CMN 280

Levels of effect

Artifact of the day: Microsoft Office (a classic example of business software like the objects Sproull & Kiesler were studying) By conducting interviews and direct observation within actual business settings, Sproull & Kiesler were able to generate insights about the effects of technology different from what can be learned from an experiment. Specifically, they were able to see that technologies often have effects that are far more important than whether the technologies do what they are designed to do. (Mueller & Oppenheimer looked only at first-level effects.) First level effects: described by Sproull & Kiesler as "efficiency gains or productivity gains achieved through reducing the cost of work that was previously more expensive." can be described more generally as difference in output when the same activity is done with a new tool. Second-level effects: described by Sproull & Kiesler as ability "to do new things that simply were not possible or feasible with the old technology." can be described more generally as new activity made possible by new tool, possibly involving permanent change in who and what people think about and care about. Sproull & Kiesler's central insight came from studies of "business computing," and the software tools they had available in the 1980s and 1990s are not representative of the huge diversity of new technologies emerging after the rise of the Internet. We want to preserve their core insight, but improve on it in two ways: first, by rethinking the "levels" for a broader class of artifacts, and second, by recognizing that the mere presence of a technology within an environment may have consequences even for non-users. Partner or small group exercise: List any known or suspected effects of "mobile media." For each effect, try to classify as 1st level, 2nd level, or as "other." One thing we noticed right away is that not all technologies fit well with Sproull & Kiesler's concept of first level effect as efficiency or productivity gain. A fitness tracker, for example, does not improve productivity; it has first-level effects, but they are tied to the tracker's ability to collect data in a particular form. A second-level effect is the gradually-acquired habit of valuing both purposeful exercise and staying as active as possible while doing other things. Smartphones and earphones have a first-level effect of making music portable, and a second-level effect of creating an expectation that entertainment should be available all the time. We also noticed that some effects are impossible to classify within the Sproull & Kiesler framework. These include several different kinds of consequences that follow not from use of a new technology but from the mere presence of that technology in an environment. For example, a new invention may displace or devalue an older invention (e.g., ubiquitous mobile phones leading to disappearance of public pay phones and de-valuation of "house phones"). Later we will call these "ecological" effects, meaning that they are effects on a whole communication ecology. We will soon see that these may be broken into multiple levels as well.

Turkle's two intertwined themes

1. How are mobile media exerting influence on us? Turkle says they are eroding our ability to carry on a meaningful conversation, and because of that, they are inhibiting the development of empathy and perspective-taking. Some of us agreed and some disagreed. 2. What evidence is there for any suspected effects of technology? Turkle points to evidence that empathy and perspective-taking ability have both declined among college students over the past 30 years, but as we discussed this, we realized that many other changes over the past 30 years could equally well account for these declines. This sort of evidence, termed "correlational," often allows for competing explanations. Turkle also points to evidence that even a relatively short withdrawal of mobile media seems to have a positive effect on kids' interpersonal behavior. In some cases, we can evaluate effects "experimentally" by comparing how people behave with and without technologies, but this works only for effects tied directly to use of the technology. To evaluate the effects of historical technologies, we need other methods, since we cannot go back in time to conduct experiments or to make observations. Methods of history and archaeology become essential.

