watercolors, or if they sketch with charcoal,
or pastels, or if they were to form a
sculpture by chiseling stone, or carving
wood, or molding clay. Musicians can tell
you that the same melody creates a
different effect if played on violin, or
trumpet, or kazoo. This simple rule applies
to all of our media, and every one of our
technologies. And so we arrive at McLuhan’s
famous aphorism, “the medium is the
message,” by which he also meant that our
technologies and our symbol systems
influence the way that we think, feel, and
perceive, as well as our culture and
social organization. The key to understanding
media is to understand media
as environments, to understand that we
live within our words and our images,
our pages and screens, and of course
within our buildings and cars and cities.
Media ecology, the study of media as
environments, is the key to the most
creative mode of thinking imaginable. And,
it is the key to our future.
LANCE STRATE PHD.
Graduate Director of Communication
and Media Studies at Fordham University
President of The Media Ecology Association
And there you have it, minus the cool and groovy layout and graphic design. Many thanks to Wide-Eyed editor Benjamin Hunter for getting the word out about the MEA over on the west coast.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
YouTube Celebrities
One of the fundamental arguments that I made in my doctoral dissertation is that whenever a new medium is introduced, it in turn leads to the introduction of a new kind of hero who becomes well known through that new medium. This pattern can be traced back to oral culture which gives us the poet or singer of tales as hero, while writing gives us the author, intellectual, and scholar, newspapers give us the reporter and editor as heroes, movies give us movies stars, radio gives us the radio star, television gives us the television personality, etc.
The audiovisual and electronic media of the past two centuries are generally associated with the rise of a new kind of hero often referred to as the celebrity. New media give us the internet star, the blogger as hero, etc. And for anyone whose been paying attention to YouTube, it's impossible to miss the fact that this new social medium has generated its own set of new heroes. Let's call them YouTube celebrities, shall we?
So, not too long ago South Park ran a hilarious episode entitled "Canada on Strike" (Episode 1204, Original Air Date: 2008-04-02). The website episode summary says, "The head of the World Canadian Bureau leads the country into a long and painful strike and the responsibility of brokering a settlement rests with the boys," and apparently you can watch the episode online if you click here.
But I'm going to add a clip from the episode here, one that deals with and provides a humorous critique of YouTube celebrity. This clip was posted on YouTube, and in order to keep it from being removed due to copyright violations, the poster added clips from the actual original YouTube videos that the episode makes reference to into the clip itself, so it's a bit of a mash up.
I should add that I got this clip from our Interactive Rams class blog here at Fordham University, where my student Luke Forand originally posted it.
Now then, another of my students, Brian McNamara (aka Prax Jarvin, his MySpace and Twitter alias), just sent out a tweet over Twitter a little while ago that read:
On Twitter, that's how you refer to people to create a link to their twitter page, with the @ sign in front of their screen name. So anyway, the blurb on YouTube says:
And the video itself provides another comment on YouTube celebrity, this one not so biting and ironic, but interestingly pulling the newer YouTube celebs into the orbit of the slightly older music video celebrities (by celebrity logic, both benefit from this juxtaposition). Anyway, here's the video for your viewing pleasure:
By the way, anyone interested in my media ecological perspective on culture heroes, and celebrities, might want to read my latest publication on the subject, which came out just a couple of months ago: "Heroes and/as Communication" in Heroes in a Global World, edited by Susan Drucker and Gary Gumpert (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2008, pp. 19-45).
Well, anyway, following South Park, I can't wait to collect my theoretical dollars for this blog post. How do you spend theoretical dollars, anyway?
The audiovisual and electronic media of the past two centuries are generally associated with the rise of a new kind of hero often referred to as the celebrity. New media give us the internet star, the blogger as hero, etc. And for anyone whose been paying attention to YouTube, it's impossible to miss the fact that this new social medium has generated its own set of new heroes. Let's call them YouTube celebrities, shall we?
So, not too long ago South Park ran a hilarious episode entitled "Canada on Strike" (Episode 1204, Original Air Date: 2008-04-02). The website episode summary says, "The head of the World Canadian Bureau leads the country into a long and painful strike and the responsibility of brokering a settlement rests with the boys," and apparently you can watch the episode online if you click here.
But I'm going to add a clip from the episode here, one that deals with and provides a humorous critique of YouTube celebrity. This clip was posted on YouTube, and in order to keep it from being removed due to copyright violations, the poster added clips from the actual original YouTube videos that the episode makes reference to into the clip itself, so it's a bit of a mash up.
I should add that I got this clip from our Interactive Rams class blog here at Fordham University, where my student Luke Forand originally posted it.
Now then, another of my students, Brian McNamara (aka Prax Jarvin, his MySpace and Twitter alias), just sent out a tweet over Twitter a little while ago that read:
I really think @LanceStrate will enjoy the new Weezer video. Very interactive media!!! http://tinyurl.com/5qnukg
On Twitter, that's how you refer to people to create a link to their twitter page, with the @ sign in front of their screen name. So anyway, the blurb on YouTube says:
Watch the official video for "Pork and Beans" from Weezer starring some familiar YouTube faces. New Self-Titled "Red Album" out June 3rd, 2008!
And the video itself provides another comment on YouTube celebrity, this one not so biting and ironic, but interestingly pulling the newer YouTube celebs into the orbit of the slightly older music video celebrities (by celebrity logic, both benefit from this juxtaposition). Anyway, here's the video for your viewing pleasure:
By the way, anyone interested in my media ecological perspective on culture heroes, and celebrities, might want to read my latest publication on the subject, which came out just a couple of months ago: "Heroes and/as Communication" in Heroes in a Global World, edited by Susan Drucker and Gary Gumpert (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2008, pp. 19-45).
Well, anyway, following South Park, I can't wait to collect my theoretical dollars for this blog post. How do you spend theoretical dollars, anyway?
Monday, May 26, 2008
The Future of Consciousness
A few weeks ago, I converted and uploaded to YouTube a video of an address I delivered at an Institute of General Semantics symposium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City on April 23, 2005. The title of the address is "The Future of Consciousness," and the topic was suggested/requested by IGS trustee and New York Society for General Semantics President Allen Flagg. Given that the symposium was for the general public rather than being limited to academics, the address is pretty accessible, I think, and not bad at all, if I do say so myself. Because YouTube places limits on uploads (no longer than ten minutes, more or less), I had to cut it up into seven segments. Also there are a few glitches, but nothing fatal. So, without further ado, here are the videos:
Saturday, May 17, 2008
The Medium is the Mother
That title I put up there is rather intriguing, if I do say so myself, and we could explore the possibility of maternal media, beginning with Lewis Mumford's notion that container technologies specifically mimic feminine biological attributes, to the notion of the mother city, the idea of books as containers of knowledge, to the contemporary electronic media environment with its boob tubes, motherboards, and the matrix (aka womb).
But my purpose in this post is not to explore how the medium might be the mother, nor to discuss the mother of all media (the matrix?), but rather simply to present you with the link to a Mother's Day radio program that I participated in. And before you say, hey stupid, Mother's Day was last week, let me explain that, while the program aired on WFUV-FM on the day before Mother's Day, May 10, it was not made available online until this week.
I should add that WFUV is Fordham University's radio station, but it's not a typical college station, but rather a major public broadcaster in the New York City Metropolitan Area. From the website, you can access live streaming audio and also streaming audio archives, as well as download podcasts--click here for the listening options menu.
The program I appeared on is called Cityscape, which is described on the website as "An inside look at the people, places and spirit of New York City and its surroundings, with host George Bodarky." I should point out that George was one of our outstanding undergraduates back when I was a junior faculty member at Fordham, now he's an outstanding seasoned professional broadcaster, and it was a lot of fun to have him interview me for the program segment. I should also note that this was all set up by his producer, and my MA student, Rasheeda Winfield.
The program is described on the website as follows: "A special Mother's Day edition of Cityscape. Some New York City mothers talk about their daily challenges, a suburban mom talks about life as the lead vocalist of a rock band, and we explore the history of motherhood as seen through pop culture." Actually, the first segment involves mothers who blog, that is, are blogists (the term we established early on in the history of this blog). And my segment is specifically about television situation comedies.
And to be perfectly honest, the first segment with the mother-bloggers, oops, I mean mother-blogists, and the second with the mother-rocker, are the best part of the show. But there's also the third part with me, which is mildly entertaining. There doesn't seem to be a podcast available yet, but you can access the streaming archive if you click here.
Oh, mama, you're gonna like this! I hope...
But my purpose in this post is not to explore how the medium might be the mother, nor to discuss the mother of all media (the matrix?), but rather simply to present you with the link to a Mother's Day radio program that I participated in. And before you say, hey stupid, Mother's Day was last week, let me explain that, while the program aired on WFUV-FM on the day before Mother's Day, May 10, it was not made available online until this week.
I should add that WFUV is Fordham University's radio station, but it's not a typical college station, but rather a major public broadcaster in the New York City Metropolitan Area. From the website, you can access live streaming audio and also streaming audio archives, as well as download podcasts--click here for the listening options menu.
