When Nightingales Break the Law: Silence and the Construction of Reality

Sandra BramanDepartment of Communication, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 210 Johnston Hall, 2522 E. Hartford Avenue,

Milwaukee, WI 53211, USAE-mail: braman@uwm.edu

Abstract. Strikingly, theorizing about digital technologies has led us to recognize many habitual subjects ofresearch as figures against fields that are also worthy of study. Communication, for example, becomes visibleonly against the field of silence. Silence is critically important for the construction of reality – and the socialconstruction of reality has a complement, the also necessary contemplative construction of reality. Silence is sosensitive and fragile that an inability to achieve it, or to get rid of it, or to correct the wrong kind of silence oftenprovides early indicators of individual, group, communal, and society-wide stresses from information tech-nologies. Indeed, we might treat difficulties with silence as miners treated canaries in coal mines, as earlywarning signals. The story has already been told that nightingales in London now have to sing so loudly inorder to be heard above the ambient noise that the birds are in danger of breaking the noise ordinance law.

Surely something has gone awry if nightingales break the law when they sing. Finding ways to protect silenceas an arena of personal and social choice is a particularly poignant, evocative, and instructive ethical and policyhorizon at this frontier moment for the human species. This article introduces the theory of the contemplativeconstruction of reality, explores what the study of silence tells us about reality construction processes, andoutlines a research agenda.

Key words: communication, contemplation, contemplative construction of reality, law, policy, silence, socialconstruction of reality, solitude

Even though reality

may not exist,

we have a right to it.

Introduction

The ostensible subject for those who study commu-nication is noisy and convivial. Like all subjects ofstudy, however, expression is a figure that onlyappears against a field, and for communication thatfield is silence. In the digital environment, silence isincreasingly rare – in parks we are surrounded by themusic and conversation of others, in the classroom orperformance hall or church phones burst forth likeroaring motorcycles, and even in the solitude of ourhomes we are drenched in information overload.

Digitization has also, however, expanded ourknowledge into new territory. Theorizing about theeffects and nature of digitization has widened ourvision to include both figure and field; long-standingsubjects of intellectual study are now being seen as

figures against fields that must themselves also be thesubjects of study. In part, this development oweshonest dues to the contributions of thinkers such asPierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault. In part, how-ever, this trend also reflects qualitative changes in thetypes and quantity of data we are gaining about theworld, the ways in which we are able to see that data,and our capacities to manipulate data in multiple waysusing theoretical, conceptual, and methodologicaltools from across disciplines. Examples of areas inwhich our knowledge is expanding in this way includethe indeterminacy against which we must understanddeterminacy (Martine 1992), the tacit knowledgeagainst which we must understand codified knowledge(Kahin 2004), the nonlinear relations against whichlinear relations appear (Ragin 2000), and the silenceagainst which communication becomes known.

Studying silence is particularly valuable because it isso sensitive to stresses caused by information technol-ogies that the loss of silence serves as an early indicatorto possible sources of harm for individuals, families,communities, and society as a whole. The literature on

Ethics and Information Technology (2007) 9:281–295 � Springer 2008DOI 10.1007/s10676-007-9148-0

silence reveals its importance for reality constructionprocesses, which include both the social construction ofreality and what I will call the contemplative construc-tion of reality. Information overload and other negativeeffects of the use of digital technologies create ethicalproblems when they impede our ability to constructreality in a valid and sustainable way.

It is worth saying something about three notionsthat will figure prominently: contemplation, contem-plative practice, and the contemplative constructionof reality. Contemplation can be defined as the ‘‘actof beholding, or looking at with attention andthought’’ (Oxford English Dictionary); it is an act ofreflecting deeply on something. Contemplative prac-tices are those activities – developed primarily withinvarious religious traditions, and including but notlimited to silent meditation – by which individualsinvoke and exercise their ability to attend deeply, i.e.to contemplate. The contemplative construction ofreality, a notion meant to call to mind and to com-plement that of the social construction of reality, isthat aspect of reality construction that takes placethrough silent contemplative practices by individuals.

This article begins by looking at silence as it appearsat what many believe to be a frontier moment for thespecies as it further evolves. It goes on to look at thesocial and contemplative processes of reality con-struction, the role of silence vis-a-vis those processes,and what an initial research agenda for techniques bywhich silence and the contemplative might be pro-tected might look like. This essay therefore exploreswhat those who study communication have learnedabout the place of silence in the contemplative andsocial construction of reality at this critical moment inwhat it means to be human. This is a vast undertaking– more than one author can hope to complete in aninitial study – but it is hoped that these remarks willhelp open up discussion of a research agenda.

Silence as field: The digital dilemma

The suggestion that loss of silence can serve as astress indicator is borne out in analysis of its role atthe variety of frontiers humans face as a species.