Social Shaping of Social Media Technologies

Artifact of the day: ASCII art. Chosen to remind us that no matter what a technical artifact is, physically, its users will define what the technology amounts to. ASCII art was a playful response by computer programmers to the now-inconceivable limitations of early input and output devices. Computer screens were replacements for early paper-based media for feeding instructions to computers and collected results from a special printer bearing almost no resemblance to today's printers. In-class exercise: social shaping of social media platforms. Example 1: Facebook & LinkedIn. LinkedIn can be seen as an effort to take Facebook's core idea of networking in a slightly different direction, shaping the meaning and use of both platforms. We also discussed the ongoing controversy over whether Facebook has become so important that it should be regulated to protect public interest. Example 2: reddit. From an initial intention to serve as the "front page of the internet," reddit has become a resource for niche-interest discussion groups (including some nefarious ones). Example 3: twitter. It was noted that innovations in use of twitter (presumably things like hashtags, bitly's, etc.) have dramatically changed the kind of content most visible on twitter. All 3 examples show that these technologies are still very fluid, open to social redefinition; they have what social shaping theorists call "interpretive flexibility." Our discussion of Lievrouw's article focused on her treatment of technological determinism. Social shaping theories reject technological determinism, and any related idea that treats technology as an external force acting ON society. (Medium theory, by contrast, tends to embrace technological determinism, often suggesting that whatever happened after each major change in media matrix was inevitable.) One important concept in Lievrouw's essay is the idea of a technological trajectory. Any technical idea, before expression in a particular artifact, has many possible paths forward. Even after embodiment in one particular artifact, what the technology will become is always in some sense open to prospective users. Not just communication technologies, but all technologies, have some degree of what social shaping theorists call "interpretive flexibility." This means that especially when technologies are new, people can disagree over what to make of the new thing, and the struggle over competing "visions" shapes the technology's trajectory. Lievrouw's position is that people very often feel they have no control over the direction technology is taking us, but that our choices constantly adjust technology's direction, choosing from among possible trajectories. Day to day, we may correctly feel that we are stuck with what our present technologies allow us to do, and even force us to do. Long run, it is the sum total of millions or billions of human choices that put us in that position. Society shapes technology as much as technology shapes society. Lievrow gives an overview of two theories that focus less on use of technologies and more on the emergence, adoption, and reconfiguration of technologies. We had time only to call out the main implications of each theory: Diffusion of innovations (Everett Rogers): technologies cannot force their way into society but must be adopted. Social shaping of technology (and SCOT): both the design and spread of new technologies are socially negotiated.

Consequences--of what?

Artifact of the day: Facebook. Why Facebook today? First, because of the many examples of its unintended consequences, and second, because Facebook cannot be understood SIMPLY as an artifact. 'Communication technology' refers to a growing set of human inventions that have extended humanity's natural capacity for vocalization and gesture. It includes: artifacts created by people technical ideas behind the artifacts communication practices that form around the use of the artifact (by other people) Whatever their original purpose, these inventions have always had unintended consequences. Every human action involved in invention or use of communication technology is subject to "The Law of Unintended Consequences," often formulated as follows: Every purposive social action has unintended consequences. Sociologist Robert Merton treated this as a sociological fact and attempted to explain why it is so (that is, why we do not, and actually cannot, anticipate all of the consequences of our actions. He identifieed 5 factors affecting human reasoning about effects of their own actions: Insufficient informationIgnorance, and cost of gaining knowledgeChance factors that can't be eliminated Error in analysis of current situation Fixation on the intended effectShort-term thinking (esp. under pressure)Emotional bias associated with strong desires Commitment to values that make consequences irrelevant Efforts to control consequences have their own consequences Quite naturally, when most of us think about the effects or consequences of communication technology, we think first about the effects of using specific technologies--using a particular artifact. But inventing new technologies is also "purposive social action" with consequences different in kind from the effects of use. An adequate framework for understanding consequences of communication technologies needs to account not only for effects of using existing technologies but also for effects attributable to invention. As pairs or small groups, we began working on analysis of the intended and unintended effects of using Facebook. The worksheet is attached, and we will continue working on it Wednesday. Among many other interesting insights, class members contributed the following examples of unintended effects: 1st level: being able to create fake profiles 2nd level: becoming metrics-driven (preoccupied with number of followers, number of likes, etc.) 3rd level: devaluation of privacy as we get used to our lives on display

