Zittrain argues that improvement efforts should be based instead on convenience and innovative provocation for all users. He champions a generative system, where users can create and contribute to the design and structure of both the PC and the Internet, and where users are also enabled to come up with software and IT solutions to common obstacles encountered via use of the Internet/PC. The generative structure eliminates the current design system, which forces users to depend on specific companies to fix problems, provide necessary software and continue to build better systems for us all.

Zittrain defines a generative system as having 5 features (p 71):

1. How extensively a system or technology leverages a set of possible tasks
2. How well it can be adapted to a range of tasks
3. How easily new contributors can master it
4. How accessible it is to those ready and able to build on it
5. How transferable any changes are to others- including (and perhaps especially) non-experts

Building Internet and PC systems with these features, according to Zittrain, will produce the most productive Internet and PC experiences. He writes, “We ought to see the possibilities and benefits of PC generativity made available to everyone, including the millions of people who give no thought to future uses when they obtain PCs, and end up delighted at the new uses to which they can put their machines. And without this ready market, those professional developers would have far more obstacles to reaching critical mass with their creations” (p 165). With all do respect to Zittrain, this idea sounds unrealistically Utopian. While I agree that developments should allow a “ready market” the freedom to produce at their leisure, two major questions should be considered: What is the population of this “ready market” and, is its population significant enough to allow the virus and crash risks associated with a complete generative system?

While Zittrain doesn’t specifically define “ready market,” I gather from the reading that it is the market of computer literate users, hobbyists. It includes IT specialists, engineers perhaps of all sorts, but it assumes a large population computer hobbyists. In reality, even if the population of the ready market is fairly larger than what can be assumed, we have to also consider how many would actually have “spare” time to come up with solutions and innovations to PC and Internet technologies. Where the venn diagram of these two populations intersect would in turn, be the actual “ready market.” It simply isn’t large enough to expose all Internet and PC users around the world to the risks associated with a generative system.

Zittrain highlights different systems that could be generative, and then he tackles the obstacles they pose. One of those systems being the end-to-end theory. He writes, “According to end-to-end theory, placing control and intelligence at the edges of a network maximizes not just a network flexibility, but also user choice. The political implication of this view– that end-to-end design preserves users’ freedom, because the users can configure their own machines however they like– depends on an increasingly unreliable assumption: whoever runs a machine at a given network endpoint can readily choose how the machine will work…But users are not well positioned to painstakingly maintain their machines against attack, leading them to prefer lock-down PCs, which carry far worse, if different, problems” (p 164). Here he is slightly more realistic in acknowledging users’ limited abilities to protect themselves from risks associated with a generative system. But this begs another question: While generative value is enormous, would a generative system actually yield advancements significantly greater than what we have today?

The actual results of a generative system would, again, have to outweigh the risks associated with it. Otherwise, it seems in the best interest to remain in the “gated communities” of the current systems, that “offer a modicum of safety and stability to its residents as well as a manager to complain to when something goes wrong” (p. 165). There must be a system of power in place when there are so many citizens of the same community. Be it a democratic legislation, communist, a monarchy- every country and jurisdiction around the world has some form of government in place. Without a government, things become too chaotic and threatens the economic and even physical well being of its citizens.

Zittrain’s ideas are revolutionary indeed, but they must, and will, occur naturally. Just as he suggests on p. 180, “…the endpoints matter just at least as much as the network. If network providers try to be more constraining about what traffic they allow on their networks, software can and will be written to evade such restrictions.” Independent systems will naturally and eventually rise up to combat the monopoly driven system that is in place now. For years the US has monopolized world power through allies they are able to form through monetary and economic incentives. Simultaneously, they are naturally forming enemies with smaller countries such as North Korea, Iran, Cuba.

Naturally a generative system will play out. It already exists, it is just not dominant. But its dominance cannot be hurried, or forced. A breakthrough in the generative market will occur at the same time that consumers get ultimately fed up with surrendering to monopolies. This will produce the proper platform for generative systems to rise and dominate, naturally.