Silence and the frontiers of the human

Awareness of silence as integral to the communicativefield has long been important to those who studyinformation technologies. Indeed, Marshall McLuhan’s(1964) seminal insights intoways inwhich technologiesalter how we experience being human were initiallyinspired by Hans Selye’s (1956) work on the impact ofstress, including noise, on the body. The interdisciplinary

literature on silence developed concurrently with theefflorescence ofmass personal computing (Tannen andSaville-Troike 1985; Jaworski 1992). Today enoughpeople have publicly expressed concern about silencethat offering quiet rooms has become a hotel sellingpoint; silence-related matters are forefront in every-one’s minds because the information-intensivity ofevery element of the world in which we live isincreasing. As Weiser and Brown (1995) put it, whencomputers were used by only a few experts behindclosed doors, the need for calm in the digital world wasrelevant only for a few – but now that networkedcomputers are everywhere, this is an important issuefor us all. Both communication and silence should betaken into account when building, analyzing, makingpolicy for, and experiencing what Nardi and O’Day(1999) usefully named our information ecologies.

Pinchevski demarcates that which is communicablefrom that which is not at the divide between theordinary and the extraordinary, describing this borderas ‘‘the next frontier to be conquered’’ (2005, p. 165).We face additional frontiers today:

• There is the biological frontier of the loss of silence,in tension with the long auditory history of effortsto bring ourselves into more sound (Sterne 2003).

• There is the cultural frontier marked by the shiftfrom print to digital communications (Joyce 1995;Theall 1995), a boundary which, as happened withthe transition from oral to written communication(Leidlmair 2002), draws attention to changes in thenature of silence itself.

• There is the historical frontier (Niethammer 1992)generated by the growing predominance of epige-netic forces (causal influence across space at asingle point in time) over genetic forces (causalinfluences across time at a single point in space)(Braman 1994).1

• And there is the ontological frontier as we struggleto achieve a sense of reality within a postmodernenvironment influentially described as hyperreal(Baudrillard 1983).

None of these frontiers, notably, is marked by a brightline. They are, in Crapanzo’s (2004) terms, ‘fuzzyhorizons,’ horizons with auras that draw us to them.All of them, however, are approached, rebuffed,engaged, negotiated, redesigned, and/or crossedthrough the processes of reality construction. It is for

1 Epigenesis affects silence in two ways: Epigeneticglobalization processes cause what has been described as amassive linguistic extinction unprecedented in human his-

tory (Heller-Roazen 2005). And we have become acutelyaware of the silences of place as well as those that markpauses or lacunae in time.

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this reason that we can consider the legal problem ofsilence, whichwill be discussed below, the canary in thecoal mine for many of the ethical and policy issuespresented by the use of digital technologies.

Conceptualizing silence

Though it is common to think of silence as anabsence, there is a long history of thinking aboutsilence as a presence, often the product of intentionand agency. The earliest textual use presented by theOxford English Dictionary (1989) defines the term in1225 as meaning ‘‘the act of abstaining or forebearingfrom speech or utterance (sometimes with referenceto a particular matter).’’ In 1603 Shakespeare was thefirst to refer in print to one person silencing another.Across its different usages, silence is best understoodas generative. As indicative disruption, it stimulatesthe production of knowledge. As structure, it makesmeaning. And as reflection, it enables contemplation,the ‘‘act of beholding, or looking at with attentionand thought’’ (Oxford English Dictionary).

The first hint of the role of silence in the contem-plative construction of reality came from cognitivepsychologist George Miller, who drew attention tothe role of silence in message processing and memoryformation in 1957. In the 1970s, communicationresearchers began to explore silence from a contem-plative perspective that incorporated Buddhist con-cepts (Bruneau 1973; Johannesen 1974; Khan 1974).For many, silence is approached through the lens ofnoise, whether that is noise as message disruption(Shannon and Weaver 1948), noise as instability orinauthenticity of texts (Hainge 2005), or noise asstressor (Selye 1956).2 Carey’s (1989) emphasis on aritual rather than transmission model of communi-cation and Peters’ (1999) rescue of approaches tocommunication across diverse spiritual and intellec-tual traditions going back to the ancient Greekssuggest ways of thinking about communication that

include contemplative practices within their purview.DeVito (2002) links meaning-making through silenceto other forms of nonverbal communication, andIshii (2004) finds silence so important to productivity,empowerment, and communicative expressivenessthat he believes a Buddhist epistemology would beuseful in studying intrapersonal communication.

This is a wildly disparate literature driven by verydifferent types of questions. In part this reflects thefact that the field of communication itself is, today, amongrel discipline.3 In part the extraordinary varietyof approaches to thinking about silence and con-templation may be explained by the location of thesetopics at the margins of social science researchagendas rather than at the center. And in part it maybe a consequence of the lack of theorizing regardingthe relationships between silence and communication;often communication researchers use concepts –‘mindfulness’ is an example – in ways that divergesignificantly from how the same terms are used bythose engaged in contemplative practice.