The program I appeared on is called Cityscape, which is described on the website as "An inside look at the people, places and spirit of New York City and its surroundings, with host George Bodarky." I should point out that George was one of our outstanding undergraduates back when I was a junior faculty member at Fordham, now he's an outstanding seasoned professional broadcaster, and it was a lot of fun to have him interview me for the program segment. I should also note that this was all set up by his producer, and my MA student, Rasheeda Winfield.
The program is described on the website as follows: "A special Mother's Day edition of Cityscape. Some New York City mothers talk about their daily challenges, a suburban mom talks about life as the lead vocalist of a rock band, and we explore the history of motherhood as seen through pop culture." Actually, the first segment involves mothers who blog, that is, are blogists (the term we established early on in the history of this blog). And my segment is specifically about television situation comedies.
And to be perfectly honest, the first segment with the mother-bloggers, oops, I mean mother-blogists, and the second with the mother-rocker, are the best part of the show. But there's also the third part with me, which is mildly entertaining. There doesn't seem to be a podcast available yet, but you can access the streaming archive if you click here.
Oh, mama, you're gonna like this! I hope...
Monday, May 12, 2008
Farewell to the Interactive Rams
Today I gave the final exam to my Interactive Media class, then graded it and calculated the final grades. All that remains is for me to enter the grades via out web interface tomorrow. And while the students were taking the text, I posted the following video on our Interactive Rams website. The video was recorded during our final class meeting:
And that's the last installment of Interactive Rams, at least for now. This was a semester and a class to remember, and I wish the best to all of my wonderful students.
And that's the last installment of Interactive Rams, at least for now. This was a semester and a class to remember, and I wish the best to all of my wonderful students.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Executive Director, Institute of General Semantics
So, it is about time I posted an announcement on this blog about my newest project. A little while ago, I was appointed as the new Executive Director of the Institute of General Semantics. You can click on the name, Institute of General Semantics, to get to the website of the Institute of General Semantics, and I've also added a link to my list of links over there on the right. If you head over to the site, by all means, have a look around. And if you are on MySpace, check out our profile there (you can do so even if you're not registered), and send a friend request our way (you need to be registered to do that).
I think the website needs some work, but there's lots of useful information about general semantics to be found, and you can even download PDF files of previous issues of ETC: The Journal of General Semantics, but hurry, I'm not sure how long we'll leave that there. But for now, may I suggest the July 2007 issue, which includes an article by me that isn't half bad.
And please become a member. We're having a link for membership added to the home page, but until then you can join by going to the Shop, or just click here. If you don't join, they might fire me (just kidding, but to clarify, I have not quit my "day job" at Fordham University, and will also continue as President of the Media Ecology Association until my term is up at the beginning of 2009).
There is also a pretty good entry on general semantics in wikipedia.
So, if you already know about general semantics, that's great, and if not, you can learn all about it from these sites. Simply put, general semantics is all about understanding the structure of language as a medium, and understanding symbols as the tools and technology through which we relate to our environment.
And in understanding the bias of these media and technologies, we can use them more effectively than we would otherwise, allowing us to gain a better grip on reality, both individually and collectively. Not surprisingly, general semantics is closely related to media ecology, the former serving as a major building block for the latter, and Neil Postman was known to say that media ecology is general semantics writ large.
General semantics has its roots in scientific thinking, as applied to communication and cognition. And it is very much about human consciousness, and its potential to evolve, which makes for some very fascinating explorations. General semantics is also an excellent means for unlocking creative potential, and I hope to place more emphasis on creative expression and the arts than previously, and also on the relevance of general semantics to new media, including all the wonderful social media like blogs, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, etc.
And I am just going to leave it at that for now, and let you go see the sites, if you care to. But I will post more on this topic in the days to come. You can Count (Korzybski) on it!
I think the website needs some work, but there's lots of useful information about general semantics to be found, and you can even download PDF files of previous issues of ETC: The Journal of General Semantics, but hurry, I'm not sure how long we'll leave that there. But for now, may I suggest the July 2007 issue, which includes an article by me that isn't half bad.
And please become a member. We're having a link for membership added to the home page, but until then you can join by going to the Shop, or just click here. If you don't join, they might fire me (just kidding, but to clarify, I have not quit my "day job" at Fordham University, and will also continue as President of the Media Ecology Association until my term is up at the beginning of 2009).
There is also a pretty good entry on general semantics in wikipedia.
So, if you already know about general semantics, that's great, and if not, you can learn all about it from these sites. Simply put, general semantics is all about understanding the structure of language as a medium, and understanding symbols as the tools and technology through which we relate to our environment.
And in understanding the bias of these media and technologies, we can use them more effectively than we would otherwise, allowing us to gain a better grip on reality, both individually and collectively. Not surprisingly, general semantics is closely related to media ecology, the former serving as a major building block for the latter, and Neil Postman was known to say that media ecology is general semantics writ large.
General semantics has its roots in scientific thinking, as applied to communication and cognition. And it is very much about human consciousness, and its potential to evolve, which makes for some very fascinating explorations. General semantics is also an excellent means for unlocking creative potential, and I hope to place more emphasis on creative expression and the arts than previously, and also on the relevance of general semantics to new media, including all the wonderful social media like blogs, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, etc.
And I am just going to leave it at that for now, and let you go see the sites, if you care to. But I will post more on this topic in the days to come. You can Count (Korzybski) on it!
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
New Media Maven Andrew Rasiej
We had an outstanding guest lecture in our Interactive Media class by new media maven Andrew Rasiej, who I first met at the 2006 Media Ecology Association convention, where he was a featured speaker (courtesy of our mutual friend, Douglas Rushkoff).
Andrew is a fascinating individual, and if you click on his name above, it will take you to his personal website, where you can find his biography. Just to note some highlights, he started the New York City nightclub Irving Plaza back in 1990, he pioneered making music available online, he was a major advocate for bring computers and the internet to public schools in New York City, he ran for Public Advocate in New York, chaired the Howard Dean Technology Advisory Council for the 2004 primaries, is a consultant for the Democratic Party, and an activist for openness and transparency in politics and government.
Needless to say, the students were impressed. And after his talk was over, I prevailed upon him to sit down for a quick video interview for YouTube, so here it is:
And here are the links that he mentioned in the video, for your convenience:
Personal Democracy
techPresident
mouse
Sunlight Foundation
And once more, here's a heartfelt thank you to Andrew Rasiej for spending time with us and sharing his amazing experiences and valuable insights.
Andrew is a fascinating individual, and if you click on his name above, it will take you to his personal website, where you can find his biography. Just to note some highlights, he started the New York City nightclub Irving Plaza back in 1990, he pioneered making music available online, he was a major advocate for bring computers and the internet to public schools in New York City, he ran for Public Advocate in New York, chaired the Howard Dean Technology Advisory Council for the 2004 primaries, is a consultant for the Democratic Party, and an activist for openness and transparency in politics and government.
Needless to say, the students were impressed. And after his talk was over, I prevailed upon him to sit down for a quick video interview for YouTube, so here it is:
And here are the links that he mentioned in the video, for your convenience:
Personal Democracy
techPresident
mouse
Sunlight Foundation
And once more, here's a heartfelt thank you to Andrew Rasiej for spending time with us and sharing his amazing experiences and valuable insights.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Mind and Brain
The differences between the left and right hemisphere of the brain correspond to certain differences in modes of communication. The left hemisphere being verbal and analytical, the right being nonverbal and holistic. McLuhan tried to integrate these ideas into his understanding of media in his later work, and others such as Leonard Shlain have built on that idea. And of course Julian Jaynes was all about the bicameral mind.
So while there is no medium here in a traditional sense, we can consider the brain as the medium for the mind, and this video provides a fascinating look at consciousness in relation to biology and the nervous system, an interest as well of general semantics. It also may reveal something about the alternate consciousness of individuals with autism. And it also touches upon a bit of spirituality.
All in all, this is an extraordinary video, and I highly recommend it to you:
So while there is no medium here in a traditional sense, we can consider the brain as the medium for the mind, and this video provides a fascinating look at consciousness in relation to biology and the nervous system, an interest as well of general semantics. It also may reveal something about the alternate consciousness of individuals with autism. And it also touches upon a bit of spirituality.
All in all, this is an extraordinary video, and I highly recommend it to you:
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Tables Turned
As a follow-up on our amateurish webcam videos in our Interactive Media class, some of the students asked me questions. Here's Part I:
And now Part II:
And that's the way it was!
And now Part II:
And that's the way it was!
Friday, April 25, 2008
My Interactive Media Students
Nothing earth-shattering here, and altogether amateurish, but we had a little fun in our Interactive Media class playing around with the old web cam, and since it's all about me, me, me, that makes it blogworthy, I think.
A few of the students were absent, so Part Two took place the following week:
And that's all folks... for now!
A few of the students were absent, so Part Two took place the following week:
And that's all folks... for now!
Thursday, April 24, 2008
A Good Read, I'm Told
So, I don't know how it happened, but April is almost over and nary a post from me. Well, there's still time to rectify that situation, so here goes.
I've been meaning to share with you the book review of Echoes and Reflections: On Media Ecology as a Field of Study that my fellow media ecologist Peter Fallon posted on the goodreads.com site. You can go there directly by clicking here, and go to his main page with all of this reviews by clicking here, but I'm sure that Peter won't mind if I reproduce his review of my book here in Blog Time Passing. So, here goes:
There have been other reviews of the book, and overall I've been quite pleased with them, but this one is the most meaningful for me. And so, let me take this opportunity to say thank you to Peter, who is himself the author of Printing, Literacy, And Education in Eighteenth-Century Ireland: Why the Irish Speak English
, the winner of the Media Ecology Association's 2007 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in Media Ecology. Thanks, Peter!
