By Brian Smalley

Medium Theory by Joshua Meyrowitz clarifies the history of civilization from a medium-theory perspective consisting of three phases of civilization paired to three major forms of communicating: from traditional oral societies to modern print societies (via a transitional scribal phase), to an electronic global culture.

He starts off focusing on the best-known and most controversial medium theorists, Harold Adams Innis and Herbert Marshall McLuhan. Innis claims that the “bias of a culture’s dominant medium affects the degree of the culture’s stability and conservatism as well as the culture’s ability to take over a govern a large territory” (61). He uses as an example the Romans, who were able to maintain a large empire and rule distant provinces when only messaging on ‘space-biased’ papyrus, until they lost their supply from Egypt and their empire collapsed. McLuhan focuses his work on ‘sensory balance;’ investigates each communication medium as an extension of one or more of the human senses, and believes the use of different technologies affects the organization of the human senses and the structure of the culture.

In oral societies, the conservation of ideas and mores depends on the memory of people. Oral cultures are considered ‘closed’ in two senses. Orality requires a physical presence, meaning oral cultures have only few, if any, ways of interacting with others who do not physically live with them. These societies are ‘traditional’ because they work hard to preserve what they are and already have. Change is slow because survival depends on memorization; therefore creativity and newness are discouraged.

The scribal phase is where writing starts to break down tribal cohesion and the oral mode of thinking because it proposes a way to construct and conserve prose, and to program long strings of connected ideas that would be impossible for most people to memorize. It establishes the possibility for ‘literature,’ ‘science,’ and ‘philosophy.’ The modern print phase then divides the people into separate communication systems, where the poor and illiterate remain wholly dependent on verbal communication, while the upper and growing middle classes increasingly vacate to their libraries. Whereas oral nature of community united people into similar experiences and knowledge, reading and writing divide people into separate informational worlds.

The global electronic phase is last with the invention of the telegraph and telephone heralding the future age of radio, TV, etc. Like other media, electronic communication takes time to develop before having a severe impact on social structure. “It brings back a key aspect of oral societies: simultaneity of action, perception, and reaction; sensory experience again becomes a prime form of communicating. Electronic media are expansions of our sensory apparatus that attain around the planet.

When looking at the ‘Role Triad,’ the influence of information access patterns becomes more visible when you look at how practically all social roles can be described in terms of an information-network-sensitive triad of social roles. These are Group Identity, Socialization, and Hierarchy. Group identity involves roles of affiliation, socialization entails roles of transition, and hierarchy describes roles of authority. According to the text, “the introduction of new media into a culture restructures the social world in the same way as building or removing walls may either isolate people into different groups or unite them into the same environment.

Even though electronic media began to be widely used as the impact of print lead to increased attempts to isolate social spheres, the telephone, radio, and television make the limitations of social spheres now more permeable. Physical structures no longer fully mould social identity as a result. Due to electronic media, previously diverse groups share more information about society and each other. This being information that once distinguished ‘insiders’ from ‘outsiders.’ Television has blurred the line between public and private by bringing the public sphere into the home, and has lifted many of the old curtains of secrecy between adults and children, men and women, and politicians and average citizens. Meyrowitz characterizes electronic society by more adult-like children and child-like adults. He believes as we move forward, our society is spiraling backwards at the same time- the middle and upper classes have been moving towards behaviors once related with the illiterate lower class. The shared information environment created by electronic media does not lead to identical behaviors or attitudes; the electronic society incorporates all groups into a common sphere where people share not the same behaviors, but the same set of options.

By Brian Smalley

The article “The Next Room,” by Mitchell Stephens begins with an angry reader fighting for privacy while others in “the next room” are watching television, which happens to always be on. This is the beginning of Mitchell’s expertise on how television- “the form of moving images at which we have directed most of our attention and most of our criticism, the form that has conquered the world”- is becoming the most dominant form of communication media, along with the impact it brings on people and children.

Stephens analogizes this opening scenario as reading a book that looks forward to the “eclipse” of reading by the offspring of television. He begins to analyze a ninety-six second trailer for an ABC documentary with fewer than two hundred words and compares its effectiveness whereas you can read twice as many words in the same time.

As if he has never seen a television before, he actively describes what is being displayed- separate scenes, different emotions, additional images are sometimes superimposed, music plays while cameras dart all around- admitting how it manages to convey a significant amount of information in such short time. He uses this example to prove the point that fast-cut moving images along with some words and music posses the capability to communicate ‘at least’ as effectively and efficiently as printed words alone.