For others, however, it is precisely this range thatgives the concept its utility. The diversity of approachesto thinking about silence provides evidence of itsfunction as the communicative field, andof aparticularrichness in this nascent literature. Certainly apprecia-tion for communication as an ecology, aswell as a set ofprocesses and events, inspired those who first providedcomprehensive overviews of social science research onsilence. For Jaworski (1992), silence is a metaphor forcommunication that has analytical utility because itappears in such a wide range of communicative phe-nomena, each requiring its own operational definitionand interpretation. Saville-Troike, whose syntheticand strongly conceptual overview of the literature onsilence provides the most comprehensive analysis ofthe diverse dimensions of silence available, goes fur-ther, seeing both silence and sound as a part of com-municative behavior:

[A]n adequate description and interpretation of theprocess of communication requires that we under-stand the structure, meaning, and functions of silenceas well as of sound. A total theory of communication

2 We approach this question in a postmodern period, butthese issues are not new. Indeed, as Peter Paik (2006)

pointed out, one of Kant’s footnotes in Critique of Judg-ment referred to how hard it was to achieve the focusrequired for writing when surrounded by the noise of rau-

cous prayer groups outside the window of his living quar-ters. The word ‘noise’ comes from the same Latin rootmeaning an unpleasant disturbance lacking musical quality(Smith 2005) – that gives rise to the word ‘nausee’ that

Jean-Paul Sartre (1949) used as the title of his famous novelabout alienation from the world after the Second WorldWar. The spiritualist claim to hear voices of the dead in

tape recordings of silence (Enns 2005) may be the mostextreme and least scientifically supported ruminationregarding the information that may be provided by silence.

3 In the first decades of the 20th century, communication

processes were at the center of the study of society bysociologists. By mid-century, however, the absorption ofthose who study communication in technology (Peters1993) contributed to the peripheralization of what had

become a distinct discipline. In its current formation, socialtheories that inform the study of communication are largelydrawn from other social sciences, while the results of

communication research and theories developed by thosewho study communication are much less often taken upacross the disciplinary border.

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should further be concerned with the ways thesetwo modes of behavior pattern in relation to theculture and social organization of a speech com-munity on the one hand and in relation to thepersonal motions and attributions of its memberson the other (1985, p. 4).

Because Saville-Troike’s model includes both ‘code’and ‘channel,’ and because it is such a comprehensivesynthesis, those who are particularly interested insilence in the digital environment will find this work,and extrapolations of it, particularly useful.

The processes of reality construction

Defining, perceiving, approaching, or engaging withany of these species frontiers involves reality con-struction processes. The social sciences have beensuffused with reference to the idea of the social con-struction of reality for decades. Clearly the processesby which reality is socially constructed remain impor-tant, but they are not the onlymeans bywhich reality isconstructed. Studying silence as the field against whichcommunications is the figure has brought the processesof the contemplative construction of reality into view.From a theoretically pluralist perspective, both pro-cesses can be underway simultaneously (but need notbe) in any given communication event, discourse, ortransaction.4 The comparative exploration of the

broad outlines of the social construction of reality andthe contemplative construction of reality offeredhere isfollowed by a look at what has been learned fromempirical research on silence. This work contributes toour understanding of the four areas in which the twotypes of reality construction processes can be com-pared and contrasted:

(1) origination in the individual,(2) expression as essential,(3) an orientation towards the fact, and(4) the importance of linking the individual and

social levels of analysis.

Some of these features are as important to the con-templative construction of reality as they are to thesocial construction of reality, and in the same ways.Along other dimensions, however, there are signifi-cant differences between the social and the contem-plative constructions of reality.

The social construction of reality

One of the most influential ideas of the modern per-iod, first expressed by John Locke (1690/1970), wasthat our sense of the ‘real’ – of a world that existsindependent of human perception – is shapedthrough the process of communication among indi-viduals discussing their experiences with others. Early20th century social psychologists such as Cooley(1909) and Mead (1934) added flesh to how thisworks from the individual side, while Dewey (1916)and others studied the role of communication mediain the sustenance of communities within large urban,industrialized environments. By the middle of the20th century the approach became known as thesocial construction of reality (Berger and Luckmann1966) – the theory that communication is central tothe ability of members of a given society in order todevelop a shared understanding of the world in whichthey live.

The theoretical and research focus of most of thosewho have relied upon the social construction ofreality has been on the shared sense of the socialworld that results, including the material environ-ment as mediated technologically, culturally, physi-ologically, and cognitively. Because the socialconstruction of reality involves communication aboutindividual sensory experience, social interactionswithin identifiable groups are central, while infra- andsupra-human contexts and the individual – whathappens within the individual, and within the broadernatural environment that includes but goes beyondthe human – are at the margins. As a theoreticalapproach, the social construction of reality has beenrelatively easy to incorporate into work using other

4 Social scientists have appreciated at least since the 1980sthat multiple theories can be simultaneously applicable, andtwo or more types of causation may be underway during any

given social event, relationship, or process.Methodologically,this insight requires the development of techniques for mul-ticausal analyses, and on a more abstract level the position is

referred to as theoretical pluralism. Each event, relationship,or process which we encounter ethically or legally is, however,always and inevitably unique in the particularities with whichmultiple causal forces come together in a specific time and

place. Thus ethical and policy principles must remain abstract,so that they can be useful across circumstances. ‘‘Best prac-tices’’ and, in the U.S., statutory and regulatory law, apply to

classes of specific circumstances that are common and impor-tant enough to receive category-specific treatment. Beyondthat, ‘in the event,’ it is judgment, and discretion.

There are ethical and policy consequences of not taking atheoretically pluralist position as well, and that is the argumenthere. Focusing on the social construction of reality alone,without the complementary contemplative processes, can have

destructive social and environmental consequences that arisebecause the operational sense of reality in decision-making andimplementation is skewed. The contemplative element, how-

ever, is also critically important and provides ways of knowingnot available through the alternative approach to reality con-struction.