I've been meaning to share with you the book review of Echoes and Reflections: On Media Ecology as a Field of Study that my fellow media ecologist Peter Fallon posted on the goodreads.com site. You can go there directly by clicking here, and go to his main page with all of this reviews by clicking here, but I'm sure that Peter won't mind if I reproduce his review of my book here in Blog Time Passing. So, here goes:
bookshelves: media-ecology
Read in December, 2007recommends it for: anyone interested in media ecology
Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, author/editor of an already impressive array of books (including the Hampton Press’s Media Ecology series, of which the present book is a recent release), graduate of NYU’s Doctoral program in Media Ecology, irrepressible wordsmith (and punster), blogger, and one of the founders and current President of the Media Ecology Association, Lance Strate’s ubiquitous presence in the field of media studies makes his name as recognizable to its adherents as the names of McLuhan, Innis, Ellul, and Ong. Furthermore, as not only an organizational leader but also an intellectual facilitator of media ecologists in the pursuit of their studies and work, Lance Strate has, I would suspect, garnered a great deal of good will for both his organization and himself. He has been very helpful and encouraging, for instance, to me.
So there is a certain danger (or at the very least, presumptuousness) involved in reviewing a book by a fellow whose face deserves to be chiseled on the Media Ecology equivalent of Mount Rushmore. I’m not sure I remember what I was thinking when I agreed to this. But fully cognizant of those risks, without a sentence more of equivocation, I can report that I found Echoes and Reflections to be a deeply spiritual book of soulful yearning: for knowledge, for patience, for strength, and for understanding of some of the deeper, more confounding mysteries of life.
Echoes and Reflections: On Media Ecology as a Field of Study is a difficult book to categorize, especially to anyone who might come upon this journal and this review from beyond the horizons of the Media Ecological perspective. Those people might very well be confused by both the structure of Strate’s two-part presentation and the seeming heterogeneity of his content. There is, it should be noted, no essential conflict between the first and second parts of this book; this is (as Media Ecologists know) the beauty of the Media Ecological perspective, and the genius of the author in making connections not immediately apparent to the unprepared observer.
The title of the book, “Echoes and Reflections,” serves as an organizing metaphor for the book itself and as an observation about the various dualities that seem to present themselves to us in our studies; some dichotomous, some complementary, some in opposition, some in apposition. Sound and sight. Speech and writing. The subjective and the objective. Faith and reason. Orality and literacy. We are constantly reminded, we media ecologists, of the ecological nature of not only human communication, but of human thought, of human culture, and of the human being itself.
Part One of Echoes and Reflections is an impressively comprehensive review of the canon of media ecological literature. It is an echo of all that the founders, the pioneers of Media Ecology, have told us. Reading it, I was reminded that William the Conqueror, first Norman King of England, commissioned a book called “the domesday (doomsday) book,” which documented every piece of property in his kingdom, every chattel, every landowner and all of his holdings, for the purposes of taxation. Oral legend maintains that if England were to cease to exist, it could be reconstructed on the basis of descriptions held in the Domesday book. A similar attention to detail is present in Part One of Strate’s book, and it is not too egregious an act of hyperbole to suggest that if Media Ecology were to disappear from the human noetic world, it could be rebuilt with the help of Part One of Echoes and Reflections.
Strate moves systematically and determinedly through descriptive essays on the origins of Media Ecology, on McLuhan and Innis and “the Toronto school”; on Walter Ong and orality/literacy studies; on the complementary and equally influential relationship of media history and the history of technology, on Lynn White’s influence on Marshall McLuhan and McLuhan’s on Elizabeth Eisenstein; on Neil Postman and “the New York school”; on Mumford, Ellul, and the study technologies and their effects; and on the “formal roots” of Media Ecology. The extended essay that is the core of Part One of this book traces both the historical and conceptual foundations of Media Ecology and could easily serve as the curriculum of an excellent program of graduate study. Those with the patience and determination to read the books described in Part One are certainly Media Ecologists, with or without formal graduate study or credentials.
I couldn’t help but think, however, that is was a shame that more explanation and exegesis was not included in Part One of Echoes and Reflections; I know, however, that it was neither Strate’s purpose nor his luxury to provide anything more than a conceptual map of the Media Ecological territory. To have attempted to do so would have meant writing not a book, but an encyclopedia.
Still, in his fascinating account of the construction of the field, as well as in the descriptions of the seminal works he provides, Strate makes it clear that he shares the same yearning that McLuhan, Innis, and Postman felt; that Ong, and Ellul, Mumford, White, and Eisenstein felt: a yearning for greater understanding of “the extensions of man,” a yearning based on the echo of intuition, that “Aha!” moment of the mind, when we are blessed to see, for no good reason, the intimate connection among ourselves, our tools, our thoughts, and our beliefs about the nature of the world.
In Part Two, Strate plumbs the depths of this yearning as he reflects upon his dual but inseparable experiences as a media scholar and as the father of an autistic child. He muses about the changing nature of the self in a global moment of transition from literacy to electricity. Like Innis, in his concern for finding a balance in human civilization between concerns for time and for space, Strate yearns for a balance between the narcissistic individualism of literacy and the echolalia of the new orality brought about by electric media. The echoing effect of orality can bring us stability and reassurance and the semblance of certainty, but can stunt intellectual growth by inhibiting curiosity; the narcissistic visual emphasis of literacy can open us to new information but in so doing can cut us off from the other and, so, from ourselves.
The metaphor of amputation – of “cutting off” and being cut off – is not unfamiliar to Media Ecologists. It is the logical corollary to a similar metaphor of medium as prosthesis: an “extension of man.” Strate considers the “cutting off” involved in the autistic phenomenon: the cutting off of the autistic person from his/her environment, the cutting off of mind from body, the cutting off of abstract, conceptual, propositional thought from the concrete, sensory, and presentational.
Strate suggests that “the parallels between autism and orality are striking,” (p. 116) and notes that the metal operations of children described by Piaget, the “savage mind” described by Levi-Strauss, and the thought processes of people with various brain defects described by Sacks (and others) all bear a striking resemblance to certain characteristics of oral cultures. But autism is not orality any more than oral culture is savage culture. The stresses of electronic culture and the rise of a powerful new strain of orality are not responsible for Sarah Strate’s condition (one can almost hear Strate insisting); but what is?
Strate refuses to let our hyper-mediated electronic culture entirely off the hook, at the very least for the ways in which it exacerbates the autistic condition: “From the fluorescent lighting, which many find painful, to the sensory bombardment and information overload, which disrupt the thought processes of us all, our culture offers neither the routine predictability and slow pace of primary orality, nor the quiet contemplation of traditional literacy.” (p. 126) Our culture may not be the problem; it certainly is not the solution.
In the end, Strate cannot solve the mystery of his daughter’s autism; I believe he knew this when he sat down to write Echoes and Reflections. Yet I sense a very powerful need for him to have gone through this exercise in contemplative reason – he had no choice – and his knowledge of human communication, of the interplay of technology and culture, of theories of mind, and of human cognition were both the impetus and the tools of this exercise. He had no choice. He did not answer the question, but in asking it he reaffirms everything that those great thinkers celebrated in Part One of Strate’s book had in common and asked of us as media scholars: investigate those connections between (in the words of George Herbert Mead) mind, self, and society.
In Echoes and Reflections, Lance Strate has written a powerful and unusual book, one that is at the same time erudite and scholarly, and soulfully spiritual. It is redolent of another type of mystery, the mystery of love. It is an echo of a scholar’s love for learning, thinking, and understanding, and a reflection of a father’s love for his child.
There have been other reviews of the book, and overall I've been quite pleased with them, but this one is the most meaningful for me. And so, let me take this opportunity to say thank you to Peter, who is himself the author of Printing, Literacy, And Education in Eighteenth-Century Ireland: Why the Irish Speak English
, the winner of the Media Ecology Association's 2007 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in Media Ecology. Thanks, Peter!Monday, March 31, 2008
Autism Awareness
So, April is Autism Awareness Month, and April 2nd is World Autism Awareness Day (as approved by the United Nations General Assembly). As you may know, my daughter, who is now twelve years old, has autism, and I've posted on this subject several times previously.
We have put up a family page to help raise money for one of the organizations involved in increasing autism awareness and engaging in autism advocacy, The New Jersey Center for Outreach and Services for the Autism Community (COSAC), and you can go to that page by clicking here or on the link right above my picture on the upper right. And if you have the inclination, and of course only if you can afford to do so, then any donation you can make would be appreciated.
COSAC is an excellent resource for information about autism, as is the Autism Society of America, and Autism Speaks. Also, CNN is providing comprehensive (for cable news) coverage of autism, especially for World Autism Awareness Day.
Now, here's a list of my previous posts directly related to autism, for what they're worth, in order from the earliest to the latest:
One of the Faces of Autism
Autism and Advocacy
Two of the Faces of Autism
Autism and Seizures
Seizure Synchronicity
An Uncertain Independence Day
Second Seizure
Born on a Blue Day
David Byrne Talking Autism?
