Mass Communication: Caveman to Now, Man

Technology Transforming Media…

Transforming Us

WebVisions NYC 201303.01.13

Richard [email protected]

@rbruning

Anybody out there into comics?Cool crowd. Familiar with DC Comics?

mailto:[email protected]


You know... Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Sandman...

Well, you may have seen my name in their books.I was with DC for 20 years, largely as the company’s Creative Director.What’s a Creative Director do?

Don’t Ask...

writer, cartoonist, graphic designer, raconteur

C o m m u n i c a t i o n

But I’m more than just that...

And I have a passion for communication!


Transforming Us

I’d like to talk a little today about how Technology affects Mass Media, which in turn affects us. Slightly different from the program description but it evolved in the process. And I think we’re better for it.

Communicate!

I contend that we do at least one thing better than most every other life-form on the planet:

It is... to Communicate.We know that the ability to successfully communicate amongst our species is one of the key things that separates us from the rest of the living creatures on this planet.

“To CommunicateOr Not to

Communicate!”

Is that even an option?!

Originally, all we knew was what we experienced through our senses. But the key to building advanced civilizations is the ability to share experiences, giving us gained knowledge and insight.

Our enhanced ability to communicate both fact and fiction to other humans has enabled us as a species to develop great and diverse cultures. Some might argue that the ability to connect and more accurately communicate hasn’t been much of an advancement…

but that's the Tea Party for you!

Technology DRIVES Mass Media

As a species we have made the most of our developing forms of communication. And technology, with the ever-evolving forms of mass media, has left us in a position of great knowledge and awareness of the world around us.

Unfortunately, a utopia it’s not. Nonetheless…

technology:the application of scienti!c knowledge for practical purposes

information:all data, whether fact or !ction

mass media:a means of public communication reaching a large audience

For the purposes of my talk today, I’m using, from my iMac’s dictionary, the 1st definition of technology, which is a pretty broad definition but it suits how I look at it.

Early Forms ofCommunication

Let’s do a quick rundown of how the developments in the quote/unquote technology - of the past affected the development of human culture.

Humans have developed a number of ways to communicate ever-increasing levels of information. We’ll start at the beginning, as it were, for context.

As they say: you have to know where you’re from - to know where you’re going.

Original human communication started out as very simple hand gestures and expressions a human could make to try to convey an idea or message to another when they shared no common language.But with the development of crude languages, we began to have a means for more specific communication but still it could only be shared with those within hearing distance and who spoke that language.

Early Forms ofCommunication

Now, that was all that was available for tens of thousands of years. The problem with it? It can be very ambiguous and had no permanence. Little could be exchanged of import and it created no record of itself.

But with the development of crude languages, we began to have a means for more specific communication but still it could only be shared with those within hearing distance and who spoke that language.

Somewhere along this early timeline, we developed the first form of “recorded” visual communication, such as cave paintings, sculptures and the like.

This tech enabled us to create an after-effect.

This is BIG!

With a form of permanence, information could now be shared consistently with more than a few. Still, there is no exchange. And it is primarily one person projecting outwards to others. And, obviously, limited to people within walking distance.

The First Killer App:

Written Language!

For true development we needed,and we got - well, constructed- written language.

The earliest systematic alphabetic writings developed in Egypt about 5,000 years ago.

Written Language!

But still, at that time, it’s largely what one person writes and what one person at a time can read. Effective but very limited. This does though allow us, for the first time, the ability to collect shared information in a fashion that can benefit larger numbers of people.

Written Language!

Thanks to the ancient Greeks and Romans, written language developed into something stable. Writing on stone tablets could be placed where ordinary citizens could read them, assuming they could read it all. As more flexible materials were developed, such as papyrus and then parchment…

wait…is that PAPER I see in the distance??

...the distribution of these writings became more practical.

And the ability to share information and experiences is, without a doubt, one of the bedrocks for creating a more advanced civilization.

Or at least, it allows us to do what monkeys can’t do.

Yet… I Don’t Think…

Outside of the ability to make individual handwritten copies, there was little or no dispersal of information or entertainment to the masses. Oh, the church and the wealthy had their own scribes for copying but that benefitted the few, not the many. Still, this new tech starts to have a profound impact on us, and our cultures.

The BIG Breakthrough!

Then, around 1450, came Johannes Gutenberg, bless his little ink-stained heart, with his new-fangled moveable type printing press!

