CRDM 701
Week 2 Blog, Kathy
This week?s readings traced the development of the communication of modern man through art as a early form of communication (Marshack, 1991), tokens as prerequisite to pictoral language (Schmandt-Basserat, 1986), and the progression of pictoral language to phonetic language in both Egypt and Babylonia, the latter of which resulted eventually in the alphabet (Innis, 1950). Additionally, Peter?s Speaking Into the Air (1999) and Winner?s ?Do artifacts have politics? (1986) provide a framework that helps make sense of how these historical moments can inform us about technology today.
Putting history into context in our study of communication technologies, Peters points out there are times when moments in history have an affinity with other moments (such as the present) that cross space and time - history is more of an assemblage than a chronology (p.3). Discussing varied senses and visions of communication in recent history, he highlights the notion of unified science to redescribe human inquiry based on ?information, communication, and control? (p.24). Peters? view on communication is ?more fundamentally a political and ethical problem than a semantic one? (p. 30), a view which taken with the chapter asks us to look at, among other things, structures of power in understanding communication.
Similarly, Winner (1986) looks at how artifacts can have political qualities, including the embodiment of power and authority ? ?What matters is not the technology itself, but the social or economic system in which it is embedded,? and ?those who have not recognized the ways in which technologies are shaped by social and economic forces have not gotten very far? (p. 20-21). He goes on to talk about those who have the power to decide concerning the creation/implementation of new technologies, and how those technologies are linked to structures of power and authority. Winner believes that an understanding of technology has to involve the study of both ?specific technical systems and their history as well as a thorough grasp of the concepts and controversies of political theory.? (p. 19).
Marshack (1991), in discussing ice age images, explains that if images were used deliberately and specifically rather than out of aesthetics, ?perhaps the origins and notation or record keeping were also related to the developing complexity of man?s symbolic and economic life? (p.16). Indicative of a continuing trend in the development of economic life, tokens developed as a material way to (presumably) aid ancient middle-eastern monasic authorities in the collection/redistribution of communal food stocks during approx. 8000 ? 3100 B.C., (Schmandt-Basserat, 1986). This system reflects a development in authority that was a precursor to the development of more structured powers to come.
Innis (1950) discuses the communication technologies and
powers of both the Egyptian and Babylonian empires. While tracing the changes
over the course of an empire, he looks at written language through its various
phases (pictoral, phonetic) as well as whether the medium used preferred time
or space, and how control of information lead to various consequences. In the
case of
Because we have much to learn about the present (and future)
through the lens of the past, I am interested in looking at how these modes of
power, specifically control, affect systems. I am interested in what Makenzie
Wark talks about as ?vectoral power,? or the power to control the stocks and
flows of information. This power can easily be seen in the development and
subsequent control of language. I am interested in these aspects of control,
and what the failures of past empires (such as
Posted at 12:02AM Aug 29, 2007 by kfoswald in Week 2 | Comments[2]
Blog #1 - Christin
One of the connections that stood out to me amongst the readings this week was one between the Marshack, Schmandt-Besserat, and Innis articles involving the evolution and development of the written word and the power it and it?s incarnations has held. Winner encourages us to ??look behind technical devices to see the social circumstances of their development, deployment and use? (p. 113). This, in essence, is what these three articles attempt to do with communication and writing ? why were they developed? What purpose were they meant to serve? Were they used to satisfy that purpose or were they morphed, once developed, to serve one completely different?
Marshack and Schmandt-Bessart both discuss the molding or etching of physical entities, be it the Vogelherd horse or tokens, to symbolize something in the natural, ?real? world. Although we cannot know for certain what exactly all of the etchings and individual tokens may stand for or mean, we can determine, thanks to the Nuzi envelope, their use (at least in the case of tokens). We know that all of these artifacts served a definitive purpose, either ritualistic in nature or for use in accounting. Both have been associated with higher classes of individuals, so we can probably assume that those who created such artifacts held some level of power in their society (as indicated by Schmandt-Bessart that the tokens were buried with individuals and even with infants).
Looking forward in time through Innis we see that scribes also held power in society, namely their station itself became a restricted class and privileged profession (p. 16). We also learn in the Innis work that over time, the change from stone to papyrus to parchment each coincided with a significant shift in society and power ? not just in the ruling parties or individuals but also in the deities themselves. He also discusses how part of this shift occurred because the amount of writing increased, allowing communication to occur over distances they never could before.
The combination of these three readings and what they discuss got me thinking about computers and the Internet. Initially, computers were used by those in power ? the military and the government, similar to the initial forms of communication discussed in Marshack and Schmandt-Bessart. Now they are being filtered down into society and ownership is shifting towards the masses.
One could argue computers are the next stage in writing evolution ? though we now have printed paper, I don?t think anyone would debate that you can fit more text into Word documents on a laptop than you could on paper the same size as said laptop. With each new medium (stone, clay, papyrus, etc.), it seemed the amount of shear text that could be produced increased and the reach of said text widened. Computers and the internet are allowing that to occur. Seeing as how each change in material coincided with a shift in societal power, anyone want to take a stab at whether computers will cause a similar shift to occur over the next 500 years? (I know, far-fetched, but it?s an intriguing idea?)
Posted at 09:38PM Aug 28, 2007 by caphelps in Week 2 | Comments[4]