Elements of art and the Divine permeate all aspects within Gonzaga University. Since time immemorial, God and art have been intertwined. Art’s beauty reflects God and His handiwork through us, his people. This video is an exploration of this connection.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Comunication Practicum Day 1
I have been up since 5:30 a.m. after sleeping in the back seat of my car. Yesterday I drove 8 hours and I am thinking the prettiest part was in the dark. I saw the blackness of the Salmon River and what seems to be beautiful forest. The drive itself was exhausting. Between the twists, turns, rain, and snow/sleet my neck and back muscles were supper tight.
So, between that and today I am exhausted. We have been in classes since 9 a.m. this morning and sitting for most of it. We are going to be doing several projects while here and over the next eight weeks. Thankfully there isn't any reading, but I have a feeling this class will still require a lot of work.
There have been some great things that have come out of the day. Some quotes I want to share:
Introduction Workshop:
What is it that you do as a college professor?
⇒ I get paid to think out loud.
Why obtain information if you aren’t going to share it?
It’s where you go with all this stuff in the end!
The concept of leadership is inherent in giving information away.
One cannot lead if they aren’t an effective communicator.
Ars elequente – the ability to speak, write, and communicate effectively.
Culture shock is usually the reason people return home early from their stays away from home.
Communication, Community, Common -> they all share something
Community is a choice, a voluntary coming together -> openness, not intimacy
Like tightrope walkers, if we lean too much in one direction we begin to loose our balance. To regain our balance, we must lean back the other way and find a happy medium.
Community is critical to peace…
Principles for building community:
- Be committed
- Be mindful
- Be unconditionally accepting (we’re not always the best at it, but that’s what we’re called to do)
- Be concerned for ourselves and others
- Be understanding – recognizing how culture and ethnicity affect the way we think
- Be ethical
- Be peaceful
Writing workshop:
It's thinking about the slight differences in words and choosing the right one.
Take time in whatever it is ou chose to write.
If you have to leave while you're writing, leave mid-sentence.
All writing is re-writing.
First drafts are often the dump of what we know.
Create fabulous images in very few words.
The thing about story is that is makes us feel less alone.
So, between that and today I am exhausted. We have been in classes since 9 a.m. this morning and sitting for most of it. We are going to be doing several projects while here and over the next eight weeks. Thankfully there isn't any reading, but I have a feeling this class will still require a lot of work.
There have been some great things that have come out of the day. Some quotes I want to share:
Introduction Workshop:
What is it that you do as a college professor?
⇒ I get paid to think out loud.
Why obtain information if you aren’t going to share it?
It’s where you go with all this stuff in the end!
The concept of leadership is inherent in giving information away.
One cannot lead if they aren’t an effective communicator.
Ars elequente – the ability to speak, write, and communicate effectively.
Culture shock is usually the reason people return home early from their stays away from home.
Communication, Community, Common -> they all share something
Community is a choice, a voluntary coming together -> openness, not intimacy
Like tightrope walkers, if we lean too much in one direction we begin to loose our balance. To regain our balance, we must lean back the other way and find a happy medium.
Community is critical to peace…
Principles for building community:
- Be committed
- Be mindful
- Be unconditionally accepting (we’re not always the best at it, but that’s what we’re called to do)
- Be concerned for ourselves and others
- Be understanding – recognizing how culture and ethnicity affect the way we think
- Be ethical
- Be peaceful
Writing workshop:
It's thinking about the slight differences in words and choosing the right one.
Take time in whatever it is ou chose to write.
If you have to leave while you're writing, leave mid-sentence.
All writing is re-writing.
First drafts are often the dump of what we know.
Create fabulous images in very few words.
The thing about story is that is makes us feel less alone.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Graduation
I was going to push to graduate in two years, but the other day I thought maybe that wasn't the best thing. The COML program allows students to either write a thesis or complete a capstone project. I am not sure which one I will do right now, but I am leaning toward the thesis. Either one of them will require the whole semester to complete.
Knowing myself, I don't want to overload. Also, if I were to graduate in 2 years I would be working on my thesis/project over the summer. Perhaps for some that is logical, but not for me. So, I am extending my schooling and I will take my final course in Fall 2010 and graduate in December.
To fill up my "extra" space I am going to travel to Italy with the program and study for a few weeks. I also want to take some time to backpack around as perhaps a pre-graduation present to myself and a decompression to gear up for my thesis/project. An old college friend is starting the program in the summer and we were talking about going. She has spent a lot of time in Europe so she has some contacts we can utilize.
Time in this program has gone by so quickly and I can't believe I am almost a year into the program. I think the 8-week sessions help the time pass faster than a normal 15-week semester. It's also nice to be able to focus on one class at a time and not two. Looking back to what I have done in the last two semesters, I would recommend this program to anyone who is looking into Communication Leadership or Organizational Leadership.
Knowing myself, I don't want to overload. Also, if I were to graduate in 2 years I would be working on my thesis/project over the summer. Perhaps for some that is logical, but not for me. So, I am extending my schooling and I will take my final course in Fall 2010 and graduate in December.
To fill up my "extra" space I am going to travel to Italy with the program and study for a few weeks. I also want to take some time to backpack around as perhaps a pre-graduation present to myself and a decompression to gear up for my thesis/project. An old college friend is starting the program in the summer and we were talking about going. She has spent a lot of time in Europe so she has some contacts we can utilize.
Time in this program has gone by so quickly and I can't believe I am almost a year into the program. I think the 8-week sessions help the time pass faster than a normal 15-week semester. It's also nice to be able to focus on one class at a time and not two. Looking back to what I have done in the last two semesters, I would recommend this program to anyone who is looking into Communication Leadership or Organizational Leadership.
Gearing up for Spokane
My three-day course intensive is next week in Spokane and I am looking forward to getting to know a new place. I was going to stretch out my time up there to see some more places, but a work opportunity came up and I figured I better take it.
In preparation, I need to prepare two speeches. Here are the speech assignment descriptions:
2-3 minute speech: You will deliver a speech in which you teach the audience something or about something. This should not be something that we already probably know a lot about. Consider your own personal repertoire or think of family or educational experiences you have had. For example, you could teach us how to make something, how to fix something, a new use for a common item, a trick, a game, a lesson, a concept (mathematical, scientific, etc.) The sky is the limit. Just remember to analyze your audience and gear an appropriate topic to their interests.
Assignments for Session II: Review presented materials; Prepare a 3-5 minute Informative Project speech or Persuasive Speech for delivery. This speech could be related to something you are working on professionally or simply a topic of personal interest. View the speech preparation handout as well as the speech components assessment rubric in this handout.
So, to the writing board I go. I always get a little nervous, but if I can get it prepared and practiced before I deliver it I will be OK. Being that they are short speeches, it shouldn't be too hard.