Stephens claims that even though moving images are gaining accountability for more and more of our communication, most of us have great difficulty accepting this, although the growth is hard to ignore. Evidence is everywhere: shifting bookshelves to “entertainment centers,” libraries to “family/ TV rooms.” Former vice president Dan Quayle, embarked on a minor movement against television, ending at a elementary school where students yelled “NO,” after being asked if they would turn their TVs off during school nights. 84% of children between four and five even said they liked TV over their fathers.

According to researchers, no medium or technology has “penetrated” our homes like the TV. IBM sold its first personal computer about 30 years after selling to businesses. Eight years after the release of a full-scale commercial television, half of Americans had one. On average, TVs are on up to eight hours daily. “We are as attached, as addicted to television as we, as a society, have been to any other invention, communications medium, art form or drug (97).” Tens and millions of people have already begun using computers and the Internet, which is impressive, but TV being less than a generation older, has already won humankind over.

Steve Jobs in 1996 was quoted about the World Wide Web saying, “It’s certainly not going to be like the first time somebody saw a television… its not going to be that profound.” An increase in TV and decrease in reading occurred the same time the amount of formal education Americans obtain increased. Stephens concludes his point stressing the video revolution being humankind’s third major communications revolution following writing and print.

There have been many updates in the communications ecosystem since 1998. It would be fare to assume that more people have TV sets in their homes and the average ‘on’ time is longer. “Media technology is important in the lives of children during the 21^st century and electronic media is always changing”(FOC). According to Future of Children, TV which once dominated the mid-90’s, now competes with cell phones, iPods, video games, social networking, etc. Usually the younger you are, the more experience and knowledge you obtain with generational technologies. My age is used to color TV and 3D gaming, while the youth is used to 3D TV and iPads. There are now a vast majority of children with access to multiple medias, and due to technological convergence, they have access to the same source from different media platforms. As a result, America’s youth spends more time using media than on any single activity other than sleep and media multi-tasking is at an all-time high. Parents are concerned with media’s impact on their children’s learning, attention, and achievement; however, there have been no casual links between electronic media and the lack such. Researchers concluded that if designed correctly, media use can enhance learning and the development of the visual spatial skills. On the other hand, the results depend on how the teachers and elders use this technology.

GROWTH OF CABLE

By Brian Smalley

For our communications course, our class was assigned to read a textbook article and summarize the piece. The article I chose to recapitulate was from chapter 9, by Michele Faith Wallace titled, “The Good Lynching and The Birth of A Nation: Discourses and Aesthetics of Jim Crow.” The article proposes to main focuses. The first is an emphasis and examination on the movie “The Birth of A Nation,” by D. W. Griffith, which is known as a landmark in progress of feature film and in the history of American racial communication during the Jim Crow period. The second focus is the article’s proposal to correct our current perspective on The Birth of A Nation by thoroughly studying how the techniques used by feature film inscribe and underwrite overriding racial ideologies.

The beginning of the article discusses how scholars have ignored issues of race in silent films and how during the first decades of the twentieth century, the same period the U.S. film industry was being established, there was a problem with the integration of slaves and their children into mainstream society. However material related to the troubles of African Americans was rarely present in theater. Yet when it was, it was in the context of whites performing black roles with blackfaces, or blacks in demeaning scenarios.

The article then mentions The Birth of A Nation- released in 1915 when Lynching was a main topic in the U.S. news- for the first time, and how it is the most significant case of an exception when the U.S. cinema addresses race as a subject matter, which it rarely does, and invariably softens the historical bottom line; where “colorblindness is temporarily reversed”(246). The movie is considered a “masterpiece of the silent era yet widely viewed as anti-black propaganda.” Wallace then mentions that this film’s continued disrepute challenges our most adored notions of the intrinsically ethical character of aesthetic masterpieces. According to Wallace, The Birth of a Nation is the “only historical epic focused on the fear of so-called Negro domination in the Reconstruction Era; from its first appearance, Birth inspired controversy and violent feelings in both its adherents and its detractors, and continues to do so.” After its release, irregular lynchings and race riots occurred following the return of black soldiers who had fought abroad during World War I.

Wallace then goes into detail on the origin of the film, which is difficult to explain due the many strands of its genesis and history. Apparently, Griffith based the film on two rabidly racist novels by Thomas Dixon (a preacher novelist), The Clansmen and The Leopard Spots. Unlike Thomas, Griffith was a white supremacist who was more concerned with establishing himself as an innovative artist during a new revolutionary medium. His intention was partly to show the underserved and unearned affluence of blacks during reconstruction.