One that stood out to me was the fact that mediated environments represent unmediated environments. She writes, “Teens must work out how they envision themselves and how they want to be seen and then they must use tools to formally articulate this, often without the feedback mechanisms and context that make impression management seamless. They must struggle with being misinterpreted and having those around them and the technology itself control how they are represented. Yet the ways they manage this through the construction of and maintenance of profiles sheds light on the intersections of identity and technology and the ways teens learn to do identity work in wholly new environments” (p 128).

Taylor Swift recently did a monologue on Saturday Night Live that is a perfect demonstration of identity management through media. By even though the monologue itself is a media, and she sang a song within the monologue that is also a form of media, the unique quality of the presentation is that the audience was able to participate in the inside jokes she offered through her song based on information obtain from Taylor’s internet identities.

The following is a link to the monologue in case you missed it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do-EgwrB_BQ

I’m not a Taylor Swift follower, but judging from the audience’s response to the jokes she told about her ex-boyfriend and her new beau, it is clear that the audience was familiar with both. Taylor did not call these audience members on a cell phone to have an insider conversation about these events. Rather, she gave them and the media audience beyond SNL studios access to these particular events in her life. Had she sang about other events in her monologue song that was not made public information, the song would not have returned the comedic laughs. For a celebrity, obviously her social media audience is a lot larger than the average American teenager. But the point is that she uses social media to establish an identity for herself and share information about herself, just like the average American teenager, according to Boyd’s dissertation. The fact that she only shares certain information proves that she is managing her identity, thus controlling what her audience knows about her.

I found an article on-line titled, “Adolescents and the Internet” and the author makes a similar point. She writes, “Easy and continuous access to the Internet provides tremendous opportunities for adolescent socialization… Clearly, the Internet is transforming the social world of adolescents by influencing how they communicate, establish and maintain relationships, and find social support.” (pp 1-2, http://www.actforyouth.net/documents/Oct061.pdf). In managing one’s identity, teens are able to manipulate and create a social support system. This thought leads to another point that Boyd makes alluding to the disconnect between adults and teens.

Boyd writes, “By not understanding ways in which technology- and particularly networked publics- is shaping teens’ lives, adults reinforce the generational gap” (pp 224-225). The disconnect between adults and adolescents has resonated through every generation. Boyd suggests that adolescents’ use of networked publics reinforces this gap. However, she suggests that the gap is narrowed by adults understanding of why adolescents use networks publics. As an example, she gives this idealistic example of teenage Denzel and writes, “Denzel was relieved when his dad joined MySpace because this eased earlier tensions that occurred when he did not approve of their participation on the site” (p 252). Although Denzel’s father may have eased his tensions by joining, there are still numerous things adolescence do and see on the internet that their parents are not aware of. So, recommending mom and dad’s participation of the networked site with the teen is not a fool proof solution to eliminating concern about adolescent internet usage. Nor does it seem to be the best solution of narrowing the generational gap. Even if adults log on to these social sites, their interests would be more mature than that of their teenager. Therefore, it just moves the generational gap from physical space to digital space.

The generational gap is an important one to address, just maybe in a different way. How can social media be used to reduce, or eliminate a gap that has resonated since the dawn of time? Perhaps the digital sphere can be used to provoke healthy conversations in the physical sphere. Perhaps the creation process of networked media sites can be a conversation starter, or even similar social media interest, as in entertainment. Either way, healthy relationships between adults and adolescents are a necessary part of adolescent development. Hearing positive feedback from an adult on an adolescent’s growth process reinforces that adolescent’s identity in ways that social media cannot. It also reinforces the sociality that American teenagers seek to be validated through networked media outlets.

I’d like to first begin with a quick comparison of thought. The first is from Foucault’s article, “Discipline and Punishment” in which Foucault describes visibility as a trap (p469). He writes, “He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who know it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; …he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection” (p 471). The second thought, written in 2007 by an author under the name of Sweatshop Union: “Once you open the door, there ain’t no closing it, you’re a soldier at war…the war for your soul, and the corporate goal; ownership for everything and total control. Unlock your brain and set your mind State free.”