In preparation, I need to prepare two speeches. Here are the speech assignment descriptions:
2-3 minute speech: You will deliver a speech in which you teach the audience something or about something. This should not be something that we already probably know a lot about. Consider your own personal repertoire or think of family or educational experiences you have had. For example, you could teach us how to make something, how to fix something, a new use for a common item, a trick, a game, a lesson, a concept (mathematical, scientific, etc.) The sky is the limit. Just remember to analyze your audience and gear an appropriate topic to their interests.
Assignments for Session II: Review presented materials; Prepare a 3-5 minute Informative Project speech or Persuasive Speech for delivery. This speech could be related to something you are working on professionally or simply a topic of personal interest. View the speech preparation handout as well as the speech components assessment rubric in this handout.
So, to the writing board I go. I always get a little nervous, but if I can get it prepared and practiced before I deliver it I will be OK. Being that they are short speeches, it shouldn't be too hard.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Evolution of Communication
Our final paper for Social Dynamics of Communication Technology...
The Changing Nature of Communication and Our Value of Writing and Grammar
Connor Benedict, Brandy A. Lee, Roberta Walker
Gonzaga University
The manner in which humans communicate has continued to evolve since the beginning of our existence. From primary oral cultures to the introduction and subsequent advances in writing, to the electronic and virtual media we use today to communicate messages, for better or worse, humans manipulate communication technologies in an attempt to fulfill the Communication Imperative (Thurlow, et al., 2004 p. 51). Along the way supporters and critics like Plato, Chomsky, Ong and Gitlin have gone to great lengths to understand and explain the effects of these technologies in an attempt to enlighten those who otherwise may never know their effects. To those who listen, the significance of this task does not go unnoticed, nor the magnitude of effort involved in educating the users of these emerging and ever changing technologies. Understanding how communication technologies affect human endeavors for a more perfect experience means casting “light on how our world works” (Gitlin, 2007, p. 1). As a result, it is our intent to explain some of the ways virtual communication and computer-mediated communication (CMC) have influenced the manner in which we communicate with one another, our value of writing and grammar.
Virtual communication has changed the way many people communicate with one another. However, it has taken alternate reality a step further, beyond books and movies, by introducing the computer as mediator or imagination enhancer (Lavroff, 1997, p. 7). While computer-mediated communication (CMC) may no longer be a novelty, it is this invisible impact that we must be most cautious of, especially as it casts new light onto uncharted territory (Gitlin, 2007, 23). Social scientists have become increasingly interested in understanding the characteristics of CMC and its effects on people, groups, and organizations (Rivera & Galimberti, 1997, p. 141-158). However, the impact virtual communication has on our culture must be in the interest of all those who use it. Gitlin (2007) speaks of virtual reality in the same manner virtual communicators should think of virtual communication (22-23). “With virtual [communication], we have the illusion of” a FTF conversation (23). “We expect [it] to heighten life, to intensify and focus it by being better than real, more” personal communication (23). However, while this phenomenon may seem “obvious and fundamental” to the social scientists studying its effects, enlightening others to its strangeness has been difficult at best (23). Therefore, the first step in identifying the changing manner in which we communicate with one another must not only be the identification of a change, but must also be the pedagogy of all its users to the significance of the change.
It is our position that the process by which we are educated is an effective way to highlight the important role CMC plays in changing the way we communicate. Historically education has been defined as an individual vocation (Harran, 2004). As early as 400 B.C., young men would surround Socrates in a marketplace in Athens to ask questions and learn. Today undergraduate students, like those attending Gonzaga, continue to rely on FTF communication as a means to learn and earn a degree. These unconnected scenes are not at all dissimilar. However, while the FTF interaction shown by these examples continues to be the core of our learning tradition, the loss of FTF interaction between teacher and student has been facilitated by the technology of CMC. To some, it is a natural evolution, a transition to make communication more accessible and more useful (Rheingold, 1993, p. 3). To others, it is a diminution of the importance of human interaction, reducing conversation to ones and zeroes, or replacing FTF relationships with text. (Lea & Spears, 1993, p.233). However, whether we focus on the answers distance learning provides to the problems of availability (Beller & Or, 1998), or the challenges “fully distance environments continue to present…for learners,” (Palaus, 2007) the significant role CMC plays in education and more broadly the manner in which we communicate is apparent.
Understanding its importance is one thing, however, once this enlightenment takes place Postman (1993) says that “what we need to consider about the computer has nothing to do with its efficiency as a teaching tool. We need to know in what ways it is altering our conception of learning, and how…it undermines the old idea of school” (19). Luckily, as computer technology becomes both more intrusive and prevalent, McKenna & Bargh (1998) say that its uses and misuses are increasingly falling under the critical scrutiny of academic researchers and critics. Thurlow, et al. (2004) also recognize the potential undermining effects of CMC, however, in the same breath he recognizes the “new and exciting synergy” it can create (10). If traditional educational methods are supported, they must be flexible enough to encompass technology, as a means, however, not an end.
Another way virtual and CMC have influenced the manner in which we communicate has been noticed in the accommodations their users have made in an environment that does not allow for nonverbal cues. Thurlow, et al. (2004) say “there is still a popular idea that online communication cannot really be as social as ‘proper’ or ‘normal’ communication…” (70). The information used to decide which aspects of social conduct are appropriate lies in cultural context rather than in the shape or sound of words alone (Wittgenstein, 1953, p. 220). During FTF communication, the involved parties rely on their nonverbal cues to delineate the context from which to act or contribute (Thurlow, et al., 2004, p. 18). “Being cultured,” says Greg Dening, “we are experts in our semiotics. We read sign and symbol and codify a thousand words in a gesture” (102). If words are stripped of the environmental and social context in which they are used, they have little meaning (173). This means that context is the creator of the social meaning needed for proper communication. Knowing that “nonverbal cues…are certainly very important in managing interactions with people,” (61) and considering the Communication Imperative, it follows that a culture reliant on CMC must accommodate for the lack of nonverbal cues in order to “maximize our communication satisfaction and interaction” (51).
In an attempt to level the playing field between FTF and virtual communication, users have developed ways to convey shades of expression that would usually be transmitted through nonverbal cues (Geertz, 1973, p. 45). The method of incorporating socio-emotional context cues into virtual conversations is the solution to, and therefore, a necessity for fulfilling the Communication Imperative. Socio-emotional context clues such as “emoticons,” “creative keyboard use,” “identity markers,” “bending language rules” and “going multimodal,” are things virtual communicators have incorporated into their conversations in an attempt to answer the “demands of impression management” (52). While Postman (1993) may argue that society must be weary of accepting these changes as positive (121), Sproull & Kiesler (1991) say that the divorce of social presence from physical presence is no longer a factor that assumes FTF interaction as the ideal communication method (48). Either way, the socio-emotional clues found in virtual and CMC, which have primarily come from the informal hands of folk linguists, have drastically affected the manner in which we communicate (Thurlow, 2004, p. 120). For virtual communicators, text replaces gesture, and may even redefine our understanding of gesture itself.