Wallace references the novel Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, on how after the Civil War, blacks became invisible as cognitive beings in the relatively new technologies of media, photography, and film through which knowledge was more and more dispersed. Wallace believes that being invisible meant their status paralleled and reflected their marginal status in the broader society. She then talks about how Birth is rarely shown in public because it presents an emotionally supported historical argument in an aesthetically dynamic package. Wallace claims Griffith accomplished this in three ways. The first is by using most lovely medium ever invented, black-and-white nitrate film and by emphasizing classical whiteness as a racial ideal. The next is Griffith’s manipulation of film grammar through editing and assortment. Then his deployment of the well-worn and popular generic capacities of melodrama. Griffith defined the basic components of the movie’s genre: “a light realistic touch combined with unfathomable pathos.” Yet Wallace believes that this film has always been, and always will be an important American film because of its aesthetic heritage.

This article is most compatible with Chapter 9 from the textbook. The first line of the chapter is a quote from Hannah Arendt: “Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.” I think this is true and that it relates to The Birth of a Nation, assuming partly why Griffith got away with this film. The chapter mentions that stories are “both the form and content of the media, and provide cultural links to the most ancient human traditions; media stories grab our attention, stimulate our thoughts and feelings, and occasionally impel us to action. These claims fit right in with the film. Finally, it talks about how media storytellers have many techniques to capture their audience and that storytelling is an essential media skill. Griffith easily is supported by these claims.

I really enjoyed reading Wallace’s article and am confident that I walked away with a lot of knowledge. She had a lot of supporting and persuading evidence in proving her point, and her writing maintained good flow. My only question would be, “If this has been such a big issue through out history, why are we just hearing about it now?” It can be concluded that Birth of a Nation has dominated social politics in the West and North and has not only been a dominant fictional account of Reconstruction but also an apologia for the almost one hundred year-reign of white supremacy and Jim Crow segmentation that followed in the South. It remains separated from most other cultural racism being that it continues to attract our interest and persists to be a source of fascination due to its formal vividness. Therefore, Birth is imperative in comprehending our country’s “other” history- the failure of Reconstruction, which is rarely taught or even recounted, and is a great spot to begin the long-overdue analysis of race in U.S. cinema studies.

DISCUSSION ON GRIFFITH ...

By Brian Smalley

I chose to do "My Story" on my recent international business trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  We also traveled to Santiago, Chile, however the video would be never ending if I focused on both.  I decided to do this trip because it was fairly recent, taking place over our last winter break.  It was one of the most exciting things I have ever done and is currently my favorite traveling spot.  Not only going to another country, but going to Brazil, really changed my attitude and perspective on life; educated me about a fascinating culture and made me much more appreciative.  The trip had a great impact on me, so I figured it would be a fun topic to narrate that would impact others.

The pictures for the most part are all personal photos taken either by me or by friends on the trip.  Every so often a photo would be displayed that wasn't mine, to help the flow of the project and imagery of the story (ex. plane, BWI airport, the hotel, restaurant).  I also included an amateur video from youtube originally intended for entertainment, however focused more on an educational approach with it to add variety and density to my story.  Most of the story is about my trip and what my class and I did in Rio, and the video adds a little factual history hopefully making my story more entertaining and followable.

Rio de Janeiro (Wiki)

My Hotel (Praia Ipanema)

by Brian Smalley

Newspapers have been around since the late 1400’s, when Germany first published news in the forms of pamphlets or broadsides. Benjamin Harris published the first newspaper in the American colonies in Boston during 1690, “Public Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick.” Since the American War of Independence, the newspaper has gone through tremendous changes up to the present.

Throughout most of U.S. history, newspapers were the dominant mass medium. However, since the 1940’s, the newspaper industry has experienced slow destruction in the number of papers published, the percentage of the population that follow them, increasing costs, and competition. Today, most U.S. cities and towns have one daily newspaper.

The earliest papers in the British North American colonies focused mostly on exploiting international news from England, however experienced censorship from the government. Newspapers from early on in this time period were usually no longer than four pages and were filled with primarily short news items. The papers started to gain readers when Americans began debating separation from England.

By the end of the 18^th century, newspapers witnessed explosive growth in the number of papers and readers due to further technological advances. With the steam engine driving presses by 1835 and advances in mechanical papermaking technologies, the availability of newsprint at low costs increased and papers would cost little as “one cent.” Then came the telegraph, which provided information about everything and enabled newspapers to get information needed to tell readers what was happening in the world. As a result, mass circulation transformed newspapers into precious businesses accompanied with large staffs, which were beginning to be seen more as providers of information than a vehicle for one’s opinion. The papers started to see themselves as a medium for objective journalism.