Two similar thoughts, yet when Foucault voices his critiques of a post-structural society, he is deemed a philosopher, even though he uses this extreme analogy of the plague and the leper to demonstrate the effects of governmental control on the social body. Despite critiques, he is still respected. However, when the latter author, an urban lyricist, composes his critique of post-structural society, he is deemed a rebel and a lazy excuse maker. The latter, then, is a subject of the type of society he accuses of subjecting. Had the lyricist wrote a column in a news paper or put his thoughts in blog form, he still may have been received with hostility, but perhaps he would avoid the labels of “rebel” and “lazy.”

This urban lyricist, (commercially known as an underground rapper), is actually subjected twice, because his words will never make a mainstream appearance. As a result of music media governances, only certain music makes it mainstream. This “approved” form of music finds value only in its ability to be commercial. There is a certain message that is not “approved” for mainstream media and that message is that which promotes conscious thought. Had this urban lyricist changed his content to something less conscious, and shifted his objective from writing about consciousness to just putting any words to promote an inspirational beat, then it would have been “approvable” and one would hear it in the mainstream music rotation. Unfortunately, any music that threatens to change the thought of a large group of people is subject to examination. If it is not approved, then it is deemed “threatening” and it remains “underground,” meaning you sacrifice a mainstream audience.

The structure of Corporate America and the market system is also modeled off of this disciplinary system. Credit cards are a prime example. Credit card companies entice you by offering rewards and special promos that can only be acquired by using the card. However, if you pay your bill on the day that it is due, but you are one hour past the payment cut-off time, your interest rate will increase and you will accrue a late fee. The credit card system is created to trap you into a monetary obligation, and to convince you that you are responsible for having that “punishment” placed upon you, based on your irresponsibility to pay on time. To a further degree, this systemic operation enables corporations to monopolize on its employees, its consumers, and ultimately, other companies by leaving you no choice but to play by their rules. They, in turn, reap a harvest if one fails to do so. But as we’ve seen with recent company mergers and bankruptcies, and also back in the 1920’s with the crash of the stock markets preceding the Great Depression, this system is not fool proof.

Therefore, a system of discipline based on knowledge through a hierarchal observation technique may work as a control mechanism on a smaller scale, such as the prison system, maybe even in schools, but it cannot prevail as method when the population is vastly beyond the confines of four walls. Although Foucault argues that the post-structural disciplinary mechanism is a form of control that “assures an infinitesimal distribution of the power relations” (p. 478), the most prevailing source of control that is seen throughout history and all over the world is war. Whether on a large or small scale, wars have been raged as a forceful tactic of dominating a social body. Its success is seen in colonization. The best seller, “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu, strategizes war success based on a Chinese military treatise. Ironically, this strategy advises that “all warfare is based on deception” and one must pay attention to and become knowledgeable of the enemy in order to devise strategies against him.

Befriend and entice the enemy, in order to entrap him; this is the same technique that Foucault critiques post-structuralisms’ society has evolved into. The difference is that the latter society implements this technique sans physical force; it stops at mind control. According to Foucault, if our systems of control evolve into place, and we are currently using a system of control that mirrors a military strategy (stopping just short of the last step, which is war), it seems inevitable that we will evolve right back into that last step. You can only brainwash a society for so long, before someone rises up, like an urban lyricist, a poet, a philosopher, a politician, (the list goes on), and influence the masses. In which case, the only way for the control systems to maintain control is by physical force asserted against that one person, or, by physical force asserted against the entire group of people.

