1.1 Historical Context of Communication
History of Communication
Over thirty years ago, if you wanted to research a topic for a class assignment, you turned to printed books, multi-volume encyclopedias, and periodicals such as journals and newspapers. The only way to access these sources was a trip to the library. Sources like multi-volume encyclopedias were expensive, took a long time to produce, and quickly became out of date. After you found your resources, you either took notes on them at the library, or trudged home carrying heavy books to flip through later. Now, of course, a quick Google search on your phone from the comfort of your own bedroom will produce the books, newspapers, and journal articles you need for your assignment. Some will ask you to pay for access, but others (often through your library) are free.
The way we convey information to one another has evolved: from oral traditions to the printed book; from the first overseas telegraph to the Internet. When you look at the research scenario above, you can see the impact of the Internet on your daily life as a student. In this chapter, you will see how each stage of the evolution in communications created a profound impact on personal life and on society as a whole. Before the Internet we were mainly consumers of information, now we can be the creators; before the Internet we had to wait long periods of time for updates and revisions, now information is updated frequently, sometimes within seconds. We invent something that changes our way of communicating, and it in turn changes how we act as a society. Or as Marshall McLuhan said and J. M. Culkin (1967) summarized, “We shape our tools and then our tools shape us” (p. 70).
From Oral to Print Culture
As a student you have no doubt read a newspaper article, book, or possibly an academic article (either in hard copy or online) for a class assignment. Distilling important information onto stone tablets, scrolls, and eventually in printed books and journals has been the way certain societies have conveyed information for centuries. When you think about the information contained in the books and periodicals you have read, it has probably ranged from purely entertainment, like what you might read in some magazines, to an in-depth research paper with data that you read for class. This is thanks to publishing technology that allows us to produce mass numbers of periodicals and books each day.
Writing things down was our first revolution in communication. Before writing, our first form of communication, oral, allowed us to pass down our knowledge, art, ideas, and culture from one generation to another through speech or song. Our oral traditions are still evident when we listen to or read folk tales, ballads, chants, prose, or verses (Vansina, 1985). Oral traditions made it possible for a society to transmit oral history, oral literature, oral law, and other knowledge across generations without a writing system. When cultures started to write down their knowledge it changed the way society communicated.
Writing produces information in a static way such that it can be passed along to someone as nearby as our neighbour or as far away as across the ocean without the message changing and without the need to memorize it. The information in written works can be preserved and passed down for generations. Today, we can go to the library and find a book on psychology published in 1911 alongside one published in 2024. With oral communication, you rely on a person and their memory for information, but with a writing culture, access to information is through a scroll or a book. While oral communities rely on elders or those designated to remember information, books allow readers to work independently to learn on their own.
How the Printing Press Changed Society
In 1447, Johannes Gutenberg created a printing press in Mainz, Germany; this press revolutionized the way we communicate. Gutenberg’s printing press was not the first machine to print books and pamphlets. In fact, Chinese monks were applying ink to wooden blocks and pressing them onto sheets of paper using a technique called block printing, about six hundred years before Gutenberg’s printing press (Palermo, 2014). Gutenberg’s invention, however, was an improvement on the presses that came before. His movable blocks of type (letters) were made of a mix of metals that proved to be the perfect combination, at that time, for mass printing books and pamphlets. Also, his invention came at a perfect time in Europe; literacy rates were on the rise and those with money were buying more and more books. Therefore, there was a commercial market for book production and this is why the printing press took off in Europe before other societies (Graff, 1987).
Of course in 1447, Gutenberg and his fellow citizens had no idea what far-reaching effects this new way of communicating would have on world history, just as we have no real idea how the Internet is affecting us. The effects of the printing press are still being felt today for better and for worse. Neil Postman (1994) calls this the “Frankenstein Syndrome,” a situation in which technology is developed for a limited and specific purpose (p. 21). “But once the machine is built, we discover—sometimes to our horror, usually to our discomfort, always to our surprise—that it has ideas of its own” (Postman, 1994, p. 21). The print medium has given people the ability to widely share different opinions and theories; this has both positive and negative aspects.
The Next Wave: Electronic-Media Communications
The next great revolution in communication came in 1843 with the telegraph, the first electronic messaging system. It used Morse code to send messages across wires laid between towns and even across oceans. By the mid-twentieth century, we had various electronic ways to communicate throughout the world: the telephone, movies, radio, and television (Naughton, p. 125).