I've left out the posts that make minor references to autism, and to be honest, I forgot I had posted this many times on the topic.Autism and Advocacy
Two of the Faces of Autism
Autism and Seizures
Seizure Synchronicity
An Uncertain Independence Day
Second Seizure
Born on a Blue Day
David Byrne Talking Autism?
And while we're on the subject, let me share some basic information with you in this post, adapted from my book, Echoes and Reflections: On Media Ecology as a Field of Study:
Autism is defined as a disorder of the self, and it is a disorder profoundly linked to problems in communication and perception. And while it is a biological condition, the product of a neurological abnormality, present before birth, which affects the development of the brain, no medical tests have yet been developed to test it; instead, diagnosis depends upon behavioral observation. Autism therefore is a fuzzy category, with shifting boundaries. First identified in 1943 by Leo Kanner, it has come to be understood as a spectrum disorder, meaning that there is a continuum between the severest cases, through the mildest which may go undiagnosed, and perhaps extending into nonautistic normalcy. And it is a syndrome, meaning that it encompasses a wide variety of traits, some of which may or may not be present in any given case, and which may appear in any number of combinations. Autism is referred to as a pervasive developmental disorder, it occurs in males four times as often as it does in females, and it affects approximately a million and a half people in the United States, with a rate of occurrence now believed to be 1 in 150 (in New Jersey, where I live, it's more like 1 in 94, and the New York Times has speculated that the national average may actually be closer to this).
This disorder is diagnosed by three main criteria. The first has to do with impairments in social interaction; Kanner referred to this as "autistic aloneness." There are problems developing relationships, reciprocating emotions, and sharing interests with others, as well as a blindness to nonverbal social cues. The autistic seems lost in his or her own world, and an alien in our own. The common ground that typical individuals take for granted is simply not there. The second impairment is in communication, both verbal and nonverbal, and often includes delays in language acquisition or sometimes a complete lack of speech. Moreover, there may be a lack of imaginative play, and of interest in narrative. There may also be related problems with the processing of sensory information. At times, the individual may seem impervious to sensory stimulation, not reacting to sounds or to physical pain, while at other times he or she may be overly sensitive to certain sensory input. The third criterion is described as "restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, or activity." Both simple motions like hand flapping and complex behavioral patterns may be enacted repeatedly. There is a tendency to favor ritual and routine, and to behave obsessively and compulsively. Even in mild cases, interests may be pursued with unusual focus and intensity.
The majority of autistics are categorized as mentally retarded, but of course assessing intelligence is highly problematic when dealing with individuals who may be unable or simply unwilling to speak. Only 20% attain a relatively typical level of intelligence, and are referred to as high functioning (Asperger's Disorder or Syndrome is also considered a form of high-functioning autism). Some autistics have savant skills, highly developed abilities in one specialized area, such as mathematics, computer science, music, art, architecture, mechanics, biology, or simply memorization, visualization, or manual dexterity. These autistic savants are usually well below normal in other areas, however, and autistics in general are particularly handicapped in regards to social and emotional intelligence.
One possible savant was Albert Einstein, who did not speak until the age of 5, had a great deal of difficulty with social interaction, and possessed savant skills in mathematics and visualization. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein also exhibited autistic traits; this adds new shades of meaning to his famous quote, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" given the mutism characteristic of some autistics, and the problems that many of them face in language acquisition. One of the founding fathers of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, may have been mildly autistic, and the same may be true of America's greatest inventor, Thomas Edison, and his modern-day counterpart, Bill Gates.
Along with intellectuals, artists appear likely to have a better than average incidence of autism, as social impairment would not be a factor in solitary creative pursuits, while visual and musical savant skills would be decidedly advantageous. Thus, Vincent Van Gogh's seizures and psychological difficulties may have been the result of the syndrome, and possibly Andy Warhol's antisocial tendencies and love of repetition; among musicians, Béla Bartók and Glenn Gould both exhibited autistic traits. Religion too, with its elements of repetitive ritual and spiritual isolation, would appeal to high functioning autistics, such as, possibly, the legendary follower of St. Francis, Brother Juniper, as well as the holy fools of Russian Orthodox tradition, and the Buddha. This sort of speculation focuses on extraordinary individuals because of their celebrity, and because history tends to ignore the ordinary and the low-functioning alike. One prominent exception, well known in the field of communication, is the 18th century wild boy of Aveyron, the subject of François Truffaut's 1970 film, L'Enfant Sauvage (aka The Wild Child). A strong case has been made that the original "wild boy" was not raised by wolves, but rather was an autistic child who had been abandoned or run off.
Accounts of autistic individuals can also be found in fictional form. Dustin Hoffman's portrayal of an autistic adult in the 1988 film Rain Man is particularly well known, and the recent bestselling novel by Christopher Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, takes the reader directly into the interior landscape of the autistic mind. Often unacknowledged is the fact that Tommy, the hero of the 1969 rock opera written by Pete Townsend of The Who, was patterned after autistic children Townsend had observed. Although Tommy's condition is the result of childhood trauma, his symptoms have little to do with repressed memories. Instead, he is unable to hear or see, even though there is nothing wrong with his sensory organs, and he does not speak, even though he is capable of it. Tommy spends his time gazing in the mirror, not out of narcissistic vanity, but because he is lost in his own world; and he displays savant skills of tactile dexterity when placed in front of a pinball machine. Tommy's "amazing journey" actually parallels the delayed development of high functioning autistics, who as adults gain the ability to communicate something about their experiences.
For now, I just want to thank you for your attention, and support.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
McCain Cool and the Political Illusion
So, I had a Letter to the Editor published in today's New York Times. That's not earth shattering news, I know, but on the other hand, it's not too shabby, either. The letter was in response to an Op-Ed piece by Neil Gabler that was published on Wednesday, March 26th, entitled The Maverick and the Media. So let's see what Neil, who does know a thing or two about media, especially film, had to say:
So far, Gabler has concentrated on what is sometimes referred to as elite integration, the close connections that develop between the press corps on the one hand, and politicians and public officials on the other. This is not a phenomenon unique to McCain, but rather pervasive throughout politics and journalism. For example, the White House Press Corps gain special access to the President, and in return for that access, tend to follow certain rules and are subject to certain restraints. In effect, they not only have exclusive access to a politician or public official, but they are initiated into an exclusive club, and it's only human to feel some loyalty to that group identity, and the individual at the center of it (in addition to the altogether human tendency for journalists to get attached to, and feel sympathy for the individuals they cover).
But Gabler did introduce the point about postmodern irony earlier on, and needs to return to it:
So, I do find the point about postmodern irony interesting, especially in the way that Gabler connects it to liberal politics, and I have no quarrel with him on that score. But, before getting to my own letter, let me share with you the letter that immediately preceded my own, which offers an interesting alternative perspective:
And then there's McLuhan's notion of hot and cool media, and that the cooler candidates tend to defeat the hotter ones, as was the case for Kennedy over Nixon, Carter over Ford, Reagan over Carter, Clinton over George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush over Gore and Kerry. So, anyway, here's the letter I wrote, as they published it (with minor edits):
For the official citation, this was published today, Saturday March 29, 2008, in the New York Times, p. A16, and can also be found online at the New York Times website. And I should add that I knew I needed to keep the letter short, not to mention the fact that I wrote it on the fly, to be honest, so I didn't go into longer explanations.
But let me at least say here that one shortcoming of Gabler's approach is that labeling something postmodern is not an explanation. It's a label, plain and simple. That's where media ecology comes in, because media ecology provides an explanation, which in this instance is, simply put, the electronic media environment.
And just to deal with the point about ironic detachment, that phenomenon is a part of celebrity logic, and a consequence of, really a response to always being under surveillance, always being on camera, always in the midst of a performance. This situation essentially blurs the distinction between putting on an act or performance in the conscious sense, and acting in a genuine manner (of course, Erving Goffman and others note that all behavior is performance, but I am making the distinction here based on a conscious or better yet self-conscious sense that you are putting on a performance, especially for the cameras and the media). And it is true that television and the electronic media seem to encourage less in the way of formal acting and more of just playing yourself. But by the same token, it means that anyone who seems to be just being themselves is putting on an act, or perceived to be when they are on camera. So this can't help but breed cynicism about any media appearance. And when all performance seems to be false, ironically it is the ironic stance that seems to be genuine, the stance that says, hey, I know it's all an act, so I'm not taking it at all seriously.
The logic may be hard to follow, and hard to swallow, but no one ever said the electronic media, being based on the nonlinear circuit, are logical.
IT is certainly no secret that Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is a darling of the news media. Reporters routinely attach “maverick,” “straight talker” and “patriot” to him like Homeric epithets. Chris Matthews of MSNBC has even called the press “McCain’s base” — a comment that Mr. McCain himself has jokingly reiterated. The mainstream news media by and large don’t cover Mr. McCain; they canonize him. Hence the moniker on liberal blogs: St. McCain.
What is less obvious, however, is exactly why the press swoons for him. The answer, which says a great deal about both the political press and Mr. McCain, may be that he is something political reporters really haven’t seen in quite a while, perhaps since John F. Kennedy.