This victory proves, (amongst many things), that the systems of control in place to filter public information are being phased out. The public’s response to blog sites is proof that they are tired of being lied to, and they are seeking the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. (Now the reality is that the majority of information found on blog sites don’t contain full truths, but that doesn’t stop the public from seeking it out, even if they have to search numerous sites.) Another observation is that the public is tired of being spoken for. The rise of “amateur publishers” via easy to use blog sites is proof that people want to speak for themselves. They want to defend their point of views and shut down counterpoints that surface as absolute fact but in truth, are biased, half truth based conclusions. An example of this is heard every day on conservative Christian radio stations. I am a Christian myself, so I appreciate Christian based solutions to the world. However, a lot of what I hear on these Christian broadcasts fail to meet my expectations because the information they offer is extremely one sided, they give facts without mentioning counter facts. What makes it worse is that the audiences of these broadcasts are somehow convinced that the information they are receiving is absolute. They never even consider the fact that it is one sided. The other side of the argument can only be presented if someone can successfully get through on a phone line as a caller to present the other side of the story. But the other side of the story runs into two roadblocks: actually getting the phone call through, and actually being allowed on the air to present its case. Blogging simply wipes out these road blocks. Furthermore, it welcomes a conversation of information.

Because radio broadcast, newspapers, magazines and television broadcasts are one sided conversations, they can easily be used to persuade attitudes and behaviors of its audiences. The audience trusts the information presented to be the truth; as mentioned before, depending on the receiver of the information, they don’t even question that there may exist other factors to take into consideration. They just take the information as is and form opinions and make decisions. This is what makes those forms of media successful in persuading the behaviors of the public. However, the blogging, even though it allows for a two sided conversations, can also persuade behaviors of the public. We saw one of the most influential examples of this during our last presidential campaign. The democrat party used emerging media outlets to convince the public that this campaign was about them and that the public’s voice mattered. The campaign strategy successfully championed for the public to participate in conversations concerning “public interests,” (public interest is in quotations because it is a matter of opinion, depending on which public you’re asking and what is going on in society at the time), and these conversations took place via mainly via on-line interactive blogging communities. The public was also allowed to text their voices in certain instances. While these texts were not necessarily interactive, the appeal of their success stems from the fact that the “one-sided voice” is directly that of the public, not a representative of public interest.

In addition to the interactive freedoms that blogging affords, its power is also generated from the quality and substance of the information it presents, and again, the popularity of the information. Shirky stresses that one of the main attractions of social media is the freedoms it affords. He also highlights the governmental responses to flash mobs and the collective responses of the public at the spread of certain information. This raises another behavioral change that blogging has created, and that is of the government. Blogging threatens the ability of the government to maintain control of a society with new found freedoms that blogging provides. At the risk of exposing myself as the conspiracy theorist that I am, the structure of the internet will inevitably change to allow the government to re-establish/maintain control of its society. In essence, in pursuit of freedoms, social media users actually “inter”-tangle themselves in a “net” in which they forfeit all freedoms regarding information privacy. The paradox, then, is that social media does the opposite of what makes it attractive.

It is safe to say that we trust Facebook with our lives, opinions and personal information. But there is another part of Facebook that we fail to acknowledge at times. That part is Facebook Platform. FB Platform was created to enable third party developers to build applications for Facebook. These applications preserve the look and feel of Facebook so that users think they’re still dealing directly with Facebook, while advertisers take advantage of users activity to hone in on marketing products which tailor to that user’s specific interests. While this is not news, as there was a big blow up over this a couple of years back, it is still in existence and users get so caught up in the idea of a public stage to “broadcast themselves,” so to speak, that they compromise private information. By private information I mean things that make you you, that one shouldn’t want exploited.

I have to say that I am a guilty user of these applications myself. But that doesn’t stop me from thinking about how my privacy is compromised on these public platforms. Harvard Professors released a study, that was created purely for discussion purposes for the Harvard Business School, called “Facebook Platforms.” The data in the study suggests that the two times there was an uproar on regarding Facebook privacy, resulted from attempts from Facebook owners to generate more revenue. The first time this occurred, as mentioned before, was with the application of Facebook Platform back in 2007. The second time was with the application of Facebook Beacon, an application that allowed sponsors to broadcast news about Facebook users’ actions on the sponsor’s external website to that user’s friends on Facebook. For example, when a Facebook user made a purchase on Amazon, that user’s friends were alerted through their news feeds. In response to public outcry against this violation of privacy, Facebook changed this to an opt-in application and everyone went back to their regularly scheduled Facebooking.