If all CMC systems can be said to have one single unifying effect on human behavior it is that usage tend to cause the user to become less inhibited (Sproull & Kiesler, 1991, p. 48). They continue to describe computer-mediated behavior as “relatively uninhibited and nonconforming” (48). Although they often disagree on the degree to which inhibition effects CMC, Sproull & Kiesler (1991) note that users tend to behave more freely during virtual conversations than they would in FTF interaction. While some virtual communicators saw an increase in friendliness and intimacy, researchers have mostly drawn a correlation between un-inhibition and an increase in aggressive or disrespectful behavior such as flaming (Turnage, 2007). Although there are different definitions in the literature as to what constitutes a flame, most studies claim that “messages showing attributes such as hostility, aggression, intimidation, insults, offensiveness, unfriendly tone, uninhibited language, and sarcasm” can be considered flames (2007). Flaming, or increased aggression is another way virtual and CMC has influenced the manner in which we communicate.
Virtual and CMC have not only changed the way in which we communicate, but have also changed the value of our writing. One way CMC has changed writing has been seen in the use of informal abbreviations. CMC has shrunk the world and as a result has allowed us to communicate faster, over larger distances. However, a perceived need to turn out quick answers and receive quick responses has encouraged virtual communicators to create an abbreviated code that facilitates these quick interactions. Being that CMC is an extension of writing technology, the idea to abbreviate words to save time and space is not new or novel. Scribes and authors have been sensitive to the need for speed for a long time and in the process have adopted new rules to accommodate these newer technologies. In the third millennium BC in Mesopotamia, pictographs yielded to wedge-shaped cuneiforms, which were faster to carve into clay (Coulmas, 1989, p. 74-75). Cicero dictated his speeches to his secretary Tiro, who recorded them in shorthand (Saenger, 1982, p. 373). In late medieval manuscripts abbreviations were used extensively to speed up the copying process (Ullman, 1960, p. 11). The manner in which CMC has influenced writing is similar to those described above. Virtual communicators today, like the scribes of the past who used abbreviations to save space and time, condense messages into abbreviations (e.g., k for “okay”) and acronyms (e.g., ttyl for “talk to you later”).
Postman (1998) states that, “all technological change is a trade-off… Technology giveth and technology taketh away.” While the world has shrunk and allowed us to communicate faster over larger distances, it comes with a price. What is the cost? Tasks done with greater speed equals the possibility for more error and the sacrifice of written as well as grammatical rules. It has shortened the time needed to talk on the phone or write a letter. With it have come new rules for grammar.
Technology, however, has increased production speed even further. Baron states that the introduction of the typewriter, word processing, and online communication has increased the rate at which a person can compose sentences.
Baron (2002) gives an example of speed and error in the December 2002 issue of The Atlantic. Cambridge University Press ran a full-page ad inviting readers to “Pamper Your Intellect.” It recommended titles that would serve as “mental spas.” “But instead of pampering, the discerning reader was dealt and unkind blow” (p. 1). There were no fewer than six proofreading errors: proper names were misspelled (e.g., Immanuel Kant became “Immanuel Kent”), common nouns (e.g., “Environment” digressed to “Enviorment”), and subtitles on the book jackets didn’t match up with those listed in the text (e.g., “My Father’s Life with Bipolar Disorder” changed to “My Father’s Life with Bipolar Disease”) (2002).
She asks if Cambridge “was simply having a bad day or it editorial sloppiness becoming ubiquitous?” (2002). Observing the world around her, she believes it is the latter. Further examples can be seen in signage for the Washington, DC metro system. There is a subway stop that appears two different ways: sometimes it is correct as “Tenleytown”, and other times it is incorrectly printed as two words, i.e. “Tenley Town.” Baron states, “The issue, I suggest, is not so much a devolution of proofreading skills as a quiet revolution in social attitudes towards linguistic consistency” (2002).
In her article The Future of Written Culture: Envisioning Language in the New Millennium Baron states that users of online communication tend to be sloppier than traditional written equivalents.
The reasons are both social and linguistic. Writing in general is becoming increasingly informal and speech-like. Online writing presents an opportunity to express ourselves less self-consciously than traditional writing or even to forge a new linguistic genre. Resistance to editing online text reflects a broader trend towards diminished concern with how we present ourselves to others. Fueled by prevailing social support (at least in the United States) for celebrating diversity, these trends may also reflect growing acceptance of whatever other people say or think – including the style, grammar, and spelling used to express such thoughts in writing (22).
So, what’s the hurry when people are communicating online or through some other form of electronic mediated communication? Baron states that it comes from the ease in which we can communicate so quickly. “A lot of pressure to composed-and-send seems to be social. As more of the population goes online and as asynchronous e-mail gives way to synchronous instant messaging, interlocutors are literally sitting and waiting for us to reply” (22).
This then begs the question, how important is writing and grammar in the 21st century world? Do speed and ease allow the writer to throw all previously known rules out the window? An opinion writer in the Daily Post wrote, “Not since man uttered his first word and clumsily held a primitive pencil nearly 10,000 years ago has there been such a revolution in language” (2001). Baron states:
An odd paradox is emerging regarding uses of and attitudes towards the written word. On the surface, writing is flourishing, with computer mediated communication playing a significant role. Yet as we dig deeper, looking not just at the annual number of emails sent or sales figures at Amazon.com, we detect a cultural shift in the ways in which we think about and use written communication. (2002: 4).
In his book Orality and Literacy Ong talks about the invention of writing. While many may not think of writing as an invention, he states, “Because today we have so deeply interiorized writing, made it so much a part of ourselves… we find it difficult to consider writing to be a technology as we commonly assume printing and the computer to be.”
Before writing, humans spoke to one another citing things from memory. They drew pictures and had various recording devices, but all of these were considered mere memory aids, not script. Postman states, “In a culture without writing, human memory is of the greatest importance, as are proverbs, sayings and songs which contain the accumulated oral wisdom of centuries” (1998). In Kings I we learn that Solomon knew 2,000 proverbs and he was called the wisest of men. But Postman continues to say that in a culture with writing, “such feats of memory are considered a waste of time” (1998).
Ong (1982) makes the declaration that, of the three technologies (writing, print, and computers), “More than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness.” He asks the reader to imagine a world where people have never ‘looked up’ anything, where they have no visual metaphors. There is only speech and by memory history was to be passed down. Sound and time, therefore, had an important relationship. Ong states:
“All sensation takes place in time, but sounds has a special relationship to time unlike that of the other fields that register in human sensation… If I stop the movement of sound, I have nothing – only silence, no sound at all. All sensation takes place in time, but no other sensory field totally resists a holding action, stabilization, in quite this way” (1982: 78).
Socrates said to Phaedrus, "And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them..." With the invention of writing, a person who maybe wasn’t prepared to learn something would now have access to it. Writing thus becomes the technology to speech. Before writing people only had speech and their memory. But when writing came along, everything changed and it allowed people to "tumble" the opinion of others about as the words were reproduced and passed along. Ong states, “In the total absence of any writing, there is nothing outside the thinker, no text, to enable him or her to produce the same line of thought again or even to verify whether he or she had done so or not” (1982).
