Technology is Good!!

As we come to the end of my current Master’s course, Social Dynamics of Communication and Technology, we’ve spent a large amount of time talking about Todd Gitlin’s book, “Media Unlimited,” and Neil Postman’s book, “Technopoly.” Both Gitlin and Postman are critics of the technology revolution we have experienced. Gitlin believes we are overwhelmed by the barrage of communication/messages we are constantly being hit with (Gitlin 2007), while Postman argues that new technologies alter our understanding of what is real (Postman 1992).

Recently I’ve spent time reflecting on what we’ve been discussing and reading throughout this course. As I consider the technologies we’ve reviewed, I’ve also taken time to think about where and what my life would be without them.

I am 45 years old. How you view that age really depends on how old you are. To my kids who are 12 and 15, I am old. To my mother-in-law who is almost 73, I am young. To my husband who is my age, I am just right. To me, technically speaking I realize I am “middle-aged” – but in my mind, I am young.

Over the course of my lifetime I’ve seen changes in technology that I’m not sure can be equaled in any other time in history. I’ve used ditto machines to make copies before we had copy machines. I learned to type on manual and electric typewriters. The first computer I used was a TRS-80 – it had a monochrome screen, used computer code to execute commands – no programs or applications were pre-written – and we saved everything on floppy disks. My first cell phone was a “brick phone” – the size was similar to red bricks used to build houses and it weighed about three pounds; my husband had a “bag phone” in his car. These days I have a cell phone – a “smart phone” – that fits in the palm of my hand. I can surf the Internet, check my email, text my kids, and oh by the way, I can talk on the phone too. I do work on a Net Book – a smaller laptop computer that has a color screen, wireless capability, and a hard drive equal to 3,200 TRS-80s . All of these are technological advances that I believe both Gitlin and Postman would question whether they are good or not. I have to say, I think they are fantastic.

Recently I’ve been doing a lot of research on the on the online pornography industry. This is an industry that has been at the forefront of the technology curve since the printing press was invented, and has continued on that track. The pornography industry changed the media its product produced on, which helped to advance the sales of both the VCR and the DVD when they were initially introduced to the public. Over and over again, if people involved in the pornography industry didn’t help develop a key technology, the industry was willing to take risks and adopt the technology in order to gain an advantage over other industries. Some key examples of the technologies that were implemented into the pornography industry early in the life cycle of the technology are instamatic cameras, online video and audio streaming, online credit card/Internet transactions, spam, Internet fee-based/subscription services, online pop-up ads, geo-location software, Internet cookies, wireless services, video-on-demand billing, digital-rights management software, and viruses/scanning software. These days consumers may not see all of these technologies as beneficial, but the technologies might not have been adopted at all had members of the pornography industry not adopted them (Egan 2000).

I’m not going to argue whether the pornography industry is ethical or moral – that’s not what this post is about. What I do believe is that it is an industry that has taken full advantage of technology and because if the industry’s willingness to take risks and adopt new technologies, businesses and consumers around the world have benefitted.

Change is often difficult, and sometimes it’s not good. But when I look at the technology advances that I’ve experienced in my lifetime, I’m ecstatic about what has happened. Thanks to the same technology that both Gitlin and Postman would claim dehumanizes us and makes us lazy, I am able to keep in touch with people I haven’t seen in person in years. I am more productive and efficient at work. I am able to take courses from a university that is over 1,500 miles away from where I live, and I am interacting with people from all over the nation.

References

Egan, T. (2000, October 23). Erotica, Inc.—A special report; technology sent Wall Street into market for pornography. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/

Gitlin, T. (2007). Media unlimited: How the torrent of images and sounds overwhelms our lives. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.

Postman, N. (1992). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. New York, NY: Vintage Books

Can we Trust the Mass Media?

Recently in the Master’s level course I’m taking through Gonzaga University we viewed the documentary film, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (Outfoxed). Outfoxed, produced by Robert Greenwald, was released in 2004. The documentary criticizes Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News Channel (Fox News), claiming he and Fox News advocate right-wing political views. As Fox News refers to itself as “fair and balanced,” the film also accuses Murdoch and the network of being extremely biased.

We also viewed the documentary, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, a 1992 film highlighting Noam Chomsky and his critique of mass media. Chomsky, a world-renown linguist, political activist, and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has spent a large part of his life analyzing mass media and the daily news to determine what drives what is reported to the public. 

Finally, in the last course I completed we viewed, Buying the War, a documentary released in 2007, which studies the press coverage leading up to the war in Iraq. The film discusses at length the role journalists have in reporting stories and rallying the public in support of public opinion. 