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contemporary social theories, which may be onereason it provided such a useful frame also for thosestruggling to identify an empirical grounding in ahyperreal world by the close of the 20th century. Inthe 21st century, there is an additional challenge forthose who seek to claim confirmation of their ownsense of reality in the political claim that being‘reality-based’ is irrelevant (Suskind 2004).

For obvious reasons, the notion of the socialconstruction of reality has been heavily used by thosewho study the mass media (see, e.g., Delli-Carpiniand Williams 1994; Lipschultz and Hilt 1999) as wellas for those who study family communication (see,e.g., Yerby 1995), interpersonal communication(Crown and Feldstein 1985; Phillips 1985), andorganizational communication (see, e.g., Mumby1997). Some claim that the theory has evolved inorder to incorporate all of the features of the digitalenvironment. Ziegler (2007), for example, argues thatwe are so information-saturated today that we shoulddistinguish between reality as socially constructed inthe home and within traditional types of friendshipsand collegial relationships, on the one hand, and associally constructed via the media, on the other. Zhao(2006) points out that the theory needs to be adaptedfor the digital environment because the zones throughwhich reality construction processes take place havequalitatively changed, with new zones of contact thatshe terms ‘consociated contemporaries.’

The contemplative construction of reality

Inevitably, there are many versions of the socialconstruction of reality, and many schools with whichone could align oneself. Still, there is a shared,broad-brush version of the theory with which allgenerally agree. So, too, as we begin our study of thecontemplative construction of reality, we begin witha broad-brush outline of a theory that presumablywill ultimately receive much ramification and willprobably provoke disagreements among those whononetheless agree on the general point.

By the contemplative construction of reality,therefore, I mean very broadly that which takesplace through silent contemplative practices byindividuals, irrespective of the tradition or activitiesor context within which that contemplation takesplace. Where the social construction of realityfocuses on society not only as the level of analysisbut also as the referent for the ‘real,’ the contem-plative construction of reality focuses on the indi-vidual’s sense of his or her body in a naturalenvironment; it begins with the breath of one indi-vidual, alone, and can lead outwards beyond thesocial to include, for many, a spiritual dimension. It

is not that the individual is removed from society,but that the individual is reconnected with the largeruniverse within which we all reside. Communicationis the means by which reality construction takesplace, and silence serves as architecture, enabler, andstimulant. Because the contemplative constructionof reality involves focusing within and beyond thehuman, on the other hand, social interactions fallaway. While both social groups and communicationcan play roles in contemplative practice, here theyare at the margins, in favor of solitude and silence.Thus there are some similarities between social andcontemplative reality construction processes, butalso important differences.

Silence and reality construction

Four dimensions of a reality construction processwere identified above: (1) origination in the individ-ual, (2) expression as essential, (3) an orientationtowards the fact, and (4) the importance of linkingthe individual and social levels of analysis. Some ofthese features are as important to the contemplativeconstruction of reality as they are to the social con-struction of reality, and in the same ways. Alongother dimensions, however, there are significant dif-ferences between the social and the contemplativeprocesses of reality construction.

The literature sampled here is intended to be sug-gestive (not comprehensive) of the range of theoreti-cal and methodological approaches used in work onthe nature and effects of silence. Aspects of this lit-erature speak to the importance of silence in thesocial construction of reality; and it is within thisliterature also that we find the first suggestions of andsupport for what is being labeled here the theory ofthe contemplative construction of reality, eventhough that language was not in use when earlierauthors were writing.

Origination in the individual

The individual is important to both the social and thecontemplative construction of reality, but in quitedifferent ways. For social processes, the developmentand/or recognition and maintenance of individualidentity is important because only once the individualhas achieved an identity separate from that of thecommunity can communications among individualsin the group then jointly construct reality. For con-templative processes, focusing on the individual offersa different path: into, on the one hand, the intricateand intimate mechanisms of the biological organism,such as the breath, and outward, on the other hand,to the infinite expanses of interactions between

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specific organisms and the larger universe beyond thehuman species. For both social and contemplativereality construction processes, silence bounds indi-vidual consciousness and provides a lens throughwhich one can attend to experience as the source ofknowledge.

The role of silence in the contemplative construc-tion of reality begins with the very choice to be silentand contemplative – even without solitude – for thismarks the point at which individuals separate them-selves from the social group (Scott 1972). Evidencefrom a number of disciplines suggests that periods ofsilence and contemplation appear to be necessaryfor the formation and sustenance of the individual:Linguistic historian George Steiner (1967) argues thatreading silently was central to the emergence of theindividual sense of self as it developed duringmodernity. Research by cognitive psychologistsshows that those with Alzheimer’s, for whom loss ofmemory has such an impact on the sense of the self,remember stories significantly better if they read themsilently than if they are told the same stories orally(Mahendra et al. 2005). Conversely, a pathologicalform of silence known as ‘selective mutism’ appearsin individuals whose concern about identity createssuch anxiety that they cannot speak (McInnes andManassis 2005). Psychoanalysts use silence in thecourse of the ‘talking cure’ to stimulate the achieve-ment of psychological integration (Arlow 1961;Nacht 1964).