Seeming to view himself and the whole political process with a mix of amusement and bemusement, Mr. McCain is an ironist wooing a group of individuals who regard ironic detachment more highly than sincerity or seriousness. He may be the first real postmodernist candidate for the presidency — the first to turn his press relations into the basis of his candidacy.
Of course this is not how the press typically talks about Mr. McCain. The conventional analysis of his press popularity begins with his military service. If campaigns are primarily about narratives, he has a good and distinguished one, and it would take a very curmudgeonly press corps to dismiss it, even though that is exactly what a good portion of it did to Senator John Kerry’s service record in 2004. Reporters also often cite Mr. McCain’s bonhomie as the reason for their affection. As Ryan Lizza described it last month in The New Yorker, a typical campaign day has Mr. McCain rumbling from one stop to another on his bus, the Straight Talk Express, sitting in the rear on a horseshoe-shaped leather couch surrounded by reporters and talking “until the room is filled with the awkward silence of journalists with no more questions.”
The Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, citing the conviviality during the 2000 campaign, wrote that “a trip on his bus is, well, a trip.” And as the party master, Mr. McCain is no longer the reporters’ subject. He is their pal.
While other candidates have tried to schmooze reporters this way without success, what has made Mr. McCain’s fraternization so effective is that it comes with candor — or at least the illusion of it. Over the years, reporter after reporter has remarked upon his seemingly unguarded frankness. In 1999, William Greider wrote in Rolling Stone that, “While McCain continues examining his flaws, the reporters on the bus are getting a bit edgy. Will somebody tell this guy to shut up before he self-destructs?”
Imagine, reporters protecting a candidate from himself! But, then again, since the reporters on the bus liked Mr. McCain too much to report on his gaffes, he really didn’t need protection. His candor was without consequence. It was another blandishment to the press.
Yet however much his accessibility, amiability and candor may have defined the news media’s love affair with him in 2000, and however much they continue to operate that way in 2008, there is also something different and more complicated at work now. Joan Didion once described a presidential campaign as a closed system staged by the candidates for the news media — one in which the media judged a candidate essentially by how well he or she manipulated them, and one in which the electorate were bystanders.
By this standard, Mr. McCain’s joviality and seeming honesty with the press in 2000 constituted a very effective scheme indeed, until it came time to woo actual Republican voters. As Time’s Jay Carney once put it, “You get the sense you’re being manipulated by candor, rather than manipulated by subterfuge and deception, but it is a strategy.”
So far, Gabler has concentrated on what is sometimes referred to as elite integration, the close connections that develop between the press corps on the one hand, and politicians and public officials on the other. This is not a phenomenon unique to McCain, but rather pervasive throughout politics and journalism. For example, the White House Press Corps gain special access to the President, and in return for that access, tend to follow certain rules and are subject to certain restraints. In effect, they not only have exclusive access to a politician or public official, but they are initiated into an exclusive club, and it's only human to feel some loyalty to that group identity, and the individual at the center of it (in addition to the altogether human tendency for journalists to get attached to, and feel sympathy for the individuals they cover).
But Gabler did introduce the point about postmodern irony earlier on, and needs to return to it:
What makes 2008 different — and why I think Mr. McCain can be called the first postmodernist presidential candidate — is his acknowledgment of the symbiosis between himself and the press and, more important, his willingness, even eagerness, to let the press in on his own machinations of them. On the bus, Mr. McCain openly talks about his press gambits. According to Mr. Lizza, Mr. McCain proudly brandished an index card with a “gotcha” quote from Mitt Romney that the senator had given Tim Russert of “Meet the Press,” a journalist few would expect to need help in finding candidates’ gaffes. In exposing his two-way relationship with the press this way, he reveals the absurdity of the political process as a big game. He also reveals his own gleeful cynicism about it.
This sort of disdain might be called a liberal view, if not politically then culturally. The notion that our system (in fact, life itself) is faintly imbecilic is a staple of “The Daily Show,” “The Colbert Report,” “Real Time With Bill Maher” and other liberal exemplars, though they, of course, implicate the press in the idiocy. Mr. McCain’s sense of irony makes him their spiritual kin — a cosmological liberal — which may be why conservatives distrust him and liberals like Jon Stewart seem to revere him. They are reacting to something deeper than politics. They are reacting to his vision of how the world operates and to his attitude about it, something it is easy to suspect he acquired while a prisoner of war.
Though Mr. McCain can be the most self-deprecating of candidates (yet another reason the news media love him), his vision of the process also betrays an obvious superiority — one the mainstream political news media, a group of liberal cosmologists, have long shared. If in the past he flattered the press by posing as its friend, he is now flattering it by posing as its conspirator, a secret sharer of its cynicism. He is the guy who “gets it.” He sees what the press sees. Michael Scherer, a blogger for Time, called him the “coolest kid in school.”
The candidates who are dead serious about politics, even wonkish, get abused by the press for it. Mr. McCain the ironist gets heaps of affection. In this race, though, it has forced some press contortions. While John McCain 2000 was praised for being the same straight talker off the bus as he was on it, John McCain 2008 is praised precisely because he isn’t the same man. Off the bus he plays to the rubes (us) by reciting the conservative catechism; on the bus he plays to the press by giving the impression that his talk is all just a ploy to capture the Republican nomination.
Yet the reporters, so quick in general to jump on hypocrisy, seem to find his insincerity a virtue. When an old sobersides like Mitt Romney flip-flops, he is called a panderer. When Mr. McCain suddenly supports the tax cuts he once excoriated, or embraces the religious right, or emphasizes border security over a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, we are told by his press acolytes that he doesn’t really mean it, that his liberal cosmology will ultimately best his conservative rhetoric. “Discount his repositioning a bit,” Jacob Weisberg, the editor of Slate, wrote two years ago, “and McCain looks like the same unconventional character who emerged during the Clinton years.” The article was subtitled “Psst ... He’s Not Really a Conservative.”
This suggests that love is blind. It also suggests that seducing the press with ironic detachment, the press’s soft spot, may be the best political strategy of all — one that Mr. McCain may walk on water right into the White House.
So, I do find the point about postmodern irony interesting, especially in the way that Gabler connects it to liberal politics, and I have no quarrel with him on that score. But, before getting to my own letter, let me share with you the letter that immediately preceded my own, which offers an interesting alternative perspective:
To the Editor:
To the extent that Neal Gabler is right when he states that John McCain is “a darling of the news media,” it’s not so much because he shares their sense of irony. It’s because he’s a Republican who is not reliably conservative.
So here’s a prediction from someone who’s been a full-time working journalist since 1967: The love affair will end as soon as soon as the general election begins (if not sooner). That’s when every gaffe by Mr. McCain will be portrayed by the media as “evidence” that he’s old — really, really old. That’s when every grimace will be “proof” that he’s got a hair-trigger temper.
When the Democrats stop beating each other over the head, and one of them starts running in earnest against John McCain, the media will no longer find their “darling” nearly as “ironic” — or nearly as lovable.
From a media point of view, it’s one thing when Senator McCain sticks a finger in a fellow Republican’s eye, quite another when he’s taking aim at a liberal Democrat.
Bernard Goldberg
Miami, March 27, 2008
The writer is the author and former CBS News correspondent.
And then there's McLuhan's notion of hot and cool media, and that the cooler candidates tend to defeat the hotter ones, as was the case for Kennedy over Nixon, Carter over Ford, Reagan over Carter, Clinton over George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush over Gore and Kerry. So, anyway, here's the letter I wrote, as they published it (with minor edits):
To the Editor:
Neil Gabler’s article, while insightful, implies an extreme contrast between John McCain as ironic and Barack Obama as idealistic, and yet both are treated well by the press. And more significantly, both are what Marshall McLuhan called “cool” characters, tailor-made for cool electronic media like television.
Both have a soft, indistinct personable image that the cameras love as well as reporters, and that allows audiences to project their own hopes and desires onto them. Expect the general election to be all about which of the two is the coolest of them all.
Lance Strate
Bronx, March 26, 2008
The writer is a professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University.
For the official citation, this was published today, Saturday March 29, 2008, in the New York Times, p. A16, and can also be found online at the New York Times website. And I should add that I knew I needed to keep the letter short, not to mention the fact that I wrote it on the fly, to be honest, so I didn't go into longer explanations.
But let me at least say here that one shortcoming of Gabler's approach is that labeling something postmodern is not an explanation. It's a label, plain and simple. That's where media ecology comes in, because media ecology provides an explanation, which in this instance is, simply put, the electronic media environment.
And just to deal with the point about ironic detachment, that phenomenon is a part of celebrity logic, and a consequence of, really a response to always being under surveillance, always being on camera, always in the midst of a performance. This situation essentially blurs the distinction between putting on an act or performance in the conscious sense, and acting in a genuine manner (of course, Erving Goffman and others note that all behavior is performance, but I am making the distinction here based on a conscious or better yet self-conscious sense that you are putting on a performance, especially for the cameras and the media). And it is true that television and the electronic media seem to encourage less in the way of formal acting and more of just playing yourself. But by the same token, it means that anyone who seems to be just being themselves is putting on an act, or perceived to be when they are on camera. So this can't help but breed cynicism about any media appearance. And when all performance seems to be false, ironically it is the ironic stance that seems to be genuine, the stance that says, hey, I know it's all an act, so I'm not taking it at all seriously.
