Lecture 4: Print and its entourage

1. Discuss the phrase “the printing press is the machine that made us”.
 

 
The printing press was the world’s first mass book production machine, and the consequences of its invention was just as dramatic as the discovery of fire. We could say that the printing press is a, if not the, precursor of mass production, and contributed heavily in sparking off a cultural revolution that shaped the modern age.

Seeing as how we find it difficult or even impossible to live without objects/services that are results of mass production, it is safe to say that the printing press has changed many, if not all, facets of the society that we live in today. One could almost make the claim that the printing press was the “internet of the 14th century”, transforming the way ordinary people lived, learned and experienced life.

To start, mass production of books allowed knowledge and ideas to reach virtually every corner of the world. Take the bible for example - the first print run and subsequent books on Gutenburg’s printing press were (in all intents and purposes) perfect. Each contained an accurate, duplicated version of the bible; in an exact same spatial format, on multiple pieces of bound paper. This new medium was a powerful start that helped that Christianity gain an even stronger foothold by reaching unprecedented amount of devotees - those who did not have access to churches and thus scripture, before.

The printing press also shattered the concept where only the rich were privileged enough to read (be it for education or for leisure); and education was no longer a luxury for the poor. This spread of knowledge allowed society to advance at a breakneck pace, with the poor being empowered with new alternative ways to succeed in life, which, in turn, brought about a major leap in the economy - culminating in the industrial revolution.

The printing press has also lubricated the process of propaganda - with good examples being China and North Korea. With state-owned or controlled media, these countries have pressed the agenda (pardon the pun) of their dominant political parties to great effect; shaping the ideals and even the very foundations of society. By limiting and/or offering only one type of teaching, an ideology quickly becomes truth, a party-line viewpoint - the only way of life.

The real communist party

The printing press has also “made” us by influencing our decisions. As a direct result of the printing press, new industries - most key being advertising, journalism, and teaching, have risen to the forefront of our lives. Nowadays, most, if not all of, our decisions are the result these industries, “helping” us decide on how to consume, purchase and lead our lives.  

Other than the printing press, there have been several technologies / machines in history that have been major “life-shakers”. These include the telephone, which has virtually eliminated the distances one can communicate with each other (but now surpassed by the internet), electricity, which powers objects that are ubiquitous in our daily lives, atomic power, which gave us microwaves, x-rays, nuclear power and nuclear weapons, and the combustible engine, which transformed our transportation options. Each of these technologies has each improved the human race, and has lasting ramifications that continue to shape our lives today.


2. Have our lives been “determined” by technology?

We happen to think so. Firstly, technology has become ubiquitous, with many people literally born into families that have in part, or fully embraced technology. With exposure to technology so early, children are “learning to learn” via technology, and will become more adept at it, from an earlier age. On the flip side, activities that used to be more physical in nature have been relegated into device-driven pursuits. For example, as children, we used to catch spiders / butterflies in our physical gardens and backyards. Now, we see the younger generation using iPads to do so. This knowledge that is separated from experience can be witnessed with alarming frequency in our modern lives - you can “learn” how to knit, cook, farm, or even learn about other countries’ culture without ever having to leave the comfort of your house.

Industrialisation was made possible with technological advances, which constituted the measurement of our work efficiency timeframe today. Before industrialisation took place, the agricultural societies worked with seasons, whereas in modern context, there are different expectations of work efficiency that requires jobs to be done within a much shorter timeframe. This brought about the formation of the Monday to Friday work week which has evolved from agricultural societies using seasons to measure working time frames. Hence, it has changed the way people view time and changed their standards of efficiency.

Job opportunities were also created with advances in technology, with talent and manpower needed to operate the new elements that had resulted it. Take the printing press as an example. The emergence of the print created job opportunities for writers, photographers, font-makers, printers, and even newspaper vendors, just to name a few, and illustrates the impact of the technology on the economy.

Technology has also created a new wave of digitization for our very bodies. Our five senses can now be completely governed by technology. Memories that used to be captured through films and kept in shoeboxes in our basements, can now be better preserved with photo archives such as Flickr and other cloud storage services, making our memories almost imperishable. Actions and thoughts that used to be so personal are now being archived digitally through blogs and Tweets. In addition, technology has provided a different shopping experience with commodities from industries ranging from IT to fashion to furniture; retail therapy no longer has squeezing through the weekend crowd and dealing with that salesperson who just can't stop hovering in its equation.

 

Not only that, technology also played a part in our cultural exposition, in terms of entertainment such as music, art and literature. For instance, not only can music be purchased online, aspiring music-makers can simply upload videos of their work online. This also brought about a wave of new music genre: YouTube cover stars like Boyce Avenue and Jayesslee. Everyone can also become a self-taught musician with music-making sites or apps made readily available.

