George Simmel
Social Distance - the perceived lack of intimacy between two or more individuals.
How does communication technology encourage or discourage the perception of intimacy in relationships?
ex. letter writing vs. phone calls vs. email vs. instant messaging vs. face to face
Neil Postman
Questions to ask about any new communication technology.
1. What is the problem to which this technology is the solution?
ex. email
2. Which people and what institutions might be most seriously harmed by a technological solution?
ex. the Internet
3. What new problems might be created because we have solved this problem?
ex. pornography and the loss of shame
4. What sort of people and institutions might acquire special economic and political power because of technological change?
ex. printing press
Jacques Ellul
Image - related to reality (sight, space)
Word - related to truth (hearing , time)
*note: Ellul values the spoken word over the written
An image can be accurate or inaccurate but not true or false.
Only words can be true or false.
…sight and language determine two different kinds of thinking. Language, which is written, involves a long, careful process. My eyes follow the words one after the other, and thus a sequence of understandings are connected to each other. Thought develops according to the axis of this sequence of words. I receive knowledge progressively as the elements of what I am trying to understand link up in succession. Ideas are gradually laid bare as I follow the sentence. The sentence unfolds within a given time span, so that my knowledge necessarily takes the form of step-by-step reasoning. My knowledge progresses by following the curves of this language, assuming a certain continuity in the sentence and rationality in the relationship between words.
…images link themselves up to each other in a manner that is neither logical nor reasonable. We proceed by association of images and their successive changes. The aspects of an image that change in this process have to do exclusively with the spectacle in its present moment. They are never a logical sequence. … it is not the characteristics of electronic signals which have made the difference, but the manner in which images follow each other. When we think by means of images … each image is a totality, and the sequence progresses by fits and starts.
We run into trouble when we confuse image with truth.
(not opposed to images, but opposed to their elevation above the word)
The word (spoken) is primary, it instructs us about the image.
John 20:29 Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.
Our society puts the image first (or believes that words only speak of reality and not truth).
In the Garden, reality and truth were united.
(God speaks and sees that it is good)
When sin entered the world, truth and reality were separated.
Humanity submitted to reality and separated from truth.
This rupture is called sin.
Eventually, truth and reality will be rejoined.
A key question for us - as media separates us further from truth, what are the implications?
Or, what challenges does this present to us as Christians if seeing is believing becomes the norm?
Umbrella Perspective
"no single technology can be understood without understanding the competing and complimentary technologies and the larger social environment within which these technologies exist."
Figure 1.1
Levels to consider
Hardware - the communication technology itself
Software - the messages/content of the communication technology
Organizational Infrastructure - those involved in the production/distribution
Social System - the political, economic and media systems environment etc.
Individual Users - actual and potential
All five of these levels must be examined to understand a communication technology
Factors to consider
Enabling - makes an application of communication technology possible (technical, legal etc.)
Limiting - limits an application (technical, legal etc.)
Motivating - reasons/incentives for adopting (business and user needs)
Inhibiting - disincentives for adopting (business and user needs)
Each factor can be used to evaluate each level (hardware only enabling/limiting)
Rogers' Diffusion Theory
Innovators (5%) - launch the technology, clique-ish, venturesome, want to try new things
Early adopters (10%) - opinion leaders, respected, role models, deliberate but willing to try
Early majority (40%) - legitimizers, not first, not leaders, but willing
Late majority (40%) - skeptical, cautious, may be responding to pressure or economic necessity
Laggards (5%) - resistant, don't like change
A key - the need for critical mass
other factors
socioeconomic status - whether measured by income, occupational prestige, or in years of formal education, innovative individuals are relatively more elite than those who adopt later (or reject).
why?
non-trivial costs
greater likelihood of being aware of the importance of information (or perceived need for)
Social impacts of diffusion - not all impacts are positive
Dr. Sochay's 3 Immutable Laws of New Communication Technology
1. There is a direct relationship between new communication technologies and the pace of life.
fast, fast, fast!
2. There is a direct relationship between new communication technologies and convenience.
now, now, now!
3. There is an inverse relationship between new communication technologies and our ability to hear God's voice.
later, later, later! (when things slow down)