The logic may be hard to follow, and hard to swallow, but no one ever said the electronic media, being based on the nonlinear circuit, are logical.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Studying Media
So, Twyla Gibson, who's from the University of Toronto's McLuhan Program, a genuine media ecologist, and an expert on Eric Havelock in particular, contacted me this past fall saying that she was editing a new online journal up there, and asking if I had something on McLuhan that they could publish in the first issue. The journal is called Media Tropes, and the first issue has recently been published. You can click on the title to take a look at the site, and see what's in the issue. Just wait a minute before you do, I won't keep you long.
So, when Twyla asked me for an article, well, it just so happened that I had a speech that I had given several times by then, the first time being back in 2002. It's gone through several different titles, for different occasions, but overall I think this one is the best, and I think the piece itself is pretty accessible for an academic essay, and serves as a nice introduction to McLuhan's notion that the medium is the message, and a nice introduction to media ecology. So I made a few minor revisions, added the references and citations, and voilà!
You can access and download the article as a PDF file, courtesy of our friendly neighbors to the north--thank you Canadians, we love you!!!
You may have to register first, but I don't think that will result in the Mounties knocking on your door.
And of course, downloading means never having to say you're sorry (and never having to read the damn thing!).
So now, without further ado, here is the article, available free free free for your downloading pleasure:
So, when Twyla asked me for an article, well, it just so happened that I had a speech that I had given several times by then, the first time being back in 2002. It's gone through several different titles, for different occasions, but overall I think this one is the best, and I think the piece itself is pretty accessible for an academic essay, and serves as a nice introduction to McLuhan's notion that the medium is the message, and a nice introduction to media ecology. So I made a few minor revisions, added the references and citations, and voilà!
You can access and download the article as a PDF file, courtesy of our friendly neighbors to the north--thank you Canadians, we love you!!!
You may have to register first, but I don't think that will result in the Mounties knocking on your door.
And of course, downloading means never having to say you're sorry (and never having to read the damn thing!).
So now, without further ado, here is the article, available free free free for your downloading pleasure:
Studying Media as Media: McLuhan and the Media Ecology Approach
And now, I'd just like to say thank you, and good night, eh? Oh, and pass the Molsons!
And now, I'd just like to say thank you, and good night, eh? Oh, and pass the Molsons!
Friday, March 21, 2008
Internet Addiction and Faith
In a recent post entitled Disconnect Anxiety and You (and Me) -- Virtual Tribalism, I discussed an article from Canada's National Post about the need people feel to be connected to the net at all times, or at least to be connected via their mobile phones--an article that included a couple of quotes from me at the end.
So, I was surprised to learn about an article published a couple of days ago in the Joplin Globe, out of Joplin, Missouri. The article's headline reads: Mat Anderson: More face time, less Facebook, and a little blurb accompanying it reads, "To feed the need for social connectedness, teens report logging in to Facebook and MySpace accounts an average or three times per day."
The author is Mat Anderson, and there's a picture accompanying the article that I assume is him:
I include this here merely to provide some visual interest to this post. Okay, by now you're probably saying to yourself, what's the point of all this? Okay, let's go to the article. It begins with Mat's confession:
You can evaluate the usefulness of his advice for yourself, but in the meantime, here's the author's blurb at the end of the article:
So, you can go check out The Future Paradigm, I did and the first thing I found was this very article. And here's what it says under "About Us" on the side:
And it goes on in this vein. Now, dear friends, you know this is a religious orientation I do not share, although I am not necessarily opposed to people of faith. It is in fact quite reasonable to recognize that traditional religions are grounded in older media environments, and are threatened to their vary foundations by the electronic media. So this orientation is entirely rational.
So I guess it's not surprising that Mat picked out my quotes, as opposed to the others quoted in the National Post article, who were much more empirical, quantitative research oriented social scientists than little old philosophical me. As we used to sing back in the old, dear departed media ecology program, media ecology, something like theology. And it was Neil Postman who explained that what we are doing is not social science, but moral theology. I just wish that people like Mat would read up on media ecology, read Neil Postman, Walter Ong, and Marshall McLuhan, and then they'd have a much better idea of the full dynamics of what's at work here. And hey Mat, if you're reading this, my book, Echoes and Reflections: On Media Ecology as a Field of Study isn't a bad place to start. Just a suggestion...
So, I was surprised to learn about an article published a couple of days ago in the Joplin Globe, out of Joplin, Missouri. The article's headline reads: Mat Anderson: More face time, less Facebook, and a little blurb accompanying it reads, "To feed the need for social connectedness, teens report logging in to Facebook and MySpace accounts an average or three times per day."
The author is Mat Anderson, and there's a picture accompanying the article that I assume is him:
I include this here merely to provide some visual interest to this post. Okay, by now you're probably saying to yourself, what's the point of all this? Okay, let's go to the article. It begins with Mat's confession:
When I first logged onto the site five years ago, it seemed like a great way to keep in touch with friends and maybe even meet some new ones. Within weeks of creating my profile, I had added dozens of “friends” and I was spending about two hours a day on the site. A year later, my “friend” count had reached quadruple digits and MySpace was the center of my world. I delighted in receiving comments and new friend requests and despaired if no one read my blogs or I fell out of someone’s Top 8 friends. In short, MySpace had become MyLife.While it may sound ridiculous to some readers, this story is echoed by millions of teens across America. To feed the need for social connectedness, teens report logging in to Facebook and MySpace accounts an average or three times per day. Many experts say these behaviors are a sign of a return to tribal instincts, and a cause for serious concern.
Now, from a general semantics perspective, we'd be concerned about making an inference connecting "return to tribal instincts" with "a cause for serious concern," as these two phenomena are not necessarily connected, but let's hold that aside and continue on with the article:
“Rather than people surrounding you in a village, you’re in a virtual tribe,” says Lance Strate, chairman of Fordham University’s Communication and Media Studies Department.
“When there were real tribes, people had no concept of individualism. If someone were excommunicated from the tribe, he’d allow himself to wander away and die. He couldn’t imagine life outside of the group.”
Woohoo!!! There I am! And interestingly enough, it's my quote from the significantly different National Post article. Not that it's altered in any way, not even down to the mistaken identification of me as department chair. Nor is it particularly taken out of context. But I just wonder about reusing my quote in this way? Is this good journalism? Be that as it may, let's see what else Mat has to say:
Today, that same tribal mindset is found in teen culture and is emphasized in the world of social networking. Teens spend hours updating profiles with personal information, uploading pictures for friends to comment and browsing the profiles of friends and strangers alike. As time spent online increases and these sites become the social center of a teen’s life, the thought of being disconnected becomes more horrific. In recent research, teens described feeling anxious, panicky and even empty when deprived of Internet access. They reported the greatest fear of being disconnected was that they were “out of the loop” and risked being left behind by friends. Experts say this addiction to technology and the need to find identity with an online group of friends are symptoms of a greater void in the lives of teens. This is where parents come in. Teens crave and need social interaction that is real. As more of teens’ social experiences occur online, it becomes the responsibility of parents to guard their teen’s developmental need for face-to-face social interaction.
So, look, I'm not taking major issue with what Mat is saying here, I'm just surprised at the way he uses the notion of the tribal mindset in this entirely negative way in conjunction with the notion of internet addiction. Are tribal peoples addicted to their media, to oral tradition, the singing of songs, etc.? I suppose you could say so, but it doesn't sound right to me, as they are living a way of life that eminently facilitates the survival of the group, that is the product of tens of thousands of years of evolution, that is the only way of life they know and the only option open to them.
And even when it becomes one among other alternatives, I wouldn't say that a tribal mindset is necessarily negative or inferior. In the context of the extreme individualism that developed in the west as a consequence of alphabetic literacy and print culture, some return to a kind of neo-tribalism in the electronic era can be seen as an effort to restore balance to the culture.
The fact that Mat doesn't seem to understand my views on tribalism is no doubt due to the fact that he used my quotes from the other article without talking to me at all, whereas the original journalist had interviewed me for twenty minutes and picked out a few bits afterwards.
So, anyway, on with the show, and the article, which ends with some advice from Mat:Here are some tips to get started:
* Put the computer in a public place. By doing this you can monitor the amount of time your teen spends online as well as the content that is being accessed.
* Establish times to unplug. Parents should set specific times when families can interact with each other without the distractions of text messaging, phone calls and the Internet.
* Challenge your teen to be offline for a week. While many won’t make it, those who do may discover that life can be more enjoyable when unplugged.
* Practice what you preach. If parents have trouble disconnecting from cell phones and Blackberrys, teens view that example as perfectly acceptable behavior.
Through my experience I learned that I could have thousands of online friends but virtually no relationships. This left me feeling isolated, lonely and insecure. Once I made the difficult decision to unplug, I realized the time I spent on MySpace was time that I could have used to build real friendships, have genuine experiences and pursue my dreams.
By teaching teens these rewards of a life lived offline, parents can help teens develop a true sense of identity while leading happier and fuller lives.
Mat Anderson is the staff writer and research specialist at The Bridge in Joplin. For more information visit futureparadigm.org.
