COML 509 Social Dynamics of Communication and Technology

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COML 509Social Dynamics of Communication and
Technology

• Gitlin 2

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Gitlin Chapter 2

• Speed and Sensibility

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Clickers and Clickability

• Remote control devices are clicked to change
  channels between 36 and 107 times per hour,
  depending on the methodology used to study such
  things. p. 72
• ¾ of Americans under 30 watch the news with a
  remote in hand

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Speed is not incidental to the modern worldbut
its essence Notes from the age of technocracy

• Adam Bede, George Eliot (1859)
• Leisure is gone.Ingenious philosophers will
  tell you, perhaps, that the great work of the
  steam-engine is to create leisure for mankind.
  Do not believe them it only creates a vacuum
  for eager thoughts to rush in. Even idleness is
  eager noweager for amusement.
• The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche (1882)
• 0ne is ashamed of resting, and prolonged
  reflection almost gives people a bad conscience.
  One thinks with a watch in ones hand.Virtue has
  come to consist of doing something in less time
  than someone else. p. 73

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Why Those Quotes from the 19th Century?

• The watershed was industrialization p. 74
• By far the greatest effect of the
  industrializationwas to speed up a societys
  entire material processing system. p. 74
• This been most true in the United States
• Assembly Line (early 20th century)
• Fast Food (late fifties)
• ATM (late seventies)
• Why do we use computers?

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Why the impression of speed-up

• Time it took for consumer devices to reach 75 of
  American households
• Telephone 67 years (1890 - 1957)
• Cars 52 years (1908 - 1960)
• Vacuum Cleaners 48 years (1903-1951)
• Refrigerators 23 years (1925-1948)
• Radio 14 years (1923-1937)
• VCR 7 years (1985-1992)
• Internet 7 years (expected)

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Other Changes

• The average weekday network news sound bite from
  a presidential candidate shrank from 42.3 seconds
  in 1968 to 9.8 seconds in 1988, to 7.8 seconds in
  2000.
• Average sentence length in best sellers has
  shrunk by nearly 50 since 1936.
• The average sentence length in Time Magazine has
  shrunk by 1/3 since 1956.

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The Ideology of Speed

• The payoff in increased productivity from
  investments in computing was not apparent until
  1995. Four decades after the computer was
  introduced.
• No doubt, when managers invest in speed via
  computerization and electronic networks, they
  think they are acting rationally. In fact, they
  are acting culturally Who would want to go
  before a board of directors and defend a
  decisionany decisionto slow down. p. 107

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Paradox 1

• it is a curiosity of our present civilization
  that many of those who call themselves
  conservatives embrace the revolutionary daemon of
  capitalism, the most reckless, hard-driving force
  in the history of the world, and celebrate Joseph
  Schumpeters gales of creative destruction that
  blow through production, marketing, taste, and
  everyday life. p. 115
• Capitalism means constant revolutionizing of
  production, uninterrupted disturbance of all
  social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and
  agitation.All fixed, fast frozen relations, with
  their train of ancient and venerable prejudices
  and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones
  become antiquated before they ossify. All that
  is solid melts into air.
• Who said this?

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Paradox 2

• While our eyes and ears are taking in images and
  sounds in all their abundance, we are usually
  sitting down to receive them. The torrent speeds
  by, but we ourselvesdespite the treadmills, the
  Walkmen, the sports radiosare mainly
  immobilized. p. 116