But oral characteristics were still part of this new emerging written culture. Particular attention was paid to writing mechanics such as grammar, spelling, punctuation, and handwriting. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, standardized spelling became important, and in the nineteenth century, penmanship became increasingly important, especially for the rising middle classes (Thornton, 1996).
Recently, however, American social lines have been redrawn to include a poor underclass, a small upper class, and a bulging middle class, the majority of the US population has declared itself socially arrived. Baron calls this convergence shaping a new attitude towards spoken and written discourse “linguistic whatever-ism” (2002). She states:
The challenge to the fundamental principle of language as rule-governed behavior is less a display of linguistic defiance than a natural reflection of changing educational policies, shifts in social agendas, a move in academia towards philosophical relativism, the magnifying effects of technologies that support computer mediated communication, and a commitment to life on the clock.
Money over education has emerged as the primary status marker in America. How one speaks and/or writes is less significant than the dollar amount on a paycheck or where a family vacations throughout the year. While there is a host of literature attempting to define online style, Baron states that “there are signs that the laid-back approach to writing online is beginning to infiltrate off-line writing as well” (2002).
Thurlow, et al. state, "The visual anonymity which is often part of CMC means that participants can also optimize their self-presentation and maybe also stop worrying about the way they look. Both these things usually make us feel more relaxed and happy within ourselves" (2004). This can be said of writing and grammar as well. There is a general growth of informality and a presentation of self in everyday life. Off-line writing now mirrors closer to informal speech and online writing to seen as ephemeral. In both CMC and electronic mediated communication writing comes in bursts and fragments, and spelling and punctuation are loose and playful. The thought is that no one reads e-mail with a red pen in hand.
Understanding that the first impression is the most important, the Marketing Institute of Singapore is offering an executive development program on writing effective e-mails.
The increasing ease of use and decreasing cost of such tools have encouraged businesses to adopt such communication methods in place of letters, faxes and the telephone. However, the downside is that sometimes less than professional messages are sent out affecting the company’s brand image and/or the sender’s professional image negatively… Participants will learn how to use the e-mail and other CMC as a public relations tool and develop professional netiquette. This hands-on workshop is designed to create a win-win situation every time you correspond with customers via CMC.
Baron states, “If traditional functions of written language are being reconfigured, so are attributes historically associated with written culture” (2002: 16). She further states that shifting technologies and evolving cultural assumptions now challenge the way we think about access to the tools and products of literacy and the written word (16).
What then is a written culture? Baron states, “Written culture is defined by its practitioners’ assumptions about differences between spoken and written code, along with social and legal agreements about notions of authorship” (2002). Throughout history it was not uncommon for societies with written works to function orally. Baron notes how literacy was important to the emergence of philosophical thinking in Classical Greece. But yet fifth-century Athens retained its oral culture. The Iliad, the Odyssey, and works of other playwrights and poets were intended to be read aloud, not studied as books (2002).
In his book Scrolling Forward, David Levy (2001) discusses a reader’s relation to bound books and online books. He asks if those who object to reading online are simply clinging to the bound version because it is familiar to them or if there is an actual difference between the traditional and online versions. Levy compares his childhood copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass with a Web version at the library. Being a computer scientist by training, he finds value in both versions, but writes about how different they are. In the end, Levy likes the printed version. He prefers the print because he has childhood memories attached to the book. The Web version has no memories attached to it.
In the end it seems that ways in which virtual and CMC have changed the manner in which we communicate, our value of writing and grammar are almost too numerous to count. We have shown many of the changes that have occurred from the use these technologies. However, while we have highlighted some of the major changes found in our research, there are many more as well as others that have not yet been identified. The danger is that because “technology does not invite a close examination of its own consequences” (Postman, 1993, p. xii) we might not critically ponder all of those things that create those changes. Because we cannot stop technological progress (Thurlow, et al., 2004, p. 41), the idea that we must lend a constant and critical eye to that progress becomes all the more essential. This, then, must be the answer to an unstoppable evolving process, so that we may control and shape the progress of these technologies for the future, instead of letting them spiral out of control.
References
Baron, N.S. (2002). “Whatever.” A new language model? Paper presented at the 2002
Convention of the Modern Language Association. Dec. 27-30, New York, New
York.
Beller, M., & Or, E. (1998). The crossroads between lifelong learning and information
technology: A challenge facing leading universities. Journal of Computer
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Coulmas, F. (1989). Writing Systems of the World. Oxford: Blackwell.
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Gitlin, T. (2007). Media unlimited: How the torrent of images and sounds overwhelms
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Harran, M. (2004) Martin Luther and Education: Ideas for the 21st Century Retrieved March 4, 2009 from www.achieve.elca.org/socialstatement.
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Levy, D. (2001). Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age. New York: Arcade Publishing.
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The Changing Nature of Communication and Our Value of Writing and Grammar
Connor Benedict, Brandy A. Lee, Roberta Walker
Gonzaga University
The manner in which humans communicate has continued to evolve since the beginning of our existence. From primary oral cultures to the introduction and subsequent advances in writing, to the electronic and virtual media we use today to communicate messages, for better or worse, humans manipulate communication technologies in an attempt to fulfill the Communication Imperative (Thurlow, et al., 2004 p. 51). Along the way supporters and critics like Plato, Chomsky, Ong and Gitlin have gone to great lengths to understand and explain the effects of these technologies in an attempt to enlighten those who otherwise may never know their effects. To those who listen, the significance of this task does not go unnoticed, nor the magnitude of effort involved in educating the users of these emerging and ever changing technologies. Understanding how communication technologies affect human endeavors for a more perfect experience means casting “light on how our world works” (Gitlin, 2007, p. 1). As a result, it is our intent to explain some of the ways virtual communication and computer-mediated communication (CMC) have influenced the manner in which we communicate with one another, our value of writing and grammar.
Virtual communication has changed the way many people communicate with one another. However, it has taken alternate reality a step further, beyond books and movies, by introducing the computer as mediator or imagination enhancer (Lavroff, 1997, p. 7). While computer-mediated communication (CMC) may no longer be a novelty, it is this invisible impact that we must be most cautious of, especially as it casts new light onto uncharted territory (Gitlin, 2007, 23). Social scientists have become increasingly interested in understanding the characteristics of CMC and its effects on people, groups, and organizations (Rivera & Galimberti, 1997, p. 141-158). However, the impact virtual communication has on our culture must be in the interest of all those who use it. Gitlin (2007) speaks of virtual reality in the same manner virtual communicators should think of virtual communication (22-23). “With virtual [communication], we have the illusion of” a FTF conversation (23). “We expect [it] to heighten life, to intensify and focus it by being better than real, more” personal communication (23). However, while this phenomenon may seem “obvious and fundamental” to the social scientists studying its effects, enlightening others to its strangeness has been difficult at best (23). Therefore, the first step in identifying the changing manner in which we communicate with one another must not only be the identification of a change, but must also be the pedagogy of all its users to the significance of the change.