We trust Facebook creaters and regulators to keep our public information private. But when you think about it, they are like the state authority that regulates the political public sphere defined by Habermas. He writes, “the state authority is, so to speak, the executor of the political public sphere, it is not a part of it…state authority is usually considered ‘public’ authority, but it derives its task of caring for the well-being of all citizens primarily from this aspect of public sphere” (p. 73). Caring for the well being of all citizens, citizens being users of Facebook, should include protecting their private public information. I call it “private public information” because we join with the intent to only allow our information to be shared with the public that we choose- people we add as friends and confirm as friends. Not the overall public of all Facebook users. If the role of Facebook creators and regulators is to protect our information, then we should be a little more concerned that our information was compromised not only once, but twice. And those are just the two times that have been made public to us.

If Facebook’s revenue depends on information sharing for advertising dollars, then we as Facebook users should be more concerned with this concept “Publizitatsvorschriften.” It sheds light on the fact that yes our opinions are public on Facebook but they are not “public opinion.” Public opinion is regulated by the state authority. Habermas writes, “The principle of supervision is this a means of transforming the nature of power, not merely one basis of legitimation exchange for another” (p76). While I don’t have (so much of ) a problem with a supervisory board that mandates public opinion, I am concerned when that board is also responsible for generating millions of dollars in revenue. The concern is no longer, will Facebook owners and regulators sell its users out again. The new concern is for how much will the users get sold out for again. Obviously it is not fair for me to accuse this private authority who determines public opinion of doing anything but their moral duties. But it is a valid concern that all Facebook users should keep in the back of their minds as they continue to be citizens of the public sphere, Facebook.

Hall’s system of encoding and decoding and the structure of televisual messages are easily spotted in reality t.v. Pure reality shows (i.e. game shows), scripted reality shows (i.e. Real Housewives, Survivor), and shows pretending to be reality shows (i.e. The Office, 30-Rock) currently dominate popular television programming. Both pure and scripted reality shows are saturated with codes. Hall writes, “…there is no intelligible discourse without codes” (p. 167). The objective of a reality show is to make the audience think that they are watching something “real.” When the audience sees this “real” activity, the audience can then draw its own conclusion concerning the “real” event that took place. The complication arises in the fact that even the “real” that is being filmed or recorded for televising can be manipulated by camera angles, lighting, editing, etc. For example, in watching the show, “The Real World,” the audience may witness a confrontation and then the camera will zoom in on the facial expressions of different cast members’ immediately after the incident. Often times, these facial expressions are responses to other incidents that occur off camera. But editing techniques allow the reactions to seem as though they immediately follow the confrontation just viewed. This sends a message to its audience to form an opinion on the confrontational situation. This “coding” works because, per Hall, “certain codes may, of course, be so widely distributed in a specific language community or culture, and be learned at so early an age, that they appear not to be constructed-the effect of an articulation between sign and referent- but to be ‘naturally’ given” (p. 167). In other words, the audience doesn’t even think twice about the manipulated reaction.

A reality show’s success is enveloped around the codes it emits and the reactions it induces. The reactions are what always amazes me, because I agree with Hall’s diagnosis that there is a system of decoding that takes place that is seldom considered before responses are given. Hall writes, “formal semiology has too often neglected this practice of interpretive work, though this constitutes, in fact, the real relations of broadcast practices in television” (p. 169). This includes news broadcasts.

