From Literate to Electronic Communication - Essay Example

due From Literate to Electronic Communication Introduction Communication as part of history has also evolved just like the history it creates. The understanding of various cultures and occurrences is possible from the transmission by media work whether oral, print or electronic. There has been a great evolution from the literate form of communication to the electronic communication popular today. The question is, has this been caused by virtue of an accident or years of research? This is the argument experts find themselves in but are quite unable to find a common ground based on their divergent views. Evolution of communication Lorimer, et al (2012 p 26) suggests that the evolution from literate to electronic communication can be dated back to the discovery of the printing press which ultimately changed the landscape as the society switched from the overreliance on monks for information to typed and stored literary materials. Ultimately, the authority of controlling writing and translation moved from the church to secular world leading to the development of secular society and knowledge as opposed to the previous existing religious knowledge. The battle the ensued between the church and the secular writers and this was the jump pad towards information independence. The ability to retrieve, through scanning, such written materials enabled people to do critical analysis of information and point out inconsistencies. This was not possible with the spoken word which was considered highly perishable and could not be stored. Writing provided a form of interpersonal media other than mass media as people could communicate personally and individually through written messages. On the other hand, electronic media attributes its origin to the telegraph. The telegraph contributed towards shaping various aspects of the world. The society started to understand the significance of time difference which ultimately led to the standard Greenwich Time. The telegraph drew the boundary between transportation and communication since one did not have to go to a place in order to communicate which had been the case with the previous level of communication. The electronic media also revolutionized the thinking and culture of the society from the aural culture to the visual culture. Lorimer, et al. (2012, p 39) explains that there exists interpersonal and mass media in activities of media as it tries to define various aspects of the society. Interpersonal media links the sender to the receiver of information while mass media de-links the two. Apart from thee two categories of media, there has emerged a third one; network media. Its uniqueness is that it combines the other two. It can create a geographical network for sharing information where everyone in the internet is both sender and receiver of information depending on the circumstance one is in. Examples of network media in use include teleconferencing, the World Wide Web and email. Networking media has brought into perspective the overlapping nature of the other two such that we can not precisely define the boundary between interpersonal and mass media. This is because even the interpersonal media such as telephone can be used to reach most people through broadcasting. Today, media has recreated itself and as such, is categorized based on mode of operations which include: the channel of communication such as print or electronic, the sense of experience of the media whether visual or aural, economic modality such as direct cost, indirect cost and pay per usage costs. The ever changing nature of media has led to considerations to categorize media material based on the institutions that produce and distribute them. Technology level involved in the production of the media is also used to classify them. Availability of information on the World Wide Web through the internet has met great criticism and opposition from authorities in the society such as parents as well as the government and organizational administrators. People access information from the World Wide Web that the government considers as negative and which should not be in the public domain. It is through such media that modern revolutions have been organized with the most recent being, the Arab Revolution of 2011. Parents on the other hand are worried of the time taken by their kids on these media without engaging in otherwise productivity activities such as reading and out door games instead of the computer games. According to Gregory et al (2006, p7), the definition of media forms is based on technology, social relationships and culture as media will most definitely influence these aspects of the society. Technology which is the form of producing and distributing media has been changing greatly and at a faster rate. For example, TV moved from a rear gadget in most families by 1950 to a near universal gadget in all homes by 1960. Though at this time stereos and cassettes were unimaginable, they have also become popular. Today, technology is changing by the second as more advancement is made through extreme miniaturization. Communication mechanisms such as the World Wide Web emerged during the late 20th century and early 21st century. In fact, the World Wide Web has been the leader in giving current and up to date information over the internet as they happen. It was the mode used by most people at the time of the terrorists attack (Grossberg, et al, 2006 p21). One school of thought argues that, the technological changes witnessed today occurred by way of accident as the theory of determinant factors towards such advancement while in actual sense; the changes were as a result of well organized research over time (Lorimer, et al, 2012, p72). He further argues that we should be in a position to appreciate best, the efforts of people in the society rather than consider it an accidental occurrence. The theory of masses based on culture and society also argue as to the dimension of evolution of communication and media in general. The argument here is that the social changes and the industrial revolution brought into the society, an absolutely new culture. This way communication as an aspect of culture transformed to the trend witnessed. To get the clear picture into this, one needs not to look farther than the events of 911. The occurrences of the events in 11th September, 2011 attacks were aired live on TV across the world. Radio stations reported the same as well as documentaries and newspapers preserved the occurrence. After the events of 9/11, most people use the internet to collect, analyze and disseminate information. A change in media role and the dependence on electronic and wireless media was finally with us. Conclusion Media has transformed to become the identity of reality since it is through the media that truth is passed to the targeted audience. As such, there is the ambiguous concept of ‘mediamaking’ where as the media defines the direction of the world, the world also shapes the media to become what it should people (Gregory et al, 2006 p8). Media passes information while the people receiving the information improve the media to serve them best. The society is in agreement on the role that communication has played in the changing aspects of the society. However, differences still remain whether the evolution of media from literate to electronic was by chance or was properly planned and implemented through adequate research work. The best position in this case is that the society needed such changes and so there was response whether accidental or as a result of research. Work Cited Grossberg, Lawrence, Ellen Wartella, D.Charles Whitney, and J. Macgregor Wise. MediaMaking: Mass media in popular culture (2nd edition). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2006.* (chapters 1 and 2) Lorimer, Rowland, Mike Gasher and David Skinner. Mass Communication in Canada (7th edition). Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2012.* (chapters 1-4) Read More