Unanswered Questions for Mediatization Theory

Artifact of the day: abacus. Where do we look for the inventions that have shaped human history? Mediatization theory carries over several key insights of medium theory/media ecology: a historical perspective that connects significant societal transformations to a series of important inventions a recognition that any new communication technology enters into relationships with older technologies, possibly changing their meaning and use a concern for the way in which any new technology has not only its "functional potential," but also some transformational potential Mediatization theorists are less prone to technological determinism. They are far more likely to see mediatization as something that has occurred differently in different parts of the world. Still very Euro-centric, but proposing theories that are open to a much wider field of application. Medium theorists stop short of trying to explain the overall direction of change. Mediatization theorists have not come to consensus on any one direction of change, but proposing and debating different ideas about this. Finnemann--a very efficient exposure to mediatization theory, summarizing a half-dozen specific theoretical positions so as to set up his own big questions. Media logic—each medium may has its own logic, shaping messages to fit that logic. External influence when other institutions must shape their behavior to fit the logic of some particular set of media. Intermedia relationships—search for a continuity in the development of successive media and interest in how any new medium enters into relationship with prior media. Meta-process—the notion that mediatization is a very abstract direction of societal change in which societies become more and more defined by their media. Institutionalist [Hjarvard, specifically]—reserving the term mediatization for a specific historical occurrence, the rise of media institutions in the 20th c. Mediatization theorists mostly share with medium theoriests a view of the history of media. Beyond that point of commonality: Three "big" questions coming from the existing literature, with different mediatization theorists answering differently. in class discussion tried to sort out Finnemann's positions on each question from all of the other positions he surveyed. 1. Did mediatization occur just once, in the 20th C., with the rise of media as an institution? Finnemann's answer: No; it's best to think of what happened in the 20th and 21st Cs as the latest of a series of transitions from one media matrix to another. Mediatization is what happens to human society as we explore the new trajectories introduced by successive media matrices, but mediatization has always been happening. 2. Do today's communication technologies constitute a new media matrix or a continuation of the electronic age? Finnemann's answer: New. To qualify as a new matrix, there must be (1) a new medium (2) creating new "trajectories in communication" and (3) entering into "co-evolutionary relation" to old media. 3. What distinguishes the 5th media matrix? Finnemann's answer: the binary language of digitization that allows for translation of every other known form of human expression.

Informationalization

Artifact of the day: acoustic coupler. A bridge between two previously separate technological "trajectories." Recap: Medium theory, media ecology, and mediatization all share a view of epochal change as having to do with the presentation of content in successive media. What a media theorist sees when they look at the internet: a change in storage capacity and a change in transmission speed. Castells challenges this view of what is new—not by arguing against mediatization theorists, but by pointing out some fundamental things that media-centric theorists miss. Castells' argument: 20th C marks a revolution in which all of material culture, including means of communication, have been transformed by a new technological paradigm. This is not a communication revolution but something much bigger, in which communication along with everything else is transformed by the new technological paradigm. Some of the most interesting and troubling aspects of the new media ecology are not really about how message content is encoded and not really about transmitting content back and forth, but about what happens to content, or what can happen to content, once it is turned into data. One important implication of Castells' analysis of the rise of the network society is that it is computing, not mass media, that initiated the changes that have so disrupted mass communication. Not digitization per se, but the transformation of experience into data that is not just transmitted, but processed. We discussed the 5 characteristics of the "information processing paradigm": Information is raw material; inforation technologies act on information. Technologies acting on information affect (or will affect) all human activity. Information technology paradigm operates on network logic. Information technology paradigm is based on flexibility, reconfigurability. Developmental direction is convergence of components into a seamless system.

Consequences of printing on the already literate

Artifact of the day: read-along book and recording based on the movie Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark. Today's artifact is a particularly literal example of how communication technologies combine and converge. What consequences followed from Gutenberg's 15th Century invention of a printing press with movable metal type? The societal consequences of printing are much more than a simple matter of making something valuable much more widely available. Mass produced printing does, of course, make it possible for a religious text like the Bible to become a household item, and almost everyone who studies the matter believes that the printing press was an important contributor to the Protestant Reformation that began in early 16th Century Europe. Eisenstein's most original contribution to our understanding of the consequences of the printing press have to do not with the expanded reach of books but with the change in what was available to those in "the Commonwealth of Learning." Scholars and scientists already had access to books--all produced through hand-copying of existing manuscripts. Eisenstein focused her research on the very early decades after Gutenberg produced his first Bible, studying the new occupations that appeared and the new industry that sprang up all over Europe. She wanted to know, very specifically, what changed when people who were already immersed in book literature gained access to printed versions that were identical throughout any one "edition." In class we did a small simulation of book production before the printing press, making copies of hand-written texts and hand-drawn diagrams one copy at a time, by hand. No surpise, although some texts were copied flawlessly through 5 or 6 generations (copies of copies of copies of copies of copies), others deviated from the originals in ways that completely altered their meaning. This was especially true for mathematical diagrams. E.g., a diagram of a right-triangle accompanied by an algebraic expression of the Pythagorean Theorem got redrawn in a way that suggested that all triangles exhibit the same relationship among the lengths of their 3 sides--which is false. We noticed that just as diagrams got distorted more easily than text, freehand drawings (of a possum in our exercise) were most distorted of all. While making exact copies of text is not a trivial task, it is MUCH easier than making exact copies of diagrams and drawings. Immediately on invention of the Gutenberg press, people appropriated another technology into the process of book production. This other technology was engraving—printing images on paper by inking the image engraved into wood or other material. In the book, Eisenstein points out that word and image were fully combined in book printing within those first few decades, and she argues that this was an important stimulus to the explosion of scientific achievement in the 16th C. Commonsense suggests that the direct effect of mass production is to make more goods available--and of course that was important. But Eisenstein's careful historical scholarship shows that even those who were already immersed in book literature got immediate advantage from the greater uniformity of printed books, which was a game-changer for science.