News broadcasts should, ethically, present the news, unbiased. However, as demonstrated in Orson Wells’, Citizen Kane, linguistic codes become the news, rather than the actual news itself. Hall re-defines linguistic characteristics of denotation and connotation, and suggests that most linguistic codes combine the two. News broadcasts will give literal (or denoted) information in a connotative form. Thus, delivering a message that “can be more fully exploited and transformed” (p. 168). But Hall separates the analytical distinction between the linguistic codes from the real world distinction. He writes, “the terms ‘denotation’ and ‘connotation,’ then, are merely useful analytic tools for distinguishing, in particular contexts, between…the different levels at which ideologies and discourses intersect” (p 168). Here, again, he is calling for us to pay attention and analyze the decoding that occurs as a result of the combined encoding of the two.

Hall suggests that there is an administrative goal of broadcast television to “improve the extent of understanding” (p. 169). This is interesting because, (as he continues to write), “their ideal is ‘perfectly transparent communication.’ Instead, what they have to confront is ‘systematically distorted communication.’” This paradox seems to grow with multi-mediated news broadcasts. In its re-mediated form, (which we typically see on larger-scale broadcasts, i.e. CNN, MSNBC), we now have news anchors verbally delivering the news, while written news is being delivered across the bottom of the screen, and stock prices are scrolling horizontally across the top of the screen. Is splitting the audience’s attention 3 ways simultaneously is the game plan to “improve the extent of understanding”? This rhetorical question is not to imply that hypermedia cannot improve understanding level. But it is to suggest that the message of the news is encoded specifically for a specific decoding process. It seems the goal is not to deliver actual “news,” but to distract its audience so that it can deliver a “message.” This supports Hall’s point that “…the communicative process consists not in the unproblematic assignment of every visual item to its given position within a set of prearranged codes, but of performative rules…which seek actively to enforce or pre-fer one semantic domain over another and rule items into and out of their appropriate meaning-sets” (p. 169).

Hall presents a complex system of encoding and decoding in televisual communication but I think the bottom line is to recognize codes and understand that specific inputs do not always lead to specific outputs, as with a computer.

Literature is actually a good example of art that has maintained its function as art in the age of mechanical reproduction. Based on his argument, for art to truly be art, it must exhibit aura (originality, uniqueness and presence), and it must have cult value. Literature has actually been able to preserve its original form as we see in Eisenstein’s Printing Press Revolution. The original text is saved from intentional misprint and the honest human error misprint through the creation of the photocopier. Even though the photocopier allows for mass reproduction, there is still an original from whence the copies are made. The photocopier also allows for preservation of the original, in its original form, by allowing the replications to be circulated, keeping the original safe from wear and tear.

It is insulting that he dismisses contemporary art critics as everyday people with opinions. He argues, “…the distinction between author and public is about to lose its basic character. The difference becomes merely functional, it may vary from case to case… Literary license is now founded on polytechnic rather than specialized training and thus becomes common property” (p 114). An excellent example of this is blogging. The mechanical reproduction age has produced a space in which the masses can meet up immediately and interchange thoughts, ideas and criticisms. This space, is a blog spot on the internet. There are numerous bloggers who are highly educated and have specialized training in the subjects of their blog material. Interaction that the blog creates allows for dialogue on challenging issues that cannot be addressed when reading a text alone, or in a group setting where a subject expert is not present. Calling knowledge acquired via the internet “common property” may be appropriate. However, shouldn’t everyone have access to information? It seems fascist to not give the masses access to information that social media allows. So why is the idea of “common property” a bad thing? Even with as much information that technology now allows us access to, the masses are intelligent enough to know how to cross reference information. Therefore, specialists are still held in esteem and preferred over the information that is gained via the internet.