Social science research has offered some insightsinto how these functions of silence work, but thepicture is not complete. It has been found, forexample, that non-Jesuit faculty members at a Jesuitinstitution of higher education use silence as a way ofarticulating individual identity (Kirby et al. 2006).Concurrence regarding expectations of silence is animportant marker of the achievement of mutualunderstanding between conversational partners;individuals in dyadic communication tend to becomemore like each other over time in uses of silence,duration, and how it is broken (Capella and Planalp1981). It is not surprising, then, that silence plays akey role, in conjunction with turn-taking, in manag-ing remote conversations (Szymanski et al. 2006).Among strangers, minimal conversational response islikely to precede silences, and question and answerseries follow (McLaughlin and Cody 1982). Theability to manipulate silence in such ways is soimportant a skill that it is considered a marker oflanguage fluency (Macias 2006).

There are notable differences across cultures,however, regarding the extent to which silence isconsidered to be psychologically healthy (Bruneauand Ishii 1988). For example, while in the United

States someone who is persistently silent in socialsettings may be seen as asocial, in Finland ‘positivesilence’ is a personal characteristic that is highlyvalued (Nwoye 1985; Carbaugh et al. 2006).

Expression as essential

In the social construction of reality, the emphasis ison communication as the process by which reality isconstructed; each person communicates the facts ofhis or her experience to others and everyone discusseseach others’ experience together. Silence can be con-sidered a form of speech, and it is also important as astructural feature helpful for sense-making.

In the contemplative construction of reality,however, it is silence, not communication that is theprocess by which reality is constructed. Silence here isdefined positively, as a deliberate lack of expression.Both structuralist theory (Stanley 1990) and complexadaptive systems theory (Saville-Troike 1985;Luhmann and Behnke 1994) offer insights into theroles of silence within narrative and discourse struc-tures. Bokser (2006) distinguishes among completerhetorics of silence,5 and translators are aware of thesame narrative structures when they work acrosslanguages and cultures (Catania 2006). ‘Professional’genres often require mastery of the use of silenceappropriately and effectively in oral presentations, asthe best academics do when they present theirresearch (Rendle-Short 2005), news broadcasters dowhen they want viewers to recognize and recallimportant stories just preceding the silence (Langet al. 2003), and those in advertising and publicrelations do to focus attention or generate certainmoods (Olsen 1994).

Experience is showing that deliberately incorpo-rating silence into the classroom also has its uses.Those who teach the deaf have found Benedictineteachings regarding the structural uses of silencewithin groups useful pedagogically (Herrmann 2006).Patten (1997) found his students learned a wide rangeof things from a class on silence within a communi-cation department. The Center for ContemplativeMind in Society is currently funding the developmentof courses that incorporate contemplation as apractice, and Wood (2004) is able to identify anumber of influences from Buddhist and othercontemplative approaches on pedagogical thinkingtoday.

5 Cassin (2005) provides an example of this approach in

his analysis of the conflict between ancient Greece andRome as a discursive and linguistic tension betweenrhetoric and silence.

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Silence is believed to be effective in this structuralfunction for several different reasons. There arephysiological and cognitive processes that response tosilence in the course of trying to recognize andremember important information (Lang et al. 2003).Silence can serve as a semiotic sign marking a shift inthe subject upon which one is concentrating (Vanio-maki 2004) or in the goal towards which semioticactivity is aimed (Bruneau 1985). Silence can be usedas a deliberate rhetorical gesture, as in broadcastreportage on traumatic stories of the events of 9/11that deliberately includes moments of silence to per-mit viewers to grieve (Jaworski et al. 2005). And theycan be revelatory for those analyzing mass mediacontent for power relations (Baudrillard 1993).

Going beyond a single rhetorical moment, choosingto remain silent within expressive contexts can be ahighly political form of speech. Those engaged inpolitical resistance find silence a powerful tool(Jaworski 1992; Kyriakides 2005). In regions as dif-ferent as Latin America (Mattelart and Cesta 1985)and the Balkans (Splichal 2006), silence on the part ofpopulations is read as political resistance. As JohnDurham Peters puts it, trivializing or ignoring silencecan only be done if onemisses ‘‘one of themost obviousfacts of ethical experience: themajesty inmany cases ofnonresponsiveness’’ (1999, p. 57). For Baudrillard, thesilences of dissent mark the furthest extremes ofexperience (Kroker 1992).

Conversely, refusing silence when it is politicallyimposed is also a powerful form of political speech.Both popularly and theoretically, making ‘noise’ –breaking the silence – is understood to be a funda-mental form of critique (Smith 2005). There is amassive literature of work in communication andcultural studies specifically devoted to identifyingsilences by or about particular populations or issuesas evidence of power relations. Individuals speak aswitnesses when silence on politically important mat-ters would otherwise occur. In the words of Holo-caust survivor and novelist Elie Wiesel, ‘‘If someoneelse could have written my stories, I would not havewritten them down. I have written them in order totestify. And this is the origin of the loneliness that canbe glimpsed in each of my sentences, in each of mysilences’’ (quoted in Felman and Laub 1992, p. 3).

Orientation towards the fact

Lockean fact has served as the foundation of anumber of other key ideas – including the notion thatthe truth is determined by success in the marketplaceof ideas and the role of peer review in the scientificmethod – that accompany, result from, or arerequired by the social construction of reality. For the

contemplative construction of reality, facticity is alsoimportant, from two perspectives. First, there isresearch-based evidence that periods of silent con-templation – in addition to those of expression – arenecessary for the production of scientific knowledge.Second, the contemplative processes enabled bysilence attend to matters beyond the grasp of the fact;unfortunately there has been, to my knowledge, nosocial scientific research into how this works or whatit yields.