I think the printing press was THE most significant technological breakthrough to aid human progress.

It took centuries for it to “get up to speed”, as it were, but by the early 19th century steam-powered presses could print over a thousand sheets an hour.

Reading = Good!

And the more print there was out there, the more impetus there was for people to learn how to read.

GainedCollective

Knowledge!

For the first time, we were capable, on a mass scale, of learning and passing that knowledge onto future generations in an efficient fashion, preventing them from having to learn it all over again by themselves.

That's huge! Plus, through things like newspapers, we began to learn of the world outside of our immediate environment. Previously, if something happened of note in another part of the world, or heck, even our own country, we might likely have never heard of it.

… ah, for those bl issful t imes

William ShakespeareThe Bard

Now, like a lot of things in life, there's an upside and there's a downside. By the same means the works of SHAKESPEARE could be easily copied and distributed,

Adolph HitlerThe Bastard

that very same process also allows for the printing and circulation of MEIN KAMPF.

Technology sez:“I got NO opinion!”

Therein lies the rub of virtually any and all technology. It is morally neutral.

The ethics of the user dictates its function. And that responsibility seems to be a little too frightening for way too many people in our culture today.


Transforming Us

But that's not the point of this talk.

We're here today to see how communications thru mass media has changed with the increasing use of technology. And more importantly, what those changes have wrought upon us.

Owch!

As the fire was great for cooking a warm meal, the blisters you got from sticking your hand in it were no less painful, even on a full stomach.

One thing to keep in mind is the ever accelerating pace of information and entertainment that was being made available to us.

Now things start to get really

Interesting…

For the first 50,000 years or so of human development, things didn’t change too quickly or too radically.

If we were to track development of our increasing skill sets from the discovery of fire, to the invention of the wheel, through cave paintings to the creation of the printing press, we would see they all took a long time to develop and adopt. And in taking a long time, we as a people learned to accept and integrate them in our lives. Things changed very little from generation to generation.

But THEN!

A little over 100 years ago somebody poured accelerant on our scientific evolution and set us all on fire.

In the 19th century, things really start to pick up. Here’s where the young and pioneering America grows surprisingly as a country and a people.

The newness of this democracy and its fresh ambitions created fertile ground for new forms of communication to be created, where they could reach and affect an ever-increasing number of people.

(insert obligatory dinosaur joke here)

Now believe it or not, I'm over 50 years old...and I've seen a lot of changes in my lifetime but there was always TV at least, though black and white, in my earliest days!


Transforming Us

The list of developments around the beginning of the 20th century is staggering, and depending on when you were born, you might have been the first generation to have to try to accommodate these potentially major changes into your life.

So, from scribe’s handwriting on scrolls to huge printing presses producing millions of copies of newspapers and books to go around the world, the information glut began. Entertainment via mass media first came from

crude wax cylinder recordings, allowing people who otherwise would never hear some of the greatest singers or finest compositions written if it were not for these devices.I think it changes the human psyche to be exposed to great talent, even genius.

I could be just a lowly farmer but at the end of the day I'm not that different than Beethoven.

It may sound absurd but certainly we have more in common than not and realizing that can change our view of ourselves as a people.

Our music is also a pretty accurate reflection upon the times. It can enrich and stimulate us. This medium has experienced one of the most profound changes thru technology. From one person singing in their cave...

I don’t recommend it.

to a digital device smaller than a pack of cards that contains over 40,000 songs we can sing along with. If we so chose.

And, of course, with the Web, it’s limitless. Also, with the digital tools we have available to us today many more people can create their own music. Not all good, mind you, but if it has a beat, you can at least dance to it, right?

The Telegraph, developed in the 1830s, was our first almost-instantaneous means of long distance communication, though not technically media for the masses.

Still, it radically increased our ability to quickly conduct commerce and could even reach from coast-to-coast. This especially aided in the development towards the West.

This means of communication gave people the courage and freedom to move about like never before. We were changing from living as close knit stationary groups to a world where we could call anywhere home, while still remaining in touch with others. This is a key cultural change.

Even before music came to the masses,there was photography, premiering in the 1850s. With this, we were able to, for the first time, view accurate images of real people from all around the world.

Yes, we previously had paintings and drawings as visual communication but those were very subjective means and still a one-to-few distribution system.

Photography and the ability to relatively easily copy images countless times drew us all closer. And opened our eyes to the mysteries of the rest of the world.