It can be argued that it requires skill and a specialized art form to have evolved into an age of mechanical reproduction. While looking at a photograph or a film, the audience may not be experiencing the actor directly, but the audience is experiencing the direct production of a director skilled in the use of technologically advanced equipment. Benjamin argues that as a result of the mechanical reproduction age, “…the work of art produced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility.” While capitalistic ambitions may currently be the motivation for a lot of art, especially in the entertainment industry, Benjamin’s argument is insulting to the few directors who are actually lead by their artistic eye and driven by their need to produce art for art’s sake. Along the same lines, Benjamin writes that “picture magazines begin to put up sign posts…where the meaning of each single picture appears to be prescribed by the sequence of all preceding ones” (p. 108). Again, he is attacking the motivations behind the art production. While his argument is true that most art work has political suasion incorporated in it, that does not make it less of an art form. We see this most often today in music videos, video clips, and other camera lens forms of art. But doesn’t it make the art successful when the audience takes a moment to reflect on the message of the presented art? So the argument that Benjamin uses to take away from the function of art actually gives it value. He criticizes contemporary motivations by saying, “the desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of reality by accepting its reproduction” (p. 108). Rather than this being a criticism, this should actually be a praise of how humans have evolved in their ability to bring things “closer, spatially and humanly.” This would have been the focus of Greek art had they had the resources.

Different rules apply for different mediums since each medium exists in its own unique space and time. That in itself makes the mediums art work, no matter what “age” the art work emerges from. The bottom line is that the artist is able to use the mediums that are available to create a message. Even the Greek statues, which Benjamin argues were true art because they were functional, were functional in their ability to engage its audience in reflection, meditation, or reverence to some thing. Contemporary art, and mechanically reproduced art has the same function. The only difference is the mass audience is often able to engage in a different type of space and time because of advanced technology.

From this example, it’s safe to say that, among other things, the success of both the printing press and the internet stems from their abilities to create access. The printing press allowed access to more people and it allowed those people access to more material. This is obviously the case with the internet. However, the internet goes a step further by allowing immediate access. The internet allows anyone who uses it access to all information it houses as quickly as possible. This can be considered a concept of immediacy, but not in the way Remediation presents immediacy. More so in the time sense of the word “immediate.” Remediation does however, offer a concept of immediacy that is similar to Eisenstein’s argument for standardization during the printing revolution. She writes, “one must be wary…of overstating the novelties introduced by printing or of overlooking previous developments helped to channel the uses to which the new tool was put” (pp 73-75). In this statement she is arguing against the idea that standardization emerged as part of the printing revolution, and is suggesting that rather, standardization was “remediated” during the revolution. She quotes C.S. Lewis to support her argument: “…medieval man…was an organizer, a codifier, a builder of systems… Distinction, definition, tabulation were his delight… I suspect that they would most have admired the card index” (p. 75). Eisenstein uses this quote to support her argument that the printing press allowed for standardization, but only through the remediation of the systems that were already in place. Prior to this, on the same page she writes, “Just as the uniform use of alphabetic order for all reference words did not result from the invention of printing alone, but required an alphabetic written language as a base, so, too, much of the cataloging, cross referencing, and indexing that marked sixteenth-century scholarship should be regarded not only as by-products of typographic culture but also as reflecting new opportunities among clergymen and clerks to realize old goals…” So again, we see printing as a form of remediation that set the foundation for a system of cataloging, cross referencing and indexing (amongst numerous other things) and we can consider the internet a long term, way down the line remediation of printing (if we consider printing a form of information processing).

Even though she warns us not to take lightly the systems that were already in place prior to the invention of the printing press, Eisenstein still acknowledges that the system of standardization could not be revolutionized until after printing. The way she describes how this standardization occurred can be paralleled again to the concept of immediacy. She writes, “The systematic arrangement of titles, the tables which followed a strict alphabetical order, the indexes and cross references to accurately numbered paragraphs all show how new tools available to printers helped to bring more order and method into a significant body of public law” (p. 80). Professor Stephen Dobson at Lillehammer University College writes in his review of Remediation that “In many senses the logic of immediacy reverberates with a modern concern for order, unity and maintaining the control achieved through a unified, at times linear perspective gaze…” (link: http://www.seminar.net/reviews/remediation-understanding-new-media-revisiting-a-classic). It’s interesting that he refers to order, unity and maintaining control as a “modern” concern, (because Eisenstein proves that these ideas date back to medieval man). However, it did take advance technology (i.e. the printing press) before these concerns could be manifest. If we consider how order and methodology lead to standardization, then we can see how immediacy can be considered the applied concept of the standardization that emerged from the printing revolution. Remediation then, appears to be the driving force for the creation of advanced media, from before the printing press, to after the internet.