Research has shown that periods of silent con-templation are necessary for knowledge production, asubset of reality construction. Historians of theprinting press (e.g., Eisenstein 1979) recognize it wasnot only technological innovation but also culturalacceptance of the practice of silent reading and con-centration that contributed to the leap in knowledgeproduction following the reinvention of the printingpress and movable type in Western Europe. Sociol-ogists of knowledge recognize that reflection is key toknowledge development because only throughreflective silence can one distinguish ‘chunks’ ofknowledge relative to a background of informationand distinguish peripheral knowledge from that uponwhich one is focusing (Leidlmair 2002; Schon 1983).Those who study organizational communication nowrecognize that more knowledge is not always betterknowledge, for often it is impossible to absorb, reflectupon, and actually use that knowledge with whichone has been presented without periods of reflection(see, e.g., Simon 2000).

A very important question raised by this work butnot yet addressed by researchers involves the juxta-position of our inability to achieve silence undercontemporary conditions with the now-commonsense of information overload. It may be that ourvery lack of silence is key to the feeling that onecannot make meaning out of the expressions andinformation to which one is exposed, for withoutsilence it may be difficult or impossible to shape oridentify the structure that yields meaning, or toconsolidate knowledge out of information andspeech.

When silences appear as disruptions of communi-cation that indicate failures, they stimulate knowl-edge production by identifying processes, variables,or events that need further study. Indeed, Chang(1993) notes, communication is much more likely tofail than to succeed. The most well developed streamof research in this area involves the study of thecommunicative problems indicated by inappropriateor awkward silences in the interpersonal context(Roberts et al. 2006); in order to go on, speakersmust engage in ‘repair’ (see, e.g., Dimitracopoulou2006). There is a need for more work in this area that

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is attentive to substantive, professional, cultural,intercultural, and other contextual factor differences –and that doesn’t treat silence necessarily as somethingneeding repair.

The centrality of individual–society relations

While the social construction of reality takes place inthe interplay between individuals and society, thecontemplative construction of reality takes place inthe interplay between the individual and the self, onone hand, and the individual and the universe, on theother. Silence has a dual role, important both to thesocial relations that give rise to the social construc-tion of reality, and to the contemplative practices thatfacilitate relations with the self and the larger uni-verse including and beyond the human. Insights intothe importance of the role of silence in linking theindividual with society in pursuit of social goals havebeen particularly well translated into the law, a veryconcrete means of socially constructing reality.

The interplay and complementarities between thesocial construction of reality and the contemplativeconstruction of reality are demonstrated in work onthe processes by which tacit knowledge is built andtransformed into codified knowledge. Tacit knowl-edge develops through the reflection, daily practice,and experience of individuals. It is described as tacitbecause it is not communicable other than throughmodeling. Individuals may often not even be self-aware that they possess certain types of informationas ‘knowledge’ that is even worth sharing. Tacitknowledge becomes codified when it is abstractedfrom experience and translated into terms accessibleto others. (Much of what is taught as the ‘scientificmethod’ involves what standards must be met inorder for your research results to be treated as if theycontribute to codified knowledge.) Tacit knowledgecan be built and used in silence, but communication ispart of the very definition of codification (see, e.g.,Howells 1996; Cowan et al. 2000).

It is also possible to understand communication asa means of achieving silence. One study has shown,for example, that within a monastery working onrelationships in conversation made subsequentretreats into silence more effective and meaningful(Jaksa and Stech 1978). Crawford (1996) suggeststhat incorporating knowledge of Taoism into one’spractices can help transform any conversation into acontemplative moment.

Individual responses to the social forces repre-sented by public opinion can have their own powerfulsilencing effect, as has been documented in a richstream of research on the ‘spiral of silence’ theoryfirst developed by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann (1984).

This literature now includes research that links thespiral of silence with the knowledge bases underlyingpublic opinion (Shamir and Shamir 2000), examinesits implications for political control (Salmon andGlynn 1996), and unpacks its methodological impli-cations for the study of popular expressions of opin-ion (Glynn andMcLeod 1984). The law contributes toa spiral of silence when ‘chilling effects’ are estab-lished, conditions under which particular types ofspeech are not explicitly illegal but generate such dis-comfort that such speech is successfully discouraged.

Protecting silence and the contemplative: a research

agenda

Many techniques for protecting or enabling the socialconstruction of reality have been identified, includingthe professionalization of scientific and journalisticpractice, the use of technologies as a means of sepa-rating that which is being communicated from theone who is communicating (Michaels 1994), traveland other means of deepening one’s exposure to thematerial and social world (Calhoun 1991), refinementof the narrative genres used to communicate facts(Glasser 1991), the formation of epistemic commu-nities, and the development of practices that make itpossible to read silences themselves as expressions offact (Willnat 1991). All of these are worth investi-gating for their potential vis-a-vis the contemplativeconstruction of reality, though not all have yet beenthe subject of research from this perspective.