As with the print revolution, the electronic-media revolution meant we had new ways to communicate. Like print, it affected how we act as a society. We could now convey emotion and powerful images to get our message across. In our living rooms we could see the true horror of war or famine and be prompted to do something about it. On the negative side, we were also bombarded with ads that influenced us to ask our parents to buy that new Barbie Dreamhouse.
Ownership of Information Before the Internet
By the mid-twentieth century, information production was supported by large-scale infrastructure. Across the globe, people read newspapers, went to see blockbuster movies, and read bestselling books. Information had become a money-making commodity that could be bought and sold every day. By 1995 (when the Internet took off), large media conglomerates like News Corp, owned by Rupert Murdoch, owned newspapers from across the world.
The push to industrialize the production of information in the twentieth century meant information became part of what Yochai Benkler has called “the industrial information economy” (as cited in Naughton, 2014, p. 84). For the average citizen, writing up your ideas with a pen and paper, and making photocopies and posting them around town as flyers was still a way to communicate your opinion, and maybe you could get access to airtime at your local community TV station, but overall, information was produced and disseminated by large corporations. While freedom of the press and alternative and independent printing houses meant that dissent and new ideas still emerged, there was an air of closed professionalism when it came to traditional print and media (Naughton, 2014).
Why the Internet Represents a Communications Revolution
Consider
- How many digital devices do you own that allow you to access the Internet?
- How often do you post something to a platform where more than ten people can see it?
You will likely notice that you own more than one device connected to the Internet and spend hours creating and posting work or comments for dozens if not hundreds or thousands of people to see. Just like the people of Johannes Gutenberg’s time, we are living in the midst of something new and if we reflect on it, we can see that it is changing not only the way we communicate, but also the way we function as a global society. The perfect combination of the arrival of both the affordable personal computer and the opening of the Internet to the public in the 1990s created the current communications revolution.
In technical terms, according to InternetSociety.org, “The . . . internet consists of tens of thousands of interconnected networks run by service providers, individual companies, universities, governments, and others. Open standards enable this network of networks to communicate. This makes it possible for anyone to create content, offer services, and sell products without requiring permission from a central authority” (Internet Society, n.d., para. 1). Thanks to open standards, the Internet is not owned by one global company. The Internet is a carrier of information in the forms of websites, email, files, videos, VoIPs, and files yet to be invented (Naughton, 2014; Leiner et al., 1997). The Internet has facilitated a revolution in how we communicate because it allows information to be stored, created, and distributed to large numbers of people, across the world, in a matter of seconds. Or to put it another way, billions of pieces of information, including the digital artifacts of our human history, plus our own creations, can now be accessed at the touch of our fingers.
In over thirty short years, the Internet has become, for many, as commonplace as electricity and running water. The Internet is a truly global revolution in communications. According to another survey, of thirty-eight countries, by the Pew Research Center, the majority of citizens polled consider free expression in cyberspace, without government control, to be a fundamental right (Wike, 2016).
The Internet, like the printing press, is an example of what Professor Clayton Christensen (2003) called disruptive technology. Christensen was primarily concerned with how a new technology can significantly alter the way that businesses or entire industries operate. Just like companies, society is also forced to alter the way it acts. We can already see a few disruptive changes the Internet has made to the way we communicate:
- Global spread of information quickly and for little cost. Information now spreads faster and wider for little cost.
- Reliance on the Internet. We no longer seek out traditional sources to quickly find information.
- Reliance on the Internet for information is disrupting traditional forms of relationships, like asking our friends or seeking out experts in our local community.
- We broadcast ourselves. Everyone can be a producer of information and production cost is low (Naughton, 2014).
- E-commerce. We now shop online for everything from airline tickets to groceries.
Who Controls the Internet?
From the very beginning, the Internet ran on the revolutionary principles of neutrality and openness. Of course, to connect to the Internet, we need to pay an Internet service provider (ISP), so accessing the Internet has never been free. But net neutrality means that once you are online, you can access any website, upload your own works, and participate in any social media platform of your choice. You may need to pay for apps or memberships, but with neutrality, it is your right to choose, for instance, between Netflix and any other streaming service. It has also created platforms for people to express their views and for other people to learn about these views. Important social movements and even political revolutions are now played out online.