Each of these documentaries has caused me to pause and consider the relationship the general public has with the mass media, especially here in the United States. Growing up, people we trusted came into our living room every night to tell us what was happening in the world. Walter Cronkite, Harry Reasoner, Tom Brokaw, Barbara Walters, David Brinkley, Jessica Savitch and Peter Jennings were just a few of those my family would rush through supper for. We knew they were bringing us a view of the world that we didn’t have in the tiny town of Eureka, Kansas; we trusted them to bring us the truth about what was happening outside our little “burg.” Now when I look back at things I have to wonder – have times changed so much since I was a child? Was our trust in the media completely misplaced? Or were we simply naïve Midwesterners who couldn’t even fathom that there might be hidden agendas at work?

In the world of communication and media, trust is a key point in determining the consumer’s perception of the world around them According to www.dictionary.com, trust is defined as, “reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.” My parents relied on the integrity of the media; I relied on the integrity of the media. We expected them to tell us the facts about what was going on in the world - to tell us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And I really do believe that up until the past decade-and-a-half, that’s what was reported. Now I’m not so convinced that’s what we get these days.

Each of the films that I mention above makes a very good case for whether the “news” that is reported by major media outlets is fair, accurate, and unbiased. After viewing these films and reviewing additional reports and articles, I don’t believe mass media can be completely trusted; there definitely seem to be underlying agendas at work, whether they are to sway the viewer toward a certain political persuasion, or if it’s simply motivated by the almighty dollar.  

It appears that I’m not alone in my jaded view of whether or not the mass media can be trust. In a Gallup Poll conducted in September, 2010, the percentage of Americans who express not very much trust or none at all in mass media increased by 11% between 1998 and 2010; the percentage of Americans who express a great deal or a fair amount of trust in mass media declined by 10% (www.gallup.com). Another Gallup Poll, also conducted in 2010, found that the trend for Americans’ confidence in newspapers and television news has slowly declined since the early 1990’s. 

The organization, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), is a national media watch group, which has been reporting on censorship and media bias since 1986. The organization works, “to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints… FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information” (www.fair.org, 2011). 

FAIR believes that corporate conglomerates, high-ranking politicians, and people of influence drive what is reported in the news on a national level, which then filters down to the local markets. Representatives from FAIR were quoted several times in the documentary in support of Noam Chomsky and against “big business.” While the national news media aren’t necessarily misstating facts or lying to the general public, they are do seem to be picking and choosing what stories they report, and how much they report. By omitting information, they are causing individuals to get an incorrect perception of the world view. 

The statistics that concern me the most were reported in a 2009 Gallup poll. This poll showed that the people most likely to trust the mass media are younger, non-whites, people who make less than $30,000 a year, and people with a high school education or less. I am fortunate and have opportunities through y education and work that allow me the opportunity to view several news sources to get a better idea of what is actually happening in the world. If I see two stories about the same event, and those stories conflict, I can do research and gather more information, and make a more informed decision about what I believe. That’s not the case with everyone. 

It’s imperative that we, as citizens, reign in mass media and reform that industry. We must force news agencies to cut their ties to the economic and political powers. These powers have effectively put blinders on media agencies, limiting the viewpoints that allow for truly fair, accurate and unbiased reporting.

References

Achbar, M. & Wintonick, P. (Directors) (1992). Manufacturing consent: Noam Chomsky and the media [Motion Picture]. Retrieved from http://www.archive.org/details/manufacturing_consent

Greenwald, R. (Director) (2005). Outfoxed – Rupert Murdoch’s war on journalism [Motion Picture]. Retrieved from http://www.archive.org/details/Outfoxed-RupertMurdochsWarOnJournalism

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (2011, April 16). What’s FAIR? Retrieved from http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=100

 

Morales, L. (2010). Distrust in U.S. media edges up to record high. Retrieved from Gallup’s website: http://www.gallup.com/poll/142133/Confidence-Newspapers-News-Remains-Rarity.aspx

Morales, L. (2010). In U.S., confidence in newspapers, TV news remains a rarity. Retrieved from Gallup’s website: http://www.gallup.com/poll/142133/Confidence-Newspapers-News-Remains-Rarity.aspx

 

Morales, L. (2009). Many Americans remain distrusting of news media. Retrieved from Gallup’s website http://www.gallup.com/poll/123365/Americans-Remain-Distrusting-News-Media.aspx

Moyers, B. S. (2007, April 25). Buying the war [Documentary]. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html

"trust." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2011. http://www.merriam-webster.com (16 April 2011).