So, you can go check out The Future Paradigm, I did and the first thing I found was this very article. And here's what it says under "About Us" on the side:
The Future Paradigm is a free resource of Bridge Ministries that is designed to educate parents about the unique challenges and issues that teens today face. We are dedicated to bringing you the most relevant and useful information about trends in teen culture as well as the latest teen research from around America.And going to their "About Us" page, here's what it says about their purpose:
The Bridge is equal parts ministry and attraction. On the one hand, we are striving to be the new Main Street. The place where you go to be with your friends. A lidless environment where you can live and be and grow and meet and shine. On the other hand, The Bridge is a ministry where the exchange of ideas is not limited to acceptable social subjects, but includes subjects (like faith and politics) which have been too taboo to mention in other years or settings. Behind the scenes, staff members and volunteers are listening, connecting, loving, sharing, and sacrificing to bring the hope of Christ to everyone through actions, attitude, and words. We will not relegate Christ to our apparel or our overhead sound system. His Spirit is alive in us and you should see that.
And it goes on in this vein. Now, dear friends, you know this is a religious orientation I do not share, although I am not necessarily opposed to people of faith. It is in fact quite reasonable to recognize that traditional religions are grounded in older media environments, and are threatened to their vary foundations by the electronic media. So this orientation is entirely rational.
So I guess it's not surprising that Mat picked out my quotes, as opposed to the others quoted in the National Post article, who were much more empirical, quantitative research oriented social scientists than little old philosophical me. As we used to sing back in the old, dear departed media ecology program, media ecology, something like theology. And it was Neil Postman who explained that what we are doing is not social science, but moral theology. I just wish that people like Mat would read up on media ecology, read Neil Postman, Walter Ong, and Marshall McLuhan, and then they'd have a much better idea of the full dynamics of what's at work here. And hey Mat, if you're reading this, my book, Echoes and Reflections: On Media Ecology as a Field of Study isn't a bad place to start. Just a suggestion...
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Social Media on Social Media
In a previous post entitled The Professionalization of Social Networking, I wrote about PR professional and social media expert Paull Young, of Converseon, Inc., who came to speak to my Interactive Media class. I'm pleased to report that he recently was interviewed on the program Happy Hour, which appears on the Fox Business Network cable channel.
Now, I have to confess that I never heard of the Fox Business Network cable channel before, I guess this is their answer to CNBC, and I'm not entirely sure that our cable service even carries it. But fortunately, though the magic of YouTube, I was able to view the segment, and share it with you.
The setting of this program is intriguing, bringing to mind the long-running sitcom Cheers. It certainly looks good, although I have to wonder if all that background noise is such a good thing? It certainly becomes more and more of an issue for us old folk, although the interviewer and interviewee's talk was totally distinct, so maybe they do know what they're doing. Oh, and kudos to Paull for not letting the old Aussie accent get the better of him (but what's up with that sweater, man?).
Of course, as any media ecologist will tell you, in the end, no one remembers much of what you've said on television, they just remember that you were on television, and that is impressive! And so much more when it can be amplified via the internet. So, you can go directly to YouTube to see the clip in its native environment, or just watch it here. And this is what the person posting it wrote:
And here's the interview:
Now, I have to confess that I never heard of the Fox Business Network cable channel before, I guess this is their answer to CNBC, and I'm not entirely sure that our cable service even carries it. But fortunately, though the magic of YouTube, I was able to view the segment, and share it with you.
The setting of this program is intriguing, bringing to mind the long-running sitcom Cheers. It certainly looks good, although I have to wonder if all that background noise is such a good thing? It certainly becomes more and more of an issue for us old folk, although the interviewer and interviewee's talk was totally distinct, so maybe they do know what they're doing. Oh, and kudos to Paull for not letting the old Aussie accent get the better of him (but what's up with that sweater, man?).
Of course, as any media ecologist will tell you, in the end, no one remembers much of what you've said on television, they just remember that you were on television, and that is impressive! And so much more when it can be amplified via the internet. So, you can go directly to YouTube to see the clip in its native environment, or just watch it here. And this is what the person posting it wrote:
Paull Young of Converseon discussing Social Media and small businesses on the show Happy Hour. The big social media secret is to listen to your customers and give them something that they want. Who knew?
And here's the interview:
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Encyclopedia Down!
So, when I was a kid, my dad bought a second hand Encyclopedia Britannica, I think it was actually from the 1920s, but hey it was something. Back then, they said that if you didn't have an encyclopedia, your kids wouldn't do well in school--I remember my sixth grade teacher once came to our house, he was selling encyclopedias door-to-door. And it was the old fear appeal, well known to students of persuasion, more recently used to get parents to buy home computers and internet connections. Most of my friends had new editions of the World Book, but anyway there always was the library, where you could find all of the encyclopedias.
Back in the nineties, I wrote entries on "mass media" and "communication" for Groliers, and updated them for their new multimedia edition on CD-ROM, which was also available online. So, I had some inkling that things were in flux, and that encyclopedia were moving over into new media. But then came Wikipedia, and even the changes that were going on changed. And this all came up in an article published last Sunday in the New York Times, Week in Review section, p. 3. The piece was written by Noam Cohen, and entitled "Start Writing the Eulogies for Print Encyclopedias," and it starts like this:
Now, back to Noam one last time:
Funny thing is, encyclopedias were the product of print culture. At the dawn of the age of typography, you had what was known as the Renaissance Man, the individual who might conceivably know all that there is to know (doubtful actually, but maybe a good chunk of it). Why Renaissance? Yes, it was the rebirth of learning, but it was also immediately followed by the printing press creating a knowledge explosion, so many books, so much knowledge, made so widely available, leading to more people studying more and more, studying books but also the world, discovering more and more new knowledge, so that it soon became impossible for any one individual to know everything. So, the Renaissance Man represented the last period of history where someone could make a legitimate claim to have mastered all knowledge. And with printing came the era of the specialist.
But what also appeared in Gutenberg's wake was the dream of trying to collect all the knowledge of the world within a book or set of books, rather than within a brain. One of the earliest efforts came from the French Encyclopédistes (note that I'm giving you the link to Wikipedia there), spearheaded by Denis Diderot (wikipedia link, again). And what's fascinating is that the effort was an abysmal failure. Print historian Elizabeth Eisenstein noted that by this time, the knowledge explosion has simply become too massive. When I first read about it, I was a bit surprised, since the encyclopedias we used as kids never gave the impression of being failures. But in fact, they are the products of lowered expectations, presenting not all the knowledge of the world--all our knowledge encircled, en-cyclopsed--but just a summary, a digest, of selected subjects.
And finally, this brings me to a poem I posted over on my MySpace poetry blog two weeks ago, which being altogether relevant to this subject, I will now repost here.
And so you see, I already had my eulogy for print encyclopedias written! Isn't that something!
Back in the nineties, I wrote entries on "mass media" and "communication" for Groliers, and updated them for their new multimedia edition on CD-ROM, which was also available online. So, I had some inkling that things were in flux, and that encyclopedia were moving over into new media. But then came Wikipedia, and even the changes that were going on changed. And this all came up in an article published last Sunday in the New York Times, Week in Review section, p. 3. The piece was written by Noam Cohen, and entitled "Start Writing the Eulogies for Print Encyclopedias," and it starts like this:
IT has never been easier to read up on a favorite topic, whether it’s an obscure philosophy, a tiny insect or an overexposed pop star. Just don’t count on being able to thumb through the printed pages of an encyclopedia to do it.
A series of announcements from publishers across the globe in the last few weeks suggests that the long migration to the Internet has picked up pace, and that ahead of other books, magazines and even newspapers, the classic multivolume encyclopedia is well on its way to becoming the first casualty in the end of print.
Back in the 1990s, Encyclopaedia Britannica led the pack in coming to terms with the idea that the public no longer viewed ownership of the multivolume compendium of information as a ticket to be punched on the way to the upper middle class — or at least as the oracle of first resort for copying a book report.
Sales of Britannica’s 32 volumes peaked in 1990, but in the next six years, they dropped 60 percent, and the company moved quickly to reinvent itself online. In 1996, Britannica eliminated its legendary staff of 1,000 door-to-door salesmen, already down from a high of 2,000 in the 1970s, in the face of competition from Microsoft’s Encarta encyclopedia for home computers.
Jorge Aguilar-Cauz, president of Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., a private company based in Chicago, said that the print edition was still profitable, but that sales were just 10 percent of what they were in 1990. Customers are mostly schools and libraries.
It was only last month, however, that the publisher of Germany’s foremost multivolume encyclopedia, Brockhaus, took similar action, announcing that in April it would be putting online, free, all 300,000 of its articles, vetted by scholars over 200 years of print editions. (Brockhaus hopes to make money by selling ads on its site.) At the same time, the publishing house said it couldn’t promise that it would ever produce another print edition, something it has done regularly since the encyclopedia appeared in Leipzig in 1808.
Publishers in Denmark and France, too, are rethinking the commercial viability of their encyclopedias. A one-volume French encyclopedia, Quid, lost its publisher last month, and may only survive online. The largest publisher in Denmark, Gyldendal, has decided that the subscription plan for its online encyclopedia is misguided (it stopped a print edition in 2006). It plans to come up with another way to support itself.