Before I go there, however, I’d like to acknowledge the difference in the writing styles of each author. Ong, put together this wordy presentation of information to persuade an audience of whatever it is he was trying to say. It wasn’t until the article moved into the lecture on origins of written communication that it became more of a “matter of fact,” delivery of information. Prior to this point, the article was a personal log of over-expressed ideologies. McLuhan’s reading, on the other hand, was straight to the point, with an appropriate amount of examples to drive the point home. Now of course, my analysis of the format of the two articles is just my personal opinion, but it drives home the point that I’d like to make. It does not take wordiness, or even skillful word play to communicate a message using writing as the medium. This may sound like I’m stating the obvious, but it seems as though this obvious point is often overlooked by critics who come up with these different theories. Written communication is obviously not just used for information pass-a-long. If it was, written communication would be straight to the point all of the time. Ong points out in his article, Writing Restructures Consciousness, “Urbanization provided the incentive to develop record keeping. Using writing for imaginative creations, … that is, using writing to produce literature in the more specific sense of this term, comes quite later in the history of script” (p. 86). As long as the technology of writing was being used for utilitarian purposes, there was no problem with it. However, as soon as mankind began to put their imagination to work and use it outside of it’s initial created context, that’s when red flags went up and philosophers began writing commentaries about it.

This brings us to another debated theory that McLuhan rejects in his article. The theory that it’s not the instrument being used, but how the instrument is being used that makes it good or bad. McLuhan rejects this theory by saying, “…that any technology can do anything but add itself on what we already are.” Both the former theory, and the latter rejection of the theory are only applicable in certain uses of writing. Which again proves, written communication is not just used for information pass-a-long. It’s used for whatever we need it for at the time we are using it.

The technology of writing has been transformed into a technology that is used for persuasion purposes. Persuasion purposes seems to be the “additive” component of “what we already are.” We use writing to express our points, our ideas, and in effect, to get others to see things our way, or to sway them to act in a certain way (as for marketing purposes). It is interesting that Ong compares the written origins because it highlights how writing patterns had to change as our purpose for written communication changed. The semitic style of written language is interesting to me because it has similar parallels to the text messaging phenomenon that we have evolved into and embraced today. What started off as a system of quick information delivery, is now so complacent in our society that even Universities are incorporating the technology in their curriculums. It is fascinating how we’ve evolved right back into a “reduced syllabary” style of communication. Working in sales at Chase bank, I know first hand that we are in a society where marketing techniques are still designed as wordy, beat around the bush with extra analogies in order to win the audience (the consumer) over and make the sale. I also know first hand that people are tired of getting the run around. Time is valuable and you get the best results when you save people time by getting straight to the point. That is one reason that the semitic form of text message communication is successful. And probably the main reason.

Scholars may argue that this is too simple of a rationale. Furthermore, they may argue that text message communication brings proof to Plato’s point that this form of written language weakens the mind. What is inarguable is the fact that this semitic style of communication does not allow for the skill of rhetoric and word play in a beautiful composition of a persuasive essay, play, or speech. But it does allow the increased speed of information pass-a-long. It also increases the volume of information that is passed along. Which brings us back to McLuhan and why his theory that the medium is the message works. If the purpose is to sway a skilled reader, who has the time to sit and read a verbose proposal, then the medium should be a beautifully composed written rhetoric. However, if you’re trying to reach an audience of single parents who work full time, a manager who also sits on the board of three other organizations and is in school part-time, or any one whose time is not devoted to reading eloquent pieces of literature, then the medium would obviously have to be something else in order to successfully woo that audience. So even if the message is in the medium and not engulfed in the content, the medium has to be context appropriate to succeed for whatever purposes it is being used for.