HU520:
A Review of Deibert's Chapter 5
- Deibert, Ronald J. (1997). Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia:
- Communication in World Order Transformation, New York: Columbia
U. P., pp. 111-136.
Transformation in the Mode of Communication: The Emergence of the Hypermedia
Environment.
What are the Medium's Multiple Messages?
- Examples of his own plugged in life. (113).
- "hypermedia environment reflects a comlex melding and converging
of distinct technologies into a single integrated web of digital-electroinic-telecommunicaions..."
(114)
Bottom of 114 he falls into the 'arrogance trap': "even primitive
oral cultures"
- hypermedia environment = television, compter, fax, cellular phones,
satellite reconnaisance, hand held digital cameras, . . . all linked together
into a single seamless web . . . . (115). Also fiber optics & wireless
transmission
- digitization: encoding, transformation, and transmission of all info.--audio,
video, graphics, text into digital form (0's & 1s) (124). Details of
computer development (125)
- transmission capabilities: also microwave & satellites, radio frequencies
(line of site transmission), geostationary stellites => global coverage,
now low-earth orbiting (LOE) systems
Where does he live and how many technicians does he have working for
him to make his systems 'seamless'?
- Nice list of technologies coming out of the "control crisis coming
out of the Industrial Revolution" (116). These were "attempts
to coordinate and manage ever more complex and integrated systems of production,
distribution, and consumption of goods and services" (116).
This is the primary impetus for the development of Tech. Comm.?
- Railroad and telegraph as examples of developments of control = 'annihilation
of space' (117). Telephone, photography, moving pictures all separate technologies
but now becoming "the prevailing cultural milieu" (118).
- Critique of a pervasive mass culture created by broadcast media &
captial-government-military-scientific complex and military driven R&D
all this is the primary driving force behind comm. techn. development between
WWII and 1960. Really kicks in after the end of the cold war.
- Commercial forces = notion of "ubiquitous computing" multinationals,
hype of 1990's about Information highway
- main obstacles to globalization of comm. industry--industrial competition
& government regulations
- transnational megamergers => new players hungry for consolidation
and standardization as long as those standards benefit their corp. (131)
- Internet & WWW: "remarkable example of the 'law of unintended
consequences run amok'" (131)
One person's unintended consequence is another person's economic opportunity.
(as Bill indicated). Also consider Bill Wresch's _Disconnected_.
- An era of simultaneity and synchronicity (paraphrasing Foucault): (134)
"publication and broadcasting are open to all who are connected
[my emphasis]" (135).
A much broader definition of HM environment than most ES people concern
themselves with. Ed Kraai's example of synchronicity of production process
at Calumet Electronics. (Interview Ed?)