It is our position that the process by which we are educated is an effective way to highlight the important role CMC plays in changing the way we communicate. Historically education has been defined as an individual vocation (Harran, 2004). As early as 400 B.C., young men would surround Socrates in a marketplace in Athens to ask questions and learn. Today undergraduate students, like those attending Gonzaga, continue to rely on FTF communication as a means to learn and earn a degree. These unconnected scenes are not at all dissimilar. However, while the FTF interaction shown by these examples continues to be the core of our learning tradition, the loss of FTF interaction between teacher and student has been facilitated by the technology of CMC. To some, it is a natural evolution, a transition to make communication more accessible and more useful (Rheingold, 1993, p. 3). To others, it is a diminution of the importance of human interaction, reducing conversation to ones and zeroes, or replacing FTF relationships with text. (Lea & Spears, 1993, p.233). However, whether we focus on the answers distance learning provides to the problems of availability (Beller & Or, 1998), or the challenges “fully distance environments continue to present…for learners,” (Palaus, 2007) the significant role CMC plays in education and more broadly the manner in which we communicate is apparent.
Understanding its importance is one thing, however, once this enlightenment takes place Postman (1993) says that “what we need to consider about the computer has nothing to do with its efficiency as a teaching tool. We need to know in what ways it is altering our conception of learning, and how…it undermines the old idea of school” (19). Luckily, as computer technology becomes both more intrusive and prevalent, McKenna & Bargh (1998) say that its uses and misuses are increasingly falling under the critical scrutiny of academic researchers and critics. Thurlow, et al. (2004) also recognize the potential undermining effects of CMC, however, in the same breath he recognizes the “new and exciting synergy” it can create (10). If traditional educational methods are supported, they must be flexible enough to encompass technology, as a means, however, not an end.
Another way virtual and CMC have influenced the manner in which we communicate has been noticed in the accommodations their users have made in an environment that does not allow for nonverbal cues. Thurlow, et al. (2004) say “there is still a popular idea that online communication cannot really be as social as ‘proper’ or ‘normal’ communication…” (70). The information used to decide which aspects of social conduct are appropriate lies in cultural context rather than in the shape or sound of words alone (Wittgenstein, 1953, p. 220). During FTF communication, the involved parties rely on their nonverbal cues to delineate the context from which to act or contribute (Thurlow, et al., 2004, p. 18). “Being cultured,” says Greg Dening, “we are experts in our semiotics. We read sign and symbol and codify a thousand words in a gesture” (102). If words are stripped of the environmental and social context in which they are used, they have little meaning (173). This means that context is the creator of the social meaning needed for proper communication. Knowing that “nonverbal cues…are certainly very important in managing interactions with people,” (61) and considering the Communication Imperative, it follows that a culture reliant on CMC must accommodate for the lack of nonverbal cues in order to “maximize our communication satisfaction and interaction” (51).
In an attempt to level the playing field between FTF and virtual communication, users have developed ways to convey shades of expression that would usually be transmitted through nonverbal cues (Geertz, 1973, p. 45). The method of incorporating socio-emotional context cues into virtual conversations is the solution to, and therefore, a necessity for fulfilling the Communication Imperative. Socio-emotional context clues such as “emoticons,” “creative keyboard use,” “identity markers,” “bending language rules” and “going multimodal,” are things virtual communicators have incorporated into their conversations in an attempt to answer the “demands of impression management” (52). While Postman (1993) may argue that society must be weary of accepting these changes as positive (121), Sproull & Kiesler (1991) say that the divorce of social presence from physical presence is no longer a factor that assumes FTF interaction as the ideal communication method (48). Either way, the socio-emotional clues found in virtual and CMC, which have primarily come from the informal hands of folk linguists, have drastically affected the manner in which we communicate (Thurlow, 2004, p. 120). For virtual communicators, text replaces gesture, and may even redefine our understanding of gesture itself.
If all CMC systems can be said to have one single unifying effect on human behavior it is that usage tend to cause the user to become less inhibited (Sproull & Kiesler, 1991, p. 48). They continue to describe computer-mediated behavior as “relatively uninhibited and nonconforming” (48). Although they often disagree on the degree to which inhibition effects CMC, Sproull & Kiesler (1991) note that users tend to behave more freely during virtual conversations than they would in FTF interaction. While some virtual communicators saw an increase in friendliness and intimacy, researchers have mostly drawn a correlation between un-inhibition and an increase in aggressive or disrespectful behavior such as flaming (Turnage, 2007). Although there are different definitions in the literature as to what constitutes a flame, most studies claim that “messages showing attributes such as hostility, aggression, intimidation, insults, offensiveness, unfriendly tone, uninhibited language, and sarcasm” can be considered flames (2007). Flaming, or increased aggression is another way virtual and CMC has influenced the manner in which we communicate.
Virtual and CMC have not only changed the way in which we communicate, but have also changed the value of our writing. One way CMC has changed writing has been seen in the use of informal abbreviations. CMC has shrunk the world and as a result has allowed us to communicate faster, over larger distances. However, a perceived need to turn out quick answers and receive quick responses has encouraged virtual communicators to create an abbreviated code that facilitates these quick interactions. Being that CMC is an extension of writing technology, the idea to abbreviate words to save time and space is not new or novel. Scribes and authors have been sensitive to the need for speed for a long time and in the process have adopted new rules to accommodate these newer technologies. In the third millennium BC in Mesopotamia, pictographs yielded to wedge-shaped cuneiforms, which were faster to carve into clay (Coulmas, 1989, p. 74-75). Cicero dictated his speeches to his secretary Tiro, who recorded them in shorthand (Saenger, 1982, p. 373). In late medieval manuscripts abbreviations were used extensively to speed up the copying process (Ullman, 1960, p. 11). The manner in which CMC has influenced writing is similar to those described above. Virtual communicators today, like the scribes of the past who used abbreviations to save space and time, condense messages into abbreviations (e.g., k for “okay”) and acronyms (e.g., ttyl for “talk to you later”).
Postman (1998) states that, “all technological change is a trade-off… Technology giveth and technology taketh away.” While the world has shrunk and allowed us to communicate faster over larger distances, it comes with a price. What is the cost? Tasks done with greater speed equals the possibility for more error and the sacrifice of written as well as grammatical rules. It has shortened the time needed to talk on the phone or write a letter. With it have come new rules for grammar.
Technology, however, has increased production speed even further. Baron states that the introduction of the typewriter, word processing, and online communication has increased the rate at which a person can compose sentences.