Anger in Email

I grew up in an extremely dysfunctional family, overflowing with alcohol and drug abuse. Conflict was something that I experienced, or at least caught a glimpse of, daily. Sometimes the conflict was between my parents or with any of my six siblings. Sometimes it wasn’t something I was directly involved in, but something I merely observed. It could be at home, at school, at the bowling alley my parents managed, at the grocery store, at the softball fields, really anywhere at all.

I start my story with this information because I want to you to understand the conflict that was my life was a good thing. At the time I didn’t realize it, but the tension that surrounded me taught me something. It taught me that the most important thing I could do in life was learn to communicate.

Maybe it sounds arrogant, but I actually pride myself in communicating well, regardless of the type of person I am dealing with or the arena I’m communicating in. Because of the exploits I’ve had in life, I learned a long time ago that everything that happens to you is an opportunity to learn, grow and improve. Moreover, you have the ability to find a way to better communicate through what happens.

I’ve also had the occasion through my forty-five years of life to experience changes in technology that sometimes are mind-numbing. As a child I watched George Jetson video chat with his daughter Judy, and never even imagined I would be Skyping with my own daughter some day. My father was in the Navy, so we moved around a lot. Each time we went to a new town I struggled with writing letters to old friends in order to try and keep touch. Between the effort it took to legibly hand-write letters, and the (perceived) long delays between sending and receiving the letters, it seemed difficult to keep up-to-date with people, and often those relationships waned. Today, thanks to the Internet, Instant Messaging, Facebook, and email, I know almost instantaneously when a grade school friend is online, and I can see pictures of her granddaughter just minutes after the child is born.

I honestly love the advantages we have today because of technological advances. I constantly benefit in my personal and my professional lives because of computer mediated communication (CMC). What I don’t love is the negativity that CMC seems to foster.

One of the questions we have been asked this week in Social Dynamics of Communication and Technology is if it our experience that emails tend to be angrier than other forms of communication. One of the models that is discussed in our textbook is the Reduced Social Cues (RSC) approach (Thurlow, Lengel, & Tomic, 2004). The RSC approach focuses on the idea that the loss of social cues in CMC adversely affect a group’s ability to communication. While the authors agree that communicating without non-verbal cues is more difficult, the argument they make to discredit the RCS model is that, “even though CMC may well be less information-rich or efficient than face-to-face (FtF) communication, it can’t account for the fact that much more impoverished forms of communication such as letter–writing don’t evoke extreme, aggressive or otherwise inappropriate behavior.” (Thurlow, 2004, p. 61). I completely disagree with the authors in this regard.

In today’s technology age, I would equate emails with letter writing. In my experience - both personally and professionally - people are definitely less inhibited, not only when they are online, but when they are emailing someone. In fact, I think “flaming,” or, “aggressive interactions online,” (Thurlow, 2004, p. 69), happens so often in social media forums and in email, that it’s almost acceptable. CMC empowers people, through the identity they are able to create, but at the same through the lack of FtF interaction, to say things they never would consider mentioning in person. I have experienced this first hand within my own family, and in my team at work.

After my mother passed away and my father was left in the family home all to himself, he began to do that we called, “the drop and run.” He would send emails to me, my brothers and my sisters, and vent. In these emails my father would voice his disappointment in the kids and complain about everything we had done in our lives to disrespect him. He would say things in an email that he would never had said to our faces. Once he hit send, he would hide. It would be days before he answered the phone, and if we mentioned his email, he would hang up on us. Granted, as I’ve mentioned, I have a very dysfunctional family, but my father felt entitled to use email to chastise us and then not have to be accountable for his words. I have worked with people who do the same thing. Email allows them to say whatever it is they are thinking, not have to consider using any tact, and then just move on like it never happened. Another issue with "flaming" and emails is that the sender believes that they will never have to deal with the person they "flamed" face-to-face, and will only have to deal with emails, which is actually easy compared to FtF conflict.

I think most everyone has experienced these types of events, and almost expect them on social networking sites like Facebook. But when you look at any CMC that allows for social interaction, we’re seeing more and more of this type of behavior. Because of the facelessness of it, “less information-rich or efficient than face-to-face (FtF) communication,” (Thurlow, 2004, p. 61), sometimes evokes more emotion and aggressiveness than if people took the time to sit down and talk to each other, even about the most controversial subjects.

CMC is channel of communication that is here to stay, and evolving technologies are going to allow us to communicate in ways we never imagined possible. It’s going to be up to each one of us to be responsible and accountable for our actions, and ensure we are as respectful with people through CMC as would be with them FtF.

References

Thurlow, C., Lengel, L., Tomic, A. (2004). Computer mediated communication: social interaction and the internet. London, England: Sage Publishing.