Limits to the social construction of reality alsointroduce opportunities for the contemplative con-struction of reality. There are circumstances in whichdiscourse (Baudrillard 1993) or technological media-tion of perceptions and facts (Dagognet 1992) mayactually serve as barriers to reality, and in theseinstances silence offers an alternative. Such limits – ofperception and comprehension (see, e.g., Ransonet al. 1980; Beck 1992), rationality (Hayward andPreston 1999), stability (De Landa 1991; Lefebvre1991), or organizational filters (March and Simon1963; Wittrock 1991) – identify foundational ideasabout how to most successfully achieve the contem-plative construction of reality. Some techniques spe-cific to the protection or stimulation of silence inways that are valuable for the contemplative con-struction of reality have also come into use, but inother areas there are still only suggestions of aresearch and/or policy agenda.

Social, technological, and legal approaches tosupporting the contemplative construction of realitycan be conceptually distinguished for analytical andresearch purposes. What we learn about all three

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types of approaches, however, must be viewed as anintegrated whole in order to identify new practices,technologies, or laws that might be valuable. It isn’tpossible to develop technologies that can alert usersto new information without disturbing others in theirenvironment, for example, until we know moreabout what it is that alerts people to environmentalinformation.

Social practice and norms

While there is support for the notion that silence inthe course of interpersonal and group communica-tion is valuable for knowledge consolidation, silencein this context can also serve other purposes, whetheras an exercise of direct power (Bohnet and Frey 1999)or a management tool to shape behavior (Heaton1998). Since expectations are key to interpreting andusing silence in interpersonal and group settings, it isnot surprising that research on cross-cultural com-munication has highlighted differences in the uses ofsilence that range from discomfort when there issilence on the part of the other, at one extreme, to asense that one is not permitted to be silent oneself, atthe other (Spencer-Oatey and Xing 2005). There hasbeen much less work on the impact of silence onindividual behaviors, cognitive information process-ing, or idea formation – matters which should beconsidered for social policy and decision-makingpurposes because some forms of protection of andsupport for silence and contemplative practice on thepart of the individual are developed at the social level.

Research questions worth addressing in this areainclude:

• How do silence and contemplative practices affectthe three separate processes of knowledge recog-nition, retention, and consolidation?

• What are the circumstances under which silence inorganizational and interpersonal settings is mostproductive?

• What role does – or can – silence play in specificprocesses such as decision-making, conflict reso-lution, mediation, and innovation?

• What conditions may prevent the productivepotential of silence from being realized?

• What social, physiological, or cognitive cues alertone individual or group to information beingpresented to others (and thus become a disruptionof silence or contemplation)?

• We know that social norms have quickly adaptedto the constant interruption of conversations bycell phones. How can such trends in normativechange be reversed, and under what circumstanceswould it be appropriate to do so?

• What happens in social contexts in which there isno space for the contemplative construction ofreality?

Technology

Work is already underway to develop technologiesthat protect silence, such as attempts to design sys-tems that maximize the sense of situatedness andembeddedness (Fischer and Giaccardi 2004) andgenerate a sense of being ‘located’ in one’s environ-ment (van der Hoog et al. 2004). Underlying princi-ples guiding such work include attending to thecontingent and evolutionary character of technolog-ical choices (Bohlin 2004), respecting the materialnature of the informational world (Bowker 1994),and emphasizing the design of entire environmentsrather than specific human-computer interactions.

Dey et al. (2001) call technologies that serve thesegoals ‘invisible.’ They distinguish among three types ofinvisibility – true invisibility, inwhich technologies andinterfaces aren’t even noticed; transparency, in whichthe use of technologies is so natural that it seems simplyan extension of one’s own body; and subordination, inwhich functional aspects of technologies are domi-nated by other features, such as aesthetic. Weiser andBrown (1995) use the phrase ‘calm technology’ to referto technologies that offer foci to which we may inten-tionally turn for purposes of reflection or as anopportunity to concentrate and rest. ‘Slow technolo-gies’ (Hallnas and Redstrom 2000; Hallnas et al. 2001)are intended to promote concentration and reflection,whether through ‘informative art’ (Redstrom et al.2000), or technologies that are appropriately subtlewithin public contexts (Hansson et al. 2001). Con-sumers now have access to technologies that make itpossible to turn off televisions and other technologieswithin a certain radius, and similar technologies arebeing used to create quiet zones in churches and the-aters. And there is experimentation with biofeedbacktechnologies to help individuals without training incontemplative practices learn relatively quickly how toachieve at least some effects (see, e.g., Astin 2004).

Research and design questions suggested by thesedevelopments include:

• How can ambient computing technologies thatregister changes in an environment be used toenhance or protect silence and/or contemplativepractices?

• In addition to control over the movement ofattention between periphery and center, what othertypes of cognitive information processing enhancecontemplative experience, and how might suchforms of processing be facilitated technologically?

WHEN NIGHTINGALES BREAK THE LAW 289

• How should relationships among the three types ofinvisibility – true invisibility, transparency, andsubordination – be designed in order to maximizeopportunities for contemplative experience?

• What types of synergies can be developed betweendesign features intended to maximize invisibilityfor the individual and design features intended toshape particular aspects of group experience?

• What are the training and educational implicationsregarding the diffusion of invisible, slow, and calmtechnologies among individuals and groups with-out a previous history of contemplative practice?