Baron (2002) gives an example of speed and error in the December 2002 issue of The Atlantic. Cambridge University Press ran a full-page ad inviting readers to “Pamper Your Intellect.” It recommended titles that would serve as “mental spas.” “But instead of pampering, the discerning reader was dealt and unkind blow” (p. 1). There were no fewer than six proofreading errors: proper names were misspelled (e.g., Immanuel Kant became “Immanuel Kent”), common nouns (e.g., “Environment” digressed to “Enviorment”), and subtitles on the book jackets didn’t match up with those listed in the text (e.g., “My Father’s Life with Bipolar Disorder” changed to “My Father’s Life with Bipolar Disease”) (2002).
She asks if Cambridge “was simply having a bad day or it editorial sloppiness becoming ubiquitous?” (2002). Observing the world around her, she believes it is the latter. Further examples can be seen in signage for the Washington, DC metro system. There is a subway stop that appears two different ways: sometimes it is correct as “Tenleytown”, and other times it is incorrectly printed as two words, i.e. “Tenley Town.” Baron states, “The issue, I suggest, is not so much a devolution of proofreading skills as a quiet revolution in social attitudes towards linguistic consistency” (2002).
In her article The Future of Written Culture: Envisioning Language in the New Millennium Baron states that users of online communication tend to be sloppier than traditional written equivalents.
The reasons are both social and linguistic. Writing in general is becoming increasingly informal and speech-like. Online writing presents an opportunity to express ourselves less self-consciously than traditional writing or even to forge a new linguistic genre. Resistance to editing online text reflects a broader trend towards diminished concern with how we present ourselves to others. Fueled by prevailing social support (at least in the United States) for celebrating diversity, these trends may also reflect growing acceptance of whatever other people say or think – including the style, grammar, and spelling used to express such thoughts in writing (22).
So, what’s the hurry when people are communicating online or through some other form of electronic mediated communication? Baron states that it comes from the ease in which we can communicate so quickly. “A lot of pressure to composed-and-send seems to be social. As more of the population goes online and as asynchronous e-mail gives way to synchronous instant messaging, interlocutors are literally sitting and waiting for us to reply” (22).
This then begs the question, how important is writing and grammar in the 21st century world? Do speed and ease allow the writer to throw all previously known rules out the window? An opinion writer in the Daily Post wrote, “Not since man uttered his first word and clumsily held a primitive pencil nearly 10,000 years ago has there been such a revolution in language” (2001). Baron states:
An odd paradox is emerging regarding uses of and attitudes towards the written word. On the surface, writing is flourishing, with computer mediated communication playing a significant role. Yet as we dig deeper, looking not just at the annual number of emails sent or sales figures at Amazon.com, we detect a cultural shift in the ways in which we think about and use written communication. (2002: 4).
In his book Orality and Literacy Ong talks about the invention of writing. While many may not think of writing as an invention, he states, “Because today we have so deeply interiorized writing, made it so much a part of ourselves… we find it difficult to consider writing to be a technology as we commonly assume printing and the computer to be.”
Before writing, humans spoke to one another citing things from memory. They drew pictures and had various recording devices, but all of these were considered mere memory aids, not script. Postman states, “In a culture without writing, human memory is of the greatest importance, as are proverbs, sayings and songs which contain the accumulated oral wisdom of centuries” (1998). In Kings I we learn that Solomon knew 2,000 proverbs and he was called the wisest of men. But Postman continues to say that in a culture with writing, “such feats of memory are considered a waste of time” (1998).
Ong (1982) makes the declaration that, of the three technologies (writing, print, and computers), “More than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness.” He asks the reader to imagine a world where people have never ‘looked up’ anything, where they have no visual metaphors. There is only speech and by memory history was to be passed down. Sound and time, therefore, had an important relationship. Ong states:
“All sensation takes place in time, but sounds has a special relationship to time unlike that of the other fields that register in human sensation… If I stop the movement of sound, I have nothing – only silence, no sound at all. All sensation takes place in time, but no other sensory field totally resists a holding action, stabilization, in quite this way” (1982: 78).
Socrates said to Phaedrus, "And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them..." With the invention of writing, a person who maybe wasn’t prepared to learn something would now have access to it. Writing thus becomes the technology to speech. Before writing people only had speech and their memory. But when writing came along, everything changed and it allowed people to "tumble" the opinion of others about as the words were reproduced and passed along. Ong states, “In the total absence of any writing, there is nothing outside the thinker, no text, to enable him or her to produce the same line of thought again or even to verify whether he or she had done so or not” (1982).
But oral characteristics were still part of this new emerging written culture. Particular attention was paid to writing mechanics such as grammar, spelling, punctuation, and handwriting. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, standardized spelling became important, and in the nineteenth century, penmanship became increasingly important, especially for the rising middle classes (Thornton, 1996).
Recently, however, American social lines have been redrawn to include a poor underclass, a small upper class, and a bulging middle class, the majority of the US population has declared itself socially arrived. Baron calls this convergence shaping a new attitude towards spoken and written discourse “linguistic whatever-ism” (2002). She states:
The challenge to the fundamental principle of language as rule-governed behavior is less a display of linguistic defiance than a natural reflection of changing educational policies, shifts in social agendas, a move in academia towards philosophical relativism, the magnifying effects of technologies that support computer mediated communication, and a commitment to life on the clock.
Money over education has emerged as the primary status marker in America. How one speaks and/or writes is less significant than the dollar amount on a paycheck or where a family vacations throughout the year. While there is a host of literature attempting to define online style, Baron states that “there are signs that the laid-back approach to writing online is beginning to infiltrate off-line writing as well” (2002).
Thurlow, et al. state, "The visual anonymity which is often part of CMC means that participants can also optimize their self-presentation and maybe also stop worrying about the way they look. Both these things usually make us feel more relaxed and happy within ourselves" (2004). This can be said of writing and grammar as well. There is a general growth of informality and a presentation of self in everyday life. Off-line writing now mirrors closer to informal speech and online writing to seen as ephemeral. In both CMC and electronic mediated communication writing comes in bursts and fragments, and spelling and punctuation are loose and playful. The thought is that no one reads e-mail with a red pen in hand.
Understanding that the first impression is the most important, the Marketing Institute of Singapore is offering an executive development program on writing effective e-mails.
The increasing ease of use and decreasing cost of such tools have encouraged businesses to adopt such communication methods in place of letters, faxes and the telephone. However, the downside is that sometimes less than professional messages are sent out affecting the company’s brand image and/or the sender’s professional image negatively… Participants will learn how to use the e-mail and other CMC as a public relations tool and develop professional netiquette. This hands-on workshop is designed to create a win-win situation every time you correspond with customers via CMC.
Baron states, “If traditional functions of written language are being reconfigured, so are attributes historically associated with written culture” (2002: 16). She further states that shifting technologies and evolving cultural assumptions now challenge the way we think about access to the tools and products of literacy and the written word (16).