In the first half of the 20^th century, newspaper chains had the ability to hold sway over the public through their power to produce newspapers with the same viewpoint in key U.S. markets. However, people felt these papers were not representing their points of view and interests. In the second half of the century, there were more efforts to produce a more user-friendly newspaper, with punchier stories and more graphics.

In conclusion, the newspaper has changed dramatically. They are a lot longer than they used to be, more expensive, only one copy is published a day rather than every few hours, and even sports now play a big role in our news when in the past were irrelevant. Millions of papers are now being produced, however newspapers are losing their dominance due to technology and internet, which allows news to be decentralized. From the beginning of history, information traveled only as fast as the person or object carrying it. Now it travels as fast as you can find it by the click of a mouse.

Throughout most of the communication industries histories in the pre-digital, analog world, they developed more or less separately, with their own business structures, distribution systems, and production cultures. Each individual media industry expanded according to the authoritarian and social environments that existed when the standard came into its own. However, media scholar Mark Deuze, describes “how ‘convergence’ of the traditional media industries and new-audience participatory cultures are changing the media landscape.” Many media businesses have abandoned the old industrial model of manufacturing and distributing media content, and have adopted a model of creative networking. Where as in the past where people felt the media was inaccurately representing them, audiences now more than ever have a bigger, more active, influential role in deciding what media content is produced, how it is delivered, and how it can be customized specifically for the audience.

Although convergence can sometimes seem negative (taking away jobs, increasing responsibility), these media industries need convergence today in order to survive. As in the textbook, “Convergence culture, as a concept, articulates a shift in the way global media industries operate, and how people as audiences interact with them. It recognizes contemporary media culture as a primarily participatory culture.(347)” In today’s world, the audience is no longer just a mass market to display information to- it is now also an increasingly segmented and fragmented public to join forces with in the co-creation of experiences and content. Audiences have also grown more fond of interactive media. This is why in the present digital and networked global media world, the roles played by advertisers, media producers, and content consumers are converging. “Production systems of media industries are now integrating different locales of cultural production into a global production system, where they are integrating and localizing cultural values and regional symbols across dispersed markets.(352)” Therefore convergence can be seen as the integration of various media industries in a global production network.

Going back to interactive media and user participation, it seems both have drastically increased over time. The Baltimore Sun, for example, is a news industry that uses both. They use videos to make stories and news more interesting to their viewers, along with advertisement to keep you occupied. They also include blogs and pieces to comment on, so the audience can express their feelings and opinions on whatever they wish to talk about, and feel like they are more connected with the world around them.

Baltimore Sun's Page

Baltimore Sun's Blogs

By James Randazzo

For the most of America’s history, newspapers were the dominant mass medium. By the early eighteenth century, newspapers appeared in the American colonies. These early newspapers were usually no longer than four pages long. (pg 318) Newspapers started gaining readers when Americans started debating separation from England. Technological advances in the 19^th century helped drastically change newspapers forever. With the help of the steam engine it was possible for newspapers to circulate further. In addition, the telegraph helped introduce out of town news stories within days or hours instead of weeks. The introduction of the Linotype machine in 1886 greatly affected the newspaper industry. (pg 319) This machine improved the ability of newspapers to quickly create entire pages of type. Newspapers often had an early edition, and then later editions as the day went on. This helped bring much more immediacy to their stories.

The growth of newspapers chains gave great power to publishers and influenced people over political and social issues. For example William Hearst’s chain expanded to over 30 papers nationwide, giving him enormous influence over public opinion. In addition, Gannett has 84 daily newspapers, nearly 850 magazines, and operates 23 television stations in the United States. (pg 320) This gives chains the ability to publish newspapers with the same viewpoint in key U.S. markets.

By the second half of the 20^th century, newspapers started to see a decline in readership. The revolutionary mediums of sound, radio, television and especially the Internet hurt the newspaper industry, and many companies were forced to close. The Internet allows news to be decentralized. Also, blogs give journalists less sway over public opinion. Printed once a day, physical newspapers cannot keep up with news any longer.

One thing in common amongst all newspapers is that they all advertise their online version on the print. This promotes convergence because it helps bring an interactive experience to their audience. Another issue that the newspapers face with convergence is revenue. Newspapers sales are down a great amount from the 1990s and therefore advertising brings less revenue. Now they must sell their print online in order to succeed and make a profit.

The Baltimore Sun website uses multimedia and user participation constantly. They not only use text but also include video on their site. In addition blogs are included on the site showing that print is becoming outdated. The site even allows people to upload their own photos. If they do not use these multimedia technologies they are hurting themselves because all the other newspaper companies are converging.