While neutrality and openness sound utopian, the reality is that the Internet is in a constant battle with larger forces who want to control it and censor its content. Censorship of content is controlled by the government on a country-by-country basis. While most democratic countries have only moderate Internet censorship, other countries go so far as to limit the access of information such as news and to suppress discussion among citizens (Murdoch & Roberts, 2013). Internet censorship also occurs in response to or in anticipation of events such as elections, protests, and riots.
Case Study: The Role of Social Media and the Tunisia Revolution
On December 17, 2010, demonstrations erupted in Tunisia. A few weeks earlier the website WikiLeaks had released classified information from the US diplomatic service around the world, making it, according to WikiLeaks, “the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain” (WikiLeaks, 2011, para. 1). Included in the online documents was evidence of corruption against the Tunisian government of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who had been in power since 1987. That day, a desperate act by an unemployed fruit seller was all the catalyst that was needed. The Tunisian people had finally had enough of corruption, high unemployment, and lack of political freedom, such as freedom of speech (Anderson, 2011). The Internet played a significant role in organizing the protests and demonstrations that followed, and in disseminating news and pictures to the rest of the world. Reporters and civilians on the ground used Twitter to send out up-to-the-minute reports. Protesters used Twitter and Facebook to organize and set the times and places for their demonstrations. They also used the two social media platforms to warn one another about and to keep one another safe from the military and the police (Anderson, 2011).
Soon after the protests began, the government ramped up its attempts at controlling the Internet. These started simply enough with site blocking, but soon turned more sinister. Tunisia’s Internet Agency started to harvest the passwords and usernames of bloggers, reporters, political activists, and protesters by injecting hidden JavaScript into the login pages of many popular sites, like Facebook (O’Brien, 2011). They then subsequently logged into these sites using the stolen credentials, and deleted the protesters’ Facebook groups, pages, and accounts. They also used the information to arrest and jail those involved (O’Brien, 2011). The demonstrators prevailed anyway, and twenty-eight days later, on January 11, 2011, Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia. The successful revolution in Tunisia inspired what would become known as the “Arab Spring,” a revolutionary wave of both violent and non-violent demonstrations, protests, riots, coups, foreign interventions, and civil wars in North Africa and the Middle East. For the first time in history, social media and the Internet were key players in an uprising.
Questions
- Marshall McLuhan (1967) said of the print revolution that it “created national uniformity and government centralism, but also individualism and opposition to government as such” (p. 235). What role does social media play in allowing opposition to the government but also in facilitating government centralization?
Online and Digital Media
In the last 25 years, online and digital media has grown in leaps and bounds to become a fixture in the daily life of most people in Canada. Prior to the turn of the century, traditional media, which consisted of mainly print, radio, and television/movies, was limited to a few places and had a somewhat limited presence in lives and societies. For example, in the 20th century radio and television grew to become features in the home. Movies were primarily enjoyed in theaters until VCRs and DVD players brought them into homes. The closest thing to a portable mass medium in the 20th century was reading a book or paper on a commute to and from work.
Digital media in the 21st century are more personal and more social than traditional media. A small device that fits in your pocket has the ability to connect you with the world, from anywhere and at any time. It has changed the way you communicate, and in particular the way you approach communication in business. In this chapter, you will learn more about the evolution of digital media, consider how people engage with digital media, and how you can begin to use digital media as a business professional.
Becoming a Digital Citizen in the New World
We are living in a time of revolution in methods of communication. Using the Internet allows us to share our information and creations. It also provides a platform for the inclusion of both mainstream and marginal voices and it creates a space for us to participate within our chosen society (Mossberger, Tolbert, & McNeal, 2008). However, we need to act as informed citizens when using these new ways of communicating.
In the next chapters, you will learn how to conduct yourself as a digital citizen on the Internet. This means remaining critical of what you read and carefully considering how you conduct yourself online. As connected users we need to be aware that while sharing videos, images, and memes can give us instantaneous positive feelings, uncritical use of social media can also lead to poor decision-making and life-altering consequences (Alvermann, 2017).
Attribution & References
Except where otherwise noted, this page is adapted from “Chapter 2: Modes of Digital Communication” In Digital Citizenship Toolkit by Kelly Dermody, CC BY 4.0. and Chapter 12: Introduction In Communication for Business Professionals by eCampusOntario, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. / Adaptations: Two pages have been combined, content shortened and streamlined for student comprehension, removal of unnecessary references and images added for visual appeal.
References
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