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COML 509 Social Dynamics of Communication and Technology

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Why Those Quotes from the 19th Century? 'The watershed was industrialization' p. 74 ' ... Cars 52 years (1908 - 1960) Vacuum Cleaners 48 years (1903-1951) ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: COML 509 Social Dynamics of Communication and Technology


1
COML 509Social Dynamics of Communication and
Technology
  • Gitlin 2

2
Gitlin Chapter 2
  • Speed and Sensibility

3
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

4
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

5
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?

6
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)

7
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.

8
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

9
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?

10
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
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