Experimental investigation of the effects of communication technologies

Artifact of the day: scantron form (machine readable answer sheet for quizzes & tests) 4 transitions marked by change in communication itself: from oral society to scriptal society (varied, earliest known ~1700 BC) from scriptal society to print society (in Europe, 15-16th C.) from print society to electronic mass media society (20th C.) from electronic mass media to digital media society (turn of 21st C.) Between transitions, huge long-lasting changes of many kinds, difficult to attribute to any single artifact or class of artifacts. Within transitions, many many smaller, more localized changes, sometimes attributable to one artifact or cluster of artifacts. Is it credible to claim that taking notes with a pen or pencil contributes more to learning than taking notes on a laptop computer? Most members of the class said that they planned to use laptops for notes despite Mueller & Oppenheimer's conclusion that this choice impedes learning. Some pointed out that longhand is not really a viable choice; e.g., some of us can't read our own handwriting, and others can't write fast enough for the way professors teach nowadays. In class we reviewed the 3 studies and scrutinized the evidence given for the conclusions. Even though the experiments are quite rigorous, we still found a number of limitations. All three experiments were very small. (Small studies are more vulnerable to error than large ones.) None of the studies took into account students' own preferred methods; it is very possible that there is no one best method of note-taking but that there is something that is "best" for each individual. There is no reason to believe that learning will stay the same as comm tech changes so radically. There is no reason to believe that teaching will stay the same as more students shift to laptops. (E.g., classes may shift away from presenting information and toward other forms of growth.) There is no reason to believe that the disadvantage of laptops will persist over successive cohorts of children. (Remember that those already literate were affected right away by the printing press; those who weren't literate were also affected, but much more slowly.) Some of these limitations can be resolved by adding a 4th experiment (or as many as needed), but others cannot: An experiment of this kind that tries to isolate the effect of one artifact or one practice simply doesn't capture the complexity of technology's effects. Even so, experiments of this kind can give practical guidance on choices we make day by day. We ended by considering the possibility of doing experiments on ourselves to find what works best for each of us (possible topic for Self Quantification Project!).

Counting tokens and early writing systems

Class discussion focused on the methods of investigation scholars use to learn about the very early history of communication technologies such as writing. Denise Schmandt-Besserat's discoveries have made clear that writing was not invented "from scratch," but developed from earlier technologies used in counting and keeping track of material objects. We discussed what it is like to try to figure out how humans began writing with no data except the material objects left behind by very early civilizations. Schmandt-Besserat's data were small unidentified objects found in many sites throughout Mesopotamia. She figured out that they were used to stand for material goods such as grains and domestic animals. For thousands of years, these "counting tokens" allowed people to keep records without actually writing. Schmandt-Besserat was able to draw the connection between tokens and written language by noticing that around 5000 years ago, people started using the tokens to create impressions in clay (first in clay envelopes in which the tokens were enclosed). Writing is often considered the earliest communication technology (even though tokens were invented much earlier) because writing actually transformed communication itself. Schmandt-Besserat's discoveries allow us to see HOW writing came to be invented. We follow up on Wednesday by reflecting on the very long-last effects of writing on human society--the "transformations" that it has made. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=kidWY-pJFb0&feature=emb_logo