“There is some kind of sadness,” said Nicole Weiffen-Aumann, a spokeswoman for Brockhaus, “but on the other side, many people are happy, looking forward to our new product — both things you can find in our company.” She added: “There are many people that say, ‘When I was very young I bought my first encyclopedia from Brockhaus, and there will be no next edition, I can’t believe it.’ ”
The Encyclopedia Americana still has good sales in print volumes, said Greg Worrell, president of Scholastic Classroom and Library Group, but the company is focusing on its online outlets. He said it was still determining a print plan, but added, “the likelihood is there will not be the 2009 multivolume print version.”
And it is funny, because encyclopedias were always a mixed bag, generally not respected from a scholarly perspective, seen as an easy alternative to real research, okay for grade school, but not for serious work in higher education. In a sense, they were a precursor of the digest format, which came to the fore in the early 20th century, and was criticized for its simplifications, its dumbing down of information, by critics such as Daniel Boorstin, for instance. But now comes the nostalgia:
To scholars, the ready access to updated information online is a net gain for the public. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t mourn the passing of a household icon — a set of knowledge-packed books on their own reserved shelves that even parents had to defer to.And you know, there's an interesting point here that was completely bypassed in the article. It used to be fairly common practice for grade school kids to copy out of the encyclopedia, maybe with some slight changes. No one got all bent out of shape about plagiarism back then. Maybe it was thought that the simple act of copying by hand was enough of a conscious effort to allow the knowledge to be absorbed, making it a real learning experience. Interesting to think about that, the residue of scribal culture, schoolroom copying, the tactile and kinetic learning involved, an intimate means of thinking with the author. But now we live in the age of digital copy and paste commands that totally undermine the notion of copyright, and everyone is concerned about plagiarism down to the elementary school level--this came up in my son's school a couple of years ago, for example. But I digress. Back to Noam:“I remember in my own childhood in the 1940s, early ’50s, I and my parents would sit around the table and look at the encyclopedia together,” said Larry Hickman, director of a center at Southern Illinois University devoted to the education pioneer John Dewey. “In the old days, the Encyclopaedia Britannica or the World Book encyclopedia was regarded as authoritative,” he recalled, laughing as he agreed, “That’s why you would copy it for your book report.”
But Mr. Hickman said that parents and children can have the same discussions “seated in front of the computer, the electronic hearth, as I like to call it.” And he said that losing a set of books considered infallible was actually a good thing for developing critical thinking.Yet, as encyclopedia publishers struggle, the Internet age has become a golden one for the newer kind of encyclopedia.
An ambitious project to catalog online all known species on earth — with the even-more-ambitious title the Encyclopedia of Life — went live last month. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a project that began online in 1995 and has never been in print and never will be, is chugging along with nearly 1,000 entries that are vetted by an academic board of more that 100 scholars for a total of 10 million words.
Now, enter the two ton gorilla in the room, or was that an elephant?:
And then there is the behemoth Wikipedia, a project that has no board to vet articles and is created by thousands of volunteers, with more than two million articles in English and an additional five million in a babel of other languages.
Wikipedia is regularly among the top 10 most visited sites on the Internet throughout the world — maybe in part because there’s a lot more there than meets the needs of the average term paper. The superabundance of less-than-prized information on the site has led to a phenomenon called “wiki-groaning,” which involves comparing the length of seemingly disparate articles to humorous effect. Lightsaber Combat beats out Modern Warfare, for example, and John Locke, the character from the TV show “Lost,” edges out the other John Locke, whoever he was.
Encyclopedia publishers, while taking swipes at Wikipedia’s unreliability since it can be edited by anyone, have clearly adopted some of its lessons. They are incorporating more photographs and suggestions from readers to improve online content, and they are committed to updating material as facts change.
Britannica says it updates an article every 20 minutes. Even the Stanford Philosophy Encyclopedia will make changes with relative speed. When a law was passed on voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands, “our entry was updated within a couple of weeks, at the latest,” said Edward N. Zalta, a senior research scholar at Stanford and principal editor of the online encyclopedia. “It may have been a day or two — we don’t do it as quickly as Wikipedia, but in a timely way.”
This is the problem, raised time and time again, speed of dissemination become paramount, rather than taking time for evaluation. Editing, gatekeeping, is a process that slows down the flow of information, and the new media are all about instantaneous dissemination. It's been noted that Wikipedia has some things in common with online news sources, and has news stories covered by new or amended entries almost as quickly as the journalists. And hand-in-hand with speed goes a massive increase in the volume of information being made available. Here's a revealing graphic that accompanied the article:
Now, back to Noam one last time:
The print encyclopedia as a luxury item! This corresponds to Marshall McLuhan's insight that a medium that becomes obsolescent does not disappear, but rather is transformed into an art form.In essence, the Internet is justifying the hubris of early compilers like Linnaeus, the father of taxonomy, said Edward O. Wilson, the expert on insects at Harvard who spearheaded the Encyclopedia of Life and serves as honorary chairman. “There were so few species to deal with, only in the thousands,” he said. “He and his disciples thought they could do the rest of the flora and fauna of the world. Boy, were they wrong.”
In the intervening centuries, Professor Wilson said, science was taken over by specialists. But by allowing specialists to pool their knowledge on a Web site, he said, the Encyclopedia of Life will be able to come close to the dream of a compendium of all the known species in the world.
“Once we get all the information in one place, think of the impact this will have — available to anybody, anywhere, anytime,” he said.
Asked about his own experience with encyclopedias, Professor Wilson said, “I grew up in Alabama — we didn’t have things like the Encyclopaedia Britannica in our home.” What he did have were field guides. “All the field guides — for snakes, butterflies, turtles. Back in the 40s, I had my butterfly nets, and I was right up to date through my guides,” Professor Wilson said.
He added: “There are nerds that say we will have something the size of a field guide, and punch in something. Maybe I am hopelessly old fashioned, but a kid with a knapsack, and a Boy Scout or Girl Scout manual, printed, a field guide on snakes or butterflies, printed, is the best combination in the world.”
Mr. Aguilar-Cauz of Britannica is counting on that sort of nostalgic allure to keep at least some encyclopedias on bookshelves and not just hard drives. He envisioned the print volumes living on as a niche, luxury item, with high-quality paper and glossy photographs — similar to the way some audiophiles still swear by vinyl LPs and turntables. “What you need people to understand,” he said, “is that it is a luxury experience. You want to be able to produce a lot of joy, a paper joy.”
Funny thing is, encyclopedias were the product of print culture. At the dawn of the age of typography, you had what was known as the Renaissance Man, the individual who might conceivably know all that there is to know (doubtful actually, but maybe a good chunk of it). Why Renaissance? Yes, it was the rebirth of learning, but it was also immediately followed by the printing press creating a knowledge explosion, so many books, so much knowledge, made so widely available, leading to more people studying more and more, studying books but also the world, discovering more and more new knowledge, so that it soon became impossible for any one individual to know everything. So, the Renaissance Man represented the last period of history where someone could make a legitimate claim to have mastered all knowledge. And with printing came the era of the specialist.
But what also appeared in Gutenberg's wake was the dream of trying to collect all the knowledge of the world within a book or set of books, rather than within a brain. One of the earliest efforts came from the French Encyclopédistes (note that I'm giving you the link to Wikipedia there), spearheaded by Denis Diderot (wikipedia link, again). And what's fascinating is that the effort was an abysmal failure. Print historian Elizabeth Eisenstein noted that by this time, the knowledge explosion has simply become too massive. When I first read about it, I was a bit surprised, since the encyclopedias we used as kids never gave the impression of being failures. But in fact, they are the products of lowered expectations, presenting not all the knowledge of the world--all our knowledge encircled, en-cyclopsed--but just a summary, a digest, of selected subjects.
And finally, this brings me to a poem I posted over on my MySpace poetry blog two weeks ago, which being altogether relevant to this subject, I will now repost here.
Note: For anyone unfamiliar with the language, the final consonants of French names and words are typically silent, so the name Diderot is pronounced dee der 'oh
Digital Diderot
or
The March of the Wikipedians
Hey diddle, Diderot,
How much do you know?
Are you nimble?
Are you quick?
Jacking up that candlestick?
Can you light up that wick?
Dites-moi, Monsieur
Diderot! Diderot! Diderot!
Did you do the math?
If so, then what did you
Figure-0! Figure-0! Figure-010101!
Burning the midnight 0i1?
Flickering illumination?
Wavering dedication?
Abée c'est Diderot?
To what order do you belong?
Was it all a Cartesian dream?
Or a coordinated nightmare?
Well...
Let's all go down to the Wiki-Mart!
To get us some of that Kwiki-Smart!
Then enter the Enchanted Wiki-Room!
"Where all the birds sing words and the flowers croon!"
Hickory Diderot dock!
The mouse clicked on the clock!
While the cat played the fiddle,
And Alexandria's ragtime bandits
Set fire to stacks and shelves,
Knowledge cooked but not consumed...
No matter...
It's all immaterial...
And the cyclops turned into a sysops!
And a multivolume set became the internet!
And they put the pedia to the media!
Wicked! Wicked! Wicked!
Diderot, row, row your boat
Gently down bitstream...
Adieu Monsieur Diderot, adieu mon ami...
The gods have left the machine!
And so you see, I already had my eulogy for print encyclopedias written! Isn't that something!
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