What then is a written culture? Baron states, “Written culture is defined by its practitioners’ assumptions about differences between spoken and written code, along with social and legal agreements about notions of authorship” (2002). Throughout history it was not uncommon for societies with written works to function orally. Baron notes how literacy was important to the emergence of philosophical thinking in Classical Greece. But yet fifth-century Athens retained its oral culture. The Iliad, the Odyssey, and works of other playwrights and poets were intended to be read aloud, not studied as books (2002).
In his book Scrolling Forward, David Levy (2001) discusses a reader’s relation to bound books and online books. He asks if those who object to reading online are simply clinging to the bound version because it is familiar to them or if there is an actual difference between the traditional and online versions. Levy compares his childhood copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass with a Web version at the library. Being a computer scientist by training, he finds value in both versions, but writes about how different they are. In the end, Levy likes the printed version. He prefers the print because he has childhood memories attached to the book. The Web version has no memories attached to it.
In the end it seems that ways in which virtual and CMC have changed the manner in which we communicate, our value of writing and grammar are almost too numerous to count. We have shown many of the changes that have occurred from the use these technologies. However, while we have highlighted some of the major changes found in our research, there are many more as well as others that have not yet been identified. The danger is that because “technology does not invite a close examination of its own consequences” (Postman, 1993, p. xii) we might not critically ponder all of those things that create those changes. Because we cannot stop technological progress (Thurlow, et al., 2004, p. 41), the idea that we must lend a constant and critical eye to that progress becomes all the more essential. This, then, must be the answer to an unstoppable evolving process, so that we may control and shape the progress of these technologies for the future, instead of letting them spiral out of control.
References
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Reflection Paper #3
This is my last reflection paper for Social Dynamics of Communication Technology. It is a look at writing as a technology and how it has affected orality and literacy in our lives. Enjoy!
Reflecting over the readings for the last week, I was caught by Ong’s statement that writing is a technology. It was something I hadn’t thought of previously as it was just something I did on a daily basis. Ong talks about this invention in his book Orality and Literacy. He also recognizes my struggle stating, “Because today we have so deeply interiorized writing, made it so much a part of ourselves… we find it difficult to consider writing to be a technology as we commonly assume printing and the computer to be.”
Socrates said to Phaedrus, "And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them..." Writing thus becomes the technology to speech. Before writing people only had speech and their memory. But when writing came along, everything changed and it allowed people to "tumble" the opinion of others about as the words were reproduced and passed along.
Ong makes the declaration that, of the three technologies (writing, print, and computers), “More than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness.” He asks us to imagine a world where people have never ‘looked up’ anything, where they have no visual metaphors. There is only speech and by memory history was to be passed down. Sound and time, therefore, had an important relationship. Ong states:
“All sensation takes place in time, but sounds has a special relationship to time unlike that of the other fields that register in human sensation… If I stop the movement of sound, I have nothing – only silence, no sound at all. All sensation takes place in time, but no other sensory field totally resists a holding action, stabilization, in quite this way.”
Before writing, humans spoke to one another citing things from memory. They drew pictures and had various recording devices, but all of these were considered mere memory aids, not script. I wonder, however, if these are technology as well. Under Ong’s own definition of technology, “calling for the use of tools and other equipment… It is a course possible to count as ‘writing’ any semiotic mark, that is, any visible or sensible mark which an individual makes and assigns a meaning to.”
I wonder then if Ong sees these ‘memory aids’ as notes of some sort. Because the pictures don’t mean something specific, and they aren’t a ‘coded system of visible marks’ they are not writing? I would argue that they are writing under Ong’s own definition. The system of marks means something to someone and they are of use to recall something.
In Plato’s Phaedrus the inventor Theuth proclaims to Thamus, “Here is an accomplishment, my lord the King, which will improve both the wisdom and the memory of the Egyptians. I have discovered a sure receipt for memory and wisdom.” Theuth was, of course, talking about writing.
While I am not sure I agree that writing increases memory and wisdom, it does have its advantages for recall. A student in a lecture can recall important parts that stood out because they wrote notes; a technical surgical procedure can be shared with another doctor half-way around the world with out the expense of traveling; and students can visually grasp a concept. For the learner, the sensory of hearing now merges with seeing and a new sense is introduced.
But do more senses equal greater memory recall? I am a visual person as they say, but I also remember a lot of things I hear in conversation. I remember having so many things committed to memory as a girl, but now I hardly memorize a phone number or e-mail because I have it in my phone. If I were to lose my phone I would be in some serious trouble. This last week I was without my computer and had come to rely so much on technology to remember my passwords that I couldn’t remember half of them. This is what they great king Thamus feared, and foresaw, when he said:
“Theuth, my paragon of inventors, the discoverer of an art is not the best judge of the good or harm which will accrue to those who practice it. So it is in this; you, who are the father of writing, have out of fondness for your off-spring attributed to it quite the opposite of its real function. Those who acquire it will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will rely on writing to bring things to their remembrance by external signs instead of by their own internal resources.”
In his book Technopoly, Postman states, “Every technology is both a burden and a blessing… The wise know this well, and are rarely impressed by dramatic technological changes, and never overjoyed” (p. 4-5). It is great that I can move through internet windows without having to do extra typing, but what happens if suddenly my computer is gone again? How will I access anything? It gives me ease, and it takes away my memory. Postman states that when we allow a new technology into our lives, we must do so with eyes wide open.
Like the clock, with its origins in the Benedictine monasteries, was invented to signal the canonical hours, writing was meant to improve memory and wisdom. But the clock became something to rule our lives and what was meant to fulfill spiritual needs was overtaken to give precedence to material interests. Has writing done the same thing? In John Brown’s Body, Stephen Vincent Benet wrote:
If you at last must have a word to say,
Say neither, in their way,
“It is a deadly magic accursed,”
Nor “It is blest,” but only “It is here.”
Reflecting over the readings for the last week, I was caught by Ong’s statement that writing is a technology. It was something I hadn’t thought of previously as it was just something I did on a daily basis. Ong talks about this invention in his book Orality and Literacy. He also recognizes my struggle stating, “Because today we have so deeply interiorized writing, made it so much a part of ourselves… we find it difficult to consider writing to be a technology as we commonly assume printing and the computer to be.”
Socrates said to Phaedrus, "And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them..." Writing thus becomes the technology to speech. Before writing people only had speech and their memory. But when writing came along, everything changed and it allowed people to "tumble" the opinion of others about as the words were reproduced and passed along.
Ong makes the declaration that, of the three technologies (writing, print, and computers), “More than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness.” He asks us to imagine a world where people have never ‘looked up’ anything, where they have no visual metaphors. There is only speech and by memory history was to be passed down. Sound and time, therefore, had an important relationship. Ong states:
“All sensation takes place in time, but sounds has a special relationship to time unlike that of the other fields that register in human sensation… If I stop the movement of sound, I have nothing – only silence, no sound at all. All sensation takes place in time, but no other sensory field totally resists a holding action, stabilization, in quite this way.”