• How will technical breakdowns be dealt within situations in which users aren’t even aware ofthe systems in place?

• What contextual elements for technologies andtechnological systems are necessary to facilitatecontemplative experience?

Law

A comprehensive view of treatment of silence withinthe U.S. legal system has not yet been presented, butwe know a few things: While the Fifth Amendmentprotects the right to remain silent when questioned inthe courtroom or when confronted by the police,enacting this right does not come without cost, fordoing so communicates the likelihood of guilt [see,e.g., Cotterrill 2005; and Justice Scalia’s opinion inBrogan v. US (1998); Waters 2006]. Silence on thepart of an individual when stopped by the police hasbeen treated as ‘probable cause’ justifying search andseizure (Estrada 2005; Kelly 2006), and knowingsilence regarding material information can be treatedas misrepresentation (Finneran 1995; Lloyd 1990).The opposite argument, however, has also beeneffective. Thus silence following a Miranda warning6

when arrested has been used as evidence of sanity atthe time of a crime (McHugh 1985). Specific legalrules have been developed specific to the problem ofdrawing evidentiary inferences from silence (Muellerand Kirkpatrick 2005) as part of the infrastructure ofrules and processes that has been built up to opera-tionalize the constitutional commitment to dueprocess.7

Arguments are beginning to be articulatedregarding new ways of protecting that right forindividuals who wish to experience silence in theirown environments. Carter (2002), for example, sug-gests that the Federal Communications Commission(FCC) should allow property owners to jam all cellphone transmissions if they prefer not to have noisyintrusions into their auditory space. The do-not-calllist (which prohibits marketers from calling thosewho have placed their phone numbers on a nationallist) is another way that individuals can use the law toprotect silence in the home (Nelson 2003). It is worthemphasizing that both of these involve the use oftechnologies to protect legal rights, much as tech-nologies such as DRM (digital rights management)are coming into use to protect copyright. Dey et al.(2001) provide leadership by linking their consider-ation of calm technologies with a review of associatedsocial policy issues.

Questions for further consideration here include:

• What would a comprehensive review of currentU.S. law and regulation dealing with silencereveal?

• How should the right to silence and the right tospeech be balanced?

• At the level of principles, what normative as wellas technological practices must be in play so thattechnological operationalization of individualchoices regarding silence do not impede othersocial processes?

• Who owns shared public inputs and outputs inenvironments in which some may prefer silenceand/or silence is necessary or preferred for thecontemplative construction of reality?

• How should access rights to shared resources inpublic places be managed in order to enable andfacilitate silence and contemplative practices?

• In cases in which liability accrues from theimposition of silence in public places, how shouldthose issues be handled?

• Given the role of silence in knowledge productionand consolidation, its value in the perception andmemory of important news, and its probable valuein conflict resolution, should there be legal orregulatory interventions regarding the use ofsilence in such environments as the educationalsystem or in the processes of conflict resolution?

The contemplative construction of reality

within information ecologies

The map of what we know about the nature of silenceis fragmented, but hints appear regarding how to fill

6 The Miranda warning is the legally required statement

in the US to someone being arrested that s/he has the rightto remain silent and that any information provided may beused against him or her.

7 An informal policy permits politicians to remain silentin the face of questions from the public or journalists(McKenzie 2005).

SANDRA BRAMAN290

in some of the lacunae when we enlarge the contextyet again. Daniel Heller-Roazen’s book Echolalias:On the forgetting of language (2005) provides a pro-found theoretical framework for understanding theproductive – and, indeed, necessary – qualities ofsilence as the fount of all communication andknowledge. For Heller-Roazen, communicativesilence is not an absence but, rather, is deeply linkedwith the infinite and chaotic universe of linguistic andcommunicative possibilities. Moments of silence,then, are not a falling away from meaning but, rather,a confrontation with the expansive, often deeplyspiritual, and always multiple world of that whichmight be said. Infants begin by babbling all soundsbut drop into silence before beginning to shape thesounds that they will use to make meaning in theirnative language. Exclamations and interjections,whether of joy or of animal sounds, mark the limit atwhich meaning is expressed not by a word but simplyby the expressive act itself. The Hebrew alphabetbegins with a silent letter considered the most pro-found of them all, and entire languages come intobeing and then disappear.

From this perspective, the various moments ofsilence studied by communication researchers canalso be seen as doorways into the larger universeoutside of ourselves towards which we turn incontemplation. Silence brings us to our selves, topossibilities of knowledge, to awareness of what isaround us, and to a sense of when it is meaningfulto speak or not to speak. It is these activities thatlead to the contemplative construction of reality. Aswe learn how to live in an environment ubiqui-tously filled with noisily informative computing, thissense of silence becomes essential to our individualinformation ecologies as well as to our communallives.

Over the course of the 20th century we learned afair amount about the processes by which we sociallyconstruct reality but relatively little about the com-plementary and equally necessary processes by whichwe construct reality through silence and contempla-tion. As our vision expands to include field as well asfigure in the digital environment of the 21st century,it is the latter to which our attention must now turn.The question is not trivial for, as Carey (1989) put it,reality must be earned.

Acknowledgment

The poem that is the epigraph for this piece is by theauthor, from The One Verse City (Eugene, OR: WolfRun Books, 1976).

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