The whole Idea of writing

Coulmas makes 2 hugely important points: that no one material invention exhausts what he calls the "functional potential" of writing that once a society has writing, it is irreversibly altered, because it has eliminated the pre-literate understanding of speech. Walter Ong (in his book, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word) says that no other invention has so transformed human consciousness. Other classicists point out that among its other consequences for human thought, the invention of writing has resulted in other inventions, such as Aristotle's invention of logic as a system for disciplining human reasoning. As we transition to digital media, for example, we have abstracted the idea of writing from inscription on a surface: when the surface on which a person writes does not determine the surface on which someone else reads, it is still writing. From first day: To understand communication technology we need to understand interrelationships among ideas, artifacts, and practices. Artifacts associated with writing: Instruments: stylus, brush, stamp, pencil, pen ... Surfaces: clay, papyrus, parchment, paper, chalkboard, ... Writing systems (cuneiform, hieroglyphs, alphabets, ...) composed of charcter sets and rules for using them The idea of writing transcends any particular set of artifacts that implement the idea, and it transcends even the practices that form around these sets of artifacts. And humans continue to explore the implications of this idea, pushing us beyond the inspiration that led to creation of systems for inscribing anything we can say (in speech).

From print to electronic broadcast

Facts we've encountered: general chronology of inventions; circumstances surrounding inventions societal changes evident from archaeological evidence and later from written records patterns of use, including uneven use within a society Interpretations of facts: conjectures about what a given artifact was used for any claim about the societal consequences of a change in communication technology theories of the relationship between communication technology and societal change Discussion of Postman's "The Disappearance of Childhood" Artifact of the day: wire in many varieties. Enabling inventions for the entire electronic age were power generators and power distribution over wires. We probably do not want to consider electricity as communication technology, but like counting tokens, transmitting electrical current over long distances was an important precursor to transmitting signals for telegraphy, telephony, and television. The main point of Postman's article is actually about the transition from "the age of print" to "the electronic age," but his article also adds to what we learned from Eisenstein about the transition from scriptal society to print society. According to Postman, scriptal society did not really offer much reason for most people to read; children learned all they needed to know about communication when they learned to speak (something that happens for nearly all children without any teaching, just through interaction with other humans). Print changed the situation for everyone, creating an ever-increasing advantage for literacy (much as mobile technologies have created an ever-increasing advantage for connectedness in the 21st Century). Because literacy (unlike natural spoken language) must be taught, the worlds of children became less integrated into the worlds of adults--leading to the "invention of childhood," according to Postman. The idea of childhood as a separate status in society was a "humane" invention, according to Postman. In practical terms, the invention of childhood was implemented in the rise of formal education for children (establishment of elementary schools where children were taught to read and write). His main point is that television and other broadcast technologies seemed (at the time he wrote this piece) to be reversing what was gained in the print era, erasing the boundaries that separated a child's experience from adult experience. He acknowledged that it was too soon to know whether loss would be compensated by unexpected improvements in society, but predicted that it would not. [We deferred the rest of this discussion for Wednesday, but any additional notes on Postman will appear here after that discussion.]

Main Ideas of Medium Theory

Medium theory tries to account for macro-level change in society brought about by change in media. Basic premise: significant new media technologies bring about cultural change. Medium theorists recognize 4 (or possibly 5) Communication "Epochs" Oral (speech, gesture, maybe drawings, counting tokens) Chirographic (writing systems) Typographic (printing press & associated inventions) Electronic (telephony, telegraphy, radio, TV, ...) (and maybe) Digital (computing, data transmission, ...) Transitions from one epoch to another are brought about by major inventions that transform human culture. The whole constellation of available media (old and new) is known as the media ecology. New communication technologies alter the media ecology, creating what amounts to a new environment. At least 3 levels of effect associated with inventing something new: first-level: effects on other artifacts in the environment second-level: re-examination of old practices (suddenly seeing that they no longer make sense--what Meyrowitz calls "undermining") third-level: deep conceptual change arising from different ways of interacting with the world We completed the application exercise begun Monday, considering "ecological effects" of Facebook.

Important concepts introduced

technology conceptualized as: artifacts: human inventions, often but not always material objects ideas: intangible products of human imagination practices: ways of acting and interacting that form around new artifacts possible "effects" of technology on humans: through what technology allows a user to do through how technologies "train" us to think or behave a certain way through change in environment that affects non-users as well as users through new social practices and new societal institutions built around the technologies