On the flipside, technology forces us to fit into a new set of rules whilst embracing it. For instance, with the rampant usage of social media, businesses now set up new departments just to target the audiences through social media. Businesses that do not follow suit will eventually lose the attention of its audiences.

It is also common to hear people say that technology has ruined relationships of today. With the ease of communication, people no longer see the need to block time out of their busy schedules just to catch up with their correspondence, leading to social ineptness in the society.


Despite the conveniences brought about by technology advancements, we feel that the manufacturers of items have also become the consumers of the items that they create. As technology becomes the goal, and we need to constantly keep up with being on the cusp of technological advances (however fleetingly). This need is “drilled” into us via advertising, peer pressure and our innate desire to keep up. 

Lecture 3: Tech Determinism

1. Explore the phrase “the features of print become the features of society”. Why did this happen? How were the features of print the features of society?

Due to the advent of print, information in books can be duplicated with precision, allowing consistent content to be made available to people from all walks of life. Constant exposure to the same set of information creates a pattern of learning that extols the same ideas, ultimately creating an unconscious grouping of individuals that are more than likely to belong to the same school of thought. This pattern of consuming ideas and having a change in the way people think reinforces this group mentality, which is the cause of group behavior, social norms, and status quo.

After the adoption of the printing press, the spread of knowledge in society transcended social class - allowing more groups of  people the opportunity to read and learn from books than ever before. This shook the very foundations of society - since there is now equal opportunities to obtain information previously only accessible to the more financially-sound. This has reduced the gap between the rich and the poor, empowering the latter and giving them a greater sense of belonging, as well as a lower sense of dissatisfaction and bitterness, and provided a broader range of readers access to knowledge.

Elizabeth Eisenstein - well known for her work on the history of early printing - identifies two long term effects of the invention of printing. She claims that print created a sustained and uniform reference for knowledge as well as allowing for comparison between incompatible views.

Print was also responsible in changing the nature of reading in society, for e.g:

• Critical reading: due to the fact that texts were finally more accessible to the general audience, critical reading emerged because people are given the choice to form their own opinions on texts (and become opinion leaders themselves).
• Creative reading: printing allowed people to read texts and interpret them creatively, often in very different ways than the author intended.
• Extensive reading: print allowed for a wide range of texts to be made available, hence previous methods of intensive reading of texts from the start to the finish, began to change. With texts becoming more readily available, people started reading on particular topics or chapters of their choice/interests, allowing for much more extensive reading on a wider range of topics. The birth of fiction writing is one good example.
• Private reading: Rise to individualism - Before print, reading was often a group event, where one person would read to a group of people.With print, literacy rose, as did availability of texts, hence reading became more of a solitary pursuit.

In addition, the invention of print has also changed the occupational structure in European cities, for instance: printers emerged as a new group of artisans for whom literacy was essential, although the much more labour-intensive occupation of the scribe naturally declined.

2. Trace (give examples, at least 3) of the effects or legacies of print in technology we use today. Discuss.

Cut and paste
The movable type provided higher levels of efficiency and ease in the transmitting and sharing of information, making our lives easier as many labour-intensive processes were either totally eliminated or simplified. The cost and effort in creating repeatable tasks were reduced as well, due to print making duplication and multiplication possible.

The effects of ‘cut and paste’ were not just seen in the changes of society and their power to knowledge - they influenced other cultural genres as well. In particular, Andy Warhol, an American artist who was a leading figure in a well-known visual art movement (“Pop Art”), used the idea of replication widely in his art works.

The trend of “ripping”, “splicing” and “sampling” in music creation is yet another showcase of  the impact of the movable type’s “cut and paste” effect. Music artistes and DJs were quick to adopt this technology, effectively spawning new genres of music such as rap, trip hop, break-beat and electronica.

Birth of typography
What began as an attempt to create uniformity in the aesthetic value of letters and alphabets, by way of arrangement and typesetting, as well as other elements that constitute typography today, has led to the birth of the art form that is typography.

We are no longer restricted to the usage of only certain types of fonts - what with the hundreds and thousands of different types existing today. In fact, it is easy to create  and design new fonts these days, while it was definitely not a luxury before, and even slightly after  the birth of the printing press.

The attention and importance placed on fonts and their uses in print has brought about typography as an art form, which is evolving even in modern contexts. These days, different fonts are considered in the use of different print mediums. Fonts also have gained a personality of their own; oftentimes conveying different moods suitable to reflect certain situations and feelings. Since the choice of font creates such an impact on how people perceive it, great care was taken to pair them with a represented product or material. In fact, many  modern prestigious brands have sought to create their own “luxury” fonts to achieve a sense of exclusivity for their brand.