Remember, this was a world where most people lived and died within 20 miles of where they were born.

It is so easy for us to take for granted an international airport and the access to the whole world it gives us. Flight was but a dream until the relatively recent past.

Really Big Deal!

Then, came the Really Big Deal - the moving images of film.Now, for literally the first time, we could actually see a simulation of living people, from any place and with the full diversity of the human race.

THEY FREAKED OUT!

And when these very first films were shown, the virgin audiences often reacted as though the action was literally happening right there in front of them!

But that’s not so shocking really. Aside from static images, all of human life up til then had only been visually experienced firsthand.

Don’t Forget 3-D!

Now we had a complex visual interaction in front of us about other people. This flow of communication and entertainment increased as film gained sound and then color.

And the torrent continued, ever faster: Telephones, radio, television! All are technologies that have contributed to increasing our exposure to the rest of the world. We were called upon to develop the ability to process more information faster, make more relevant connections, and increase our ability to do more and new things.

Telephones made an enormous difference. Although technically not mass media, these devices could connect virtually any two people in the world. That’s still pretty amazing when you think about. Prior to this, you could either write a letter - which offered no immediate exchange or talk to them face-to-face. It has been said the telephone was the first true invasion of our personal privacy.

When the phone rings, you feel obligated to pick it up. Of course, now with telemarketers, you’re also tempted to throw it across the room.

For true mass media, radio and then television were introduced into our lives. This was the first true - live - exposure to the breath of humanity right in our own homes. Still it offered a double-edged sword: news and entertainment at our fingertips but this was a completely passive experience for the listeners or viewers.

We were learning to be better consumers... no matter how many hours of being a couch potato it would take.

Television, through its ubiquity and immediacy, the most pervasive of all mass media, has taken contributed to a number of cultural changes and - even some for the better. Mostly.

In the early 1960s, watching the demonstrations for racial equality on TV from across America brought an awareness of this situation to many white households who were largely ignorant of these struggles.Now, not everybody got up and started to riot in support but a gradual education of the masses certainly occurred on some level.

For example, in the early 1970s, those same issues came to light on a TV show called All in the Family. Here we saw a working class white man, reflecting the common ignorance of the day regarding his fellow man...

especially if he was of color. The show broke many taboos and gave us, as a populace, a means to discuss these topics in a more frequent and casual fashion.

Jump ahead four decades, and we have an very popular TV show...

called Modern Family. This time its largely sexual roles and orientation that’s offered up for consideration, and though there is still a great deal of homophobia in America, this show could not do so well if there were not an increasing number of people who can relate to it, or at least are comfortable enough “with the gays” to watch it.

I’d consider that progress.

so… where do we go from here?

Since the early 20th century, humanity has been exposed to the differences, the vagaries, the similarities and complexities of people from all around the world, after many thousands of years of never experiencing other people but their immediate family or the people from their village or town.

On a mass scale, ever-developing media and technology had started to transform us. How exactly? Hard to say. Despite this exposure to the rest of the Human Race that mass media had given us, sometimes it doesn’t seem like we knew each other all that much better.

The Information Age

You could argue that all the development of mass media that came before paled in comparison to the technological changes of the last quarter century…

Computers allowed us to do things amazing things - they are truly diverse and powerful tools -

World Wide Web

but - it was the World Wide Web - or the Triple Dub - as we used to call it - that truly opened Pandora’s Box. From out of it came incredible things; some wonderful, some not, but either way, now that that box is opened, it can never be closed.

No Touching!

I’d say the Internet has been the most transformative technology because of its target: our minds... versus previous advancements, which were largely focused on the development of external objects or things that required little engagement by us.

Paper and printing served us well for centuries, offering deep information and varying points of view but it’s the amazing linkage of massive amounts of information available on the web that blows the doors off. Research used to be an onerous and demanding task. Not anymore.Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s GOOD research. Just easier to do!

And the waste...

Oy. Even with all these digital tools, we are drowning in huge amounts of printed materials. Fortunately, technology offers us a light at the end of the tunnel, certainly in many the applications of “highly disposable” paper usage.

We are gradually replacing dead trees with tablet screens. The wheelbarrows of air flight documentation that was quickly outdated is now in a small, light-weight, constantly updatable tablet.

Fuggedabout it!

And schoolbooks? I’ve watched my children and their friends hunched over hauling many pounds of outdated information to and from school each day. And seriously, who reads the whole textbook cover to cover anyway, huh?