Before writing, humans spoke to one another citing things from memory. They drew pictures and had various recording devices, but all of these were considered mere memory aids, not script. I wonder, however, if these are technology as well. Under Ong’s own definition of technology, “calling for the use of tools and other equipment… It is a course possible to count as ‘writing’ any semiotic mark, that is, any visible or sensible mark which an individual makes and assigns a meaning to.”
I wonder then if Ong sees these ‘memory aids’ as notes of some sort. Because the pictures don’t mean something specific, and they aren’t a ‘coded system of visible marks’ they are not writing? I would argue that they are writing under Ong’s own definition. The system of marks means something to someone and they are of use to recall something.
In Plato’s Phaedrus the inventor Theuth proclaims to Thamus, “Here is an accomplishment, my lord the King, which will improve both the wisdom and the memory of the Egyptians. I have discovered a sure receipt for memory and wisdom.” Theuth was, of course, talking about writing.
While I am not sure I agree that writing increases memory and wisdom, it does have its advantages for recall. A student in a lecture can recall important parts that stood out because they wrote notes; a technical surgical procedure can be shared with another doctor half-way around the world with out the expense of traveling; and students can visually grasp a concept. For the learner, the sensory of hearing now merges with seeing and a new sense is introduced.
But do more senses equal greater memory recall? I am a visual person as they say, but I also remember a lot of things I hear in conversation. I remember having so many things committed to memory as a girl, but now I hardly memorize a phone number or e-mail because I have it in my phone. If I were to lose my phone I would be in some serious trouble. This last week I was without my computer and had come to rely so much on technology to remember my passwords that I couldn’t remember half of them. This is what they great king Thamus feared, and foresaw, when he said:
“Theuth, my paragon of inventors, the discoverer of an art is not the best judge of the good or harm which will accrue to those who practice it. So it is in this; you, who are the father of writing, have out of fondness for your off-spring attributed to it quite the opposite of its real function. Those who acquire it will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will rely on writing to bring things to their remembrance by external signs instead of by their own internal resources.”
In his book Technopoly, Postman states, “Every technology is both a burden and a blessing… The wise know this well, and are rarely impressed by dramatic technological changes, and never overjoyed” (p. 4-5). It is great that I can move through internet windows without having to do extra typing, but what happens if suddenly my computer is gone again? How will I access anything? It gives me ease, and it takes away my memory. Postman states that when we allow a new technology into our lives, we must do so with eyes wide open.
Like the clock, with its origins in the Benedictine monasteries, was invented to signal the canonical hours, writing was meant to improve memory and wisdom. But the clock became something to rule our lives and what was meant to fulfill spiritual needs was overtaken to give precedence to material interests. Has writing done the same thing? In John Brown’s Body, Stephen Vincent Benet wrote:
If you at last must have a word to say,
Say neither, in their way,
“It is a deadly magic accursed,”
Nor “It is blest,” but only “It is here.”
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Grad School and COML 509
Ruminating about graduate school has caused me to reflect on a lot of things in my life. Some of those things I have wanted to share, so I started a separate blog about it. The journey has been eye opening and I am grateful I am here, even though there have been some bumpy spots along the way.
COML 509 is definitely the class that has put me through the ringer thus far. I was looking forward to the class (Social Dynamics of Communication Technology), but I didn't expect anything of what I got in the end. Most of my classes have offered two weeks for reflection and thorough discussion, along with a due date. But that was not so in this class.
Reflecting on the rapidity of our required posts I think to something one of our last authors wrote. In his book Media Unlimited Todd Gitlin writes, "Speed is the workers enemy" (105). The world we live in calls for things instantly and this class called for deep reflection instantly.
Another point of reflection I have had is that of no deadlines. The only deadlines in this class were for our reflection papers and for our first few postings. Everything else was pretty "lax" in when it was due (but it really wasn't). Was Dr. Preble trying to teach us about rapidity and the need for quick response even though there wasn't a set deadline? Naomi S. Baron wrote, "A lot of pressure to compose-and-send seems to be social. As more of the population goes online and as asynchronous e-mail gives way to synchronous instant messaging, interlocutors are literally sitting and waiting for us to reply" (2002).
Now, maybe Dr. Preble wasn't sitting at his computer waiting for our immediate replys, but was he expecting quick replys because we "knew" he was waiting? Were we expected to know that speed was essential? Or was speed more important than taking time to internalize and reflect on the points we were learning?
Everything I have learned over the last eight weeks has given me cause for reflection on how I spend my time with different mediums. I am spending less time on my computer and less time in front of the television watching movies (I don't have cable). Network television is ephimeral and doesn't have anything to offer me in return for my time. The news seems to flow more and more to narrative information rather than fact.
In all of this I have questioned, "What is happening to our minds?", "Do we ever turn off?", "Why don't we teach about critical thinking when our students are young?", "What will become of future generations if we lose rhetorical value and the ability to question?"
I am looking forward to not only my future classes, but a lifetime of learning and study. School doesn't end when you walk across a stage and they put a piece of paper in your hand. We must continually look critically at the world and the technologies that engulf us every day.
COML 509 is definitely the class that has put me through the ringer thus far. I was looking forward to the class (Social Dynamics of Communication Technology), but I didn't expect anything of what I got in the end. Most of my classes have offered two weeks for reflection and thorough discussion, along with a due date. But that was not so in this class.
Reflecting on the rapidity of our required posts I think to something one of our last authors wrote. In his book Media Unlimited Todd Gitlin writes, "Speed is the workers enemy" (105). The world we live in calls for things instantly and this class called for deep reflection instantly.
Another point of reflection I have had is that of no deadlines. The only deadlines in this class were for our reflection papers and for our first few postings. Everything else was pretty "lax" in when it was due (but it really wasn't). Was Dr. Preble trying to teach us about rapidity and the need for quick response even though there wasn't a set deadline? Naomi S. Baron wrote, "A lot of pressure to compose-and-send seems to be social. As more of the population goes online and as asynchronous e-mail gives way to synchronous instant messaging, interlocutors are literally sitting and waiting for us to reply" (2002).
Now, maybe Dr. Preble wasn't sitting at his computer waiting for our immediate replys, but was he expecting quick replys because we "knew" he was waiting? Were we expected to know that speed was essential? Or was speed more important than taking time to internalize and reflect on the points we were learning?
Everything I have learned over the last eight weeks has given me cause for reflection on how I spend my time with different mediums. I am spending less time on my computer and less time in front of the television watching movies (I don't have cable). Network television is ephimeral and doesn't have anything to offer me in return for my time. The news seems to flow more and more to narrative information rather than fact.
In all of this I have questioned, "What is happening to our minds?", "Do we ever turn off?", "Why don't we teach about critical thinking when our students are young?", "What will become of future generations if we lose rhetorical value and the ability to question?"
I am looking forward to not only my future classes, but a lifetime of learning and study. School doesn't end when you walk across a stage and they put a piece of paper in your hand. We must continually look critically at the world and the technologies that engulf us every day.
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