Resolution
The invention of print has also brought about the pursuit of better screen resolutions. Screen technology has advanced to achieve the aim of simulating  an increasingly realistic work interface, across various devices . Take the latest iPhone/Macbook retina display for example - as the name suggests, it aims to imitate what the human eye can perceive, giving the impression that what you see on the device’s screen is as accurate as the tangible product. Another example of this is the Kindle e-book reader, which promises to provide an identical experience as reading and flipping through a real book.

Chart the progress / evolution of print of mere words, to addition of images, to multimedia
Photos have evolved from black and white and poor image quality as compared to today. In the past, most photos are in black and white and are only on film. Image quality could not be enhanced as it is like today (today, we have Photoshop, camera settings/effects to bring out the results of the photos you want and other programs to edit your photos, etc).

In today’s society, there are many tools to capture a good photo. For different effects in a photo, we have Lomo camera, polaroid, fish eye, toy camera and etc. Photographers nowadays have made use of the different ways to capture a good photo, not forgetting the old ways to do so (polaroid and film cameras)

Lecture 2: History & Technology. Optus Whale Song & Apple Siri ads.

Optus Whale Song Ad

The Optus whale song advertisement embodies the successful communicative relationship between two different species of animals that normally do not understand each other. In the Sender-Message-Receiver model, we can assume that we have just witnessed a triumph in communication.

In essence, a good relationship has just been formed, as the orchestra creates the right notes that make up a love song that the whales respond to. It is an emotive relationship, and what begins with an attempt at communication ends with an achievement of mutual fulfillment, with the orchestra successfully “serenading” the whales, and the whales seemingly happy (while backflopping into the ocean).

From the sender’s point of view (the orchestra), there is an assumption or hope that the whales will respond to notes mimicking the love/mating call of whales. On the receiver’s end (the whales), the call (message) has been received and understood. As common/mutual understanding is a core basis in any communication relationship, what the ad claims is highly ambitious.

The ad also claims that “With communications, anything is possible.” and posits that communication is:

• Not governed solely by language

Using the right language/ frequency, you can have meaningful communications with anyone/anything you want. Barriers in communication can be removed as long as the sender is able to find a common language/sound to convey the message to its receiver, as demonstrated by the orchestra’s successful attempt to achieve the whales’ response when they mimicked the sound that whales made. One of underlying messages of the ad proposes that if one tries hard enough, differences in native language will not hinder successful communication from taking place.

• Not bound by geographical limitation

Regardless of where we are, we can communicate to anyone, in any part of the world - if there is intent, and a viable method to do so. Be it long-distance calls, Skype chats, or even online articles that function though the receiver and sender are physically-separated, or even travelling miles on planes and boats to have face-to-face communication, it seems that location is really not a real issue in communication.

• Universal

The right tools also give you the power to speak to the audience, in a more effective manner. The ad promises clarity and mutual understanding of the message sent, which is what most people would want to achieve in any forms of communication.

Finally, being an advertisement for a communications provider, the ad chooses to subtly remind us that Optus as an ideal facilitator of communications. It hints towards the fact of “If you want to communicate, and communicate well, choose us - we can even talk to whales!”

Apple iPhone Siri Ad

The Apple iPhone Siri ad makes the claim that technology is now capable of replacing or enhancing a human’s capabilities. One can now text hands-free, make a note in his calendar while on-the-go, or even leave decision-making  (like where to eat dinner) to Siri. With Siri, our life is made simpler, and there is always an easier and faster way to perform mundane activities such as texting, dialing, searching and getting the weather report, for example.

It also makes using communication technology a seamless, more user-friendly experience - allowing anyone and everyone to participate. This mass appeal has resulted in widespread adoption of the technology.

Communication technology (in this case Siri) has thus become an extension of a person’s hands and voice, and that communication is now integrated into everyday life. Without any tactile interaction with the phone save pressing the button, one can now dial, text, or gather information with ease. As an extension to our voice, Siri or any voice recognition software can replace physical human operators to provide information services. 

Siri also presents an extension to our minds by gathering and sifting through the many information silos available, de-cluttering the results and then presenting us with concise and accurate responses to our requests. However, this intelligence presents an interesting paradigm - that of an extension of thought.
 
A program is now helping us to think (and making recommendations on where we should to eat and notes how busy we are). How is it able to prioritize and categorize information? What criteria does it have in sorting through its results? The cognitive intelligence of a software like Siri can be likened to some other literary examples, such as the anime Ghost in the Shell, and the blockbuster movie I, Robot. Are we now looking at the next step in our evolution, or are we handing artificial intelligence the keys to our thoughts? Are we becoming a species so entwined with technology, that it’s taking over our functional roles of our human body? Are we humans too reliant and dependent on technology? Shall we ask Siri?