Now I still love the tactile feel of paper and the smell of printer’s ink, but I can tell you it’s a WHOLE lot easier to navigate and consume The NY Times on an iPad.

And no printed matter is more useless than yesterday’s news.


Transforming Us

Through technology, we create mass media, in all its forms, and then in experiencing what is delivered to us, we are changed. But how? We are now exposed to the breadth and diversity of humanity.

And, through circuits, chips, digitized information and data, we now have at our fingertips more knowledge, more art and experiences than most anyone could have ever imagined. Not even as recently as 50 years ago, a mere heartbeat in the history of mankind.

In the mid-to late 19th century, there was a landscape painter by the name of Frederic Church.He was the predominant landscape painter of his time and immensely popular.

One particularly interesting thing about him was his home which I had the opportunity to visit recently.

It's a unique and amazing structure, which he designed himself down to the smallest detail, with wonderfully integrated influences from Persia, India and South America. A true standout in any era.

The beauty of the house is not my point though. The thing that gave me pause occurred when we were on our tour of the house with the tour guide describing the daily lives of these people.

These folks frequently entertained themselves and their guests in this beautiful living room they had. Someone might play the piano, the violin or some other instrument. Some would recite great poetry or even their own writings. They might have heady debates about philosophy or religion or the topics of the day. They would play charades, other games - whatever entertained them. Or simply sit together and read great works of literature, which they then would discuss.

Now most of these activities didn’t require a fortune, but the point is they didn’t just sit around and stare at the wall. Progress has left some of us plopped down, watching our 60-inch HDTV, with a great sound system and some snacks, and indulge ourselves for hours.

Obviously, this is an oversimplification, but not grossly so. If you’ll pardon the expression

In many ways, it's a wonderful thing to be able to watch virtually any movie ever made…or a large proportion of all the television shows. We can see reproductions of countless pieces of art and photography plus hear more music than you can shake a USB stick at. Literally at our fingertips. This was not unheard of before, it was, until recently, inconceivable for most people.

We now have news from every corner of the world. We are aware on such a micro level, that we know what a lone individual is doing half a world away. These technologies didn’t make the world smaller…I say it made it BIGGER, because it gave us unprecedented access to the entire world. I had a thought while writing this presentation:

WE are Mass Media

We, as individuals, are now Mass Media. One voice - speaking to many.

With the advent of message boards, websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter - plus all of the many competing services - we are now able to broadcast our own personal thoughts, music, photos, movies - to millions and millions of people potentially.

We know that businesses have certainly benefited from this influx of these massive amounts of information. My concern is whether all of this information and entertainment is making us better people. Or, just better consumers. Which wasn’t one of my big goals in life.


Transforming Us

Technology cannot take into consideration the emotional and intellectual development of its users. Little or nothing that we have created has helped us handle this immense input or enhance our ability to consider what it all means. We know more - but are we smarter?

One look at Congress kinda answers that.

The amount of knowledge and experiences we have at our fingertips may either be useless or even damaging to us - if we cannot find a way to holistically integrate all of this into our lives.

cool…X-Rayspecs!

We have enough information to drown ourselves - carried within our pocket.And, for better or worse, soon to be on our faces and wrists, it would seem.

We all know “the Chip” is coming someday, right? Will we be ready to be linked-in all the time to everybody… everything? That seems the kind of change that could require decades or even centuries to accommodate rationally. But we won’t have that luxury.

With all this, why is there still so much hatred and primitive violence in the world? Where is our enlightenment? How great IS our ability to adapt and transform?

Some examples in the recent past can offer us hope. Dictators and oppressive governments do NOT like free speech or the open exchange of ideas.

Would the Arab Spring have occurred as it did if not for easily accessible social networking? When will the next revolution start because people can more easily unite in their struggles?

Even in every day life, these simple lines of communication have proven extremely helpful during fires, floods, tsunamis and earthquakes.

We are not alone

It let’s us know: We are not alone.

We are all still in the early days of this Information Revolution.We have a long ways to go but we know it will be happening quickly.

Our goal, as always, should be the improvement of the individual and the elevation of the people. I believe we exist to build a better world for ourselves and future generations.


Richard [email protected]

@rbruning

Transforming Us

WebVisions NYC 201303.01.13

Our challenge and mission are clear. Our path is not.

Thank you very much for your attention.