However, as easy as it is to give, so is it easy to take. Communication technology is like a double-edged sword in many aspects, in that it empowers us by freeing us from mundane tasks, yet at the same time, it takes away the desire for us to “get our hands dirty”, to continue pursuing perfection. It feels like we must “amputate” a part of our body whenever we gain a technological advantage. And, just like exercising physical muscles, the less you use them, the more atrophied they get. So what's next, we link all our senses to technology?

Sight - it's a wondrous thing.

Lecture 1: Communication Intro. Defining communication and what drives it.

Defining communication.

In essence, communication is a relationship between the sender, the receiver and the message.

Before, communicating with another was a very personal process. Our messages were intimate physical transactions passed on verbally, face-to-face, or through handwritten notes and letters. Then came the printing press, which extended the outreach of our messages. With recent technological advances (especially the internet), we have opened ourselves up even more - both in terms of platforms of discourse, as well as avenues of expression.  

While communication has always been a two-way process, the presence of it has never been as clearly heard, seen, or felt as it has today. The roles of the sender and receiver today is less distinct as lines become blurred in the communication process. With the help of technological advancement, the audience of today are given more channels to provide feedback to the sender. This in turn changes the audience's role into that of the sender. 

Today, with the prevalence of platforms for self-generated media content and channels for feedback, the audience’s voice has as much as, or even more impact than the voice of the originator of said media. We now send messages in hopes that there is a reply in the ether that is the new technological landscape, for example through Tweets and Facebook status updates.

Our messages also now extend past our physical boundaries at great speeds, and spread to a much wider audience than before - bringing regional and even global audiences into our circle of influence.

In the business context, communication can also be a means to an end, such as the relationship between the seller’s marketing efforts and buyer of an idea/service/product. Using strategically-crafted language such as promotional materials, words and/or even images, the business provider eventually hopes to illicit action from their target audience and potential buyers.

Motivated by the purpose of influencing, communication is also about convincing the audience into believing the message that is being brought across. This brings the element of shaping the receiver's perception, as well as changing their opinions to be in line with the sender’s own into play.

As much as technological advancement has aided the transferring of ideas through communication, messages are now more cluttered with noise. This makes it easier for one to be bombarded with too many (useful, or not) information, causing ideas to be more easily misunderstood/misinterpreted as compared to the past.

What drives / urges us to share ideas or communicate?

As human beings, we are instinctively inclined to share our ideas, beliefs and knowledge to one another. It is ingrained in our human nature to communicate - tracing back to primitive times where humans first used it to overcome the harsh realities of survival. “That way for the wooly mammoth" or "danger ahead” were simple but effective means of getting the point across, for example. 

 

Fast-forward to the present, it is evident that we have evolved the concept of passing on knowledge to a highly sophisticated degree. We now take on different roles and seek to achieve different effects in communication. We seek to entertain, educate, influence and/or (mis)inform each other, but the fundamental core of communicating with each other still stems from our need to relate to and understand each other.

In today’s world, where technology has provided an easy, efficient way of communicating with one another, we now seek approval, validation and recognition for our opinions and viewpoints (eg. movie reviews, Facebook status updates). Powered by the widespread adoption of the Internet age, we can now make use of multiple platforms and mediums to achieve almost instant gratification in the form of responses to our thoughts and ideas.
 
Another reason that urges us to communicate is the isolation we must feel today. As we spend increasingly amounts of time behind an anonymous and faceless screen persona, we have achieved a disconnection with our physical brethren, so much so that we update our statuses when we are bored, in order to provoke a response, or to show off and gain attention. Attention is one of the most basic needs of human survival (some people just need more); no one wants to be alone, but in reality, everyone is an effectual island within him/herself. 

 




Everyone can think the same thought/idea, but the first person who communicates it gets the credit. This leads us to believe that communication is also used to illicit recognition or credit for an idea, as everyone wants to be seen as leaders at the forefront of thought.

The need to invoking a call to action from our audience also brings about communication. For instance, from a business point of view, advertising is used to reach out to potential buyers.

 

“Freedom of expression” is one of the most popular belief of the 21st century. The idea of anyone being able to speak anything on their minds (yet forgetting that responsibility has to be taken for their words) tempts us to communicate even more than before. This makes us feel empowered, which feeds yet another basic instinct - the need to feel authoritative and in control.

All in all, we want to gain influence, to convince others of our viewpoint - more often than not, to push an agenda, service/product as they do not have voices of their own. We seek power - and there is inherent power in words. In short, we are creatures of habit, agents of change, and beings of relationships, all rolled into one.