IMD 450 History of Communication Media Week 2 Discussion Questions

Preface – Chapter 1: Introduction

1. At the beginning of chapter one, Levinson uses an amoeba to illustrate the benefits of using our senses to gain information rather than having to experience things directly. Communication and the abstraction of information have both an upside and downside. What type of losses might be inherent in some of our current communication forms such as TV, email, Twitter and IM? 

Writing itself is becoming a lost art form where the phrase “Go paperless” comes to mind. We today as humans or at least some of us have lost the ability to think and have just become brainwashed zombies under the media. It is the most irritating thing in the world to me when someone says their opinion or makes a remark without thinking about it or just reversing someone else's opinion cause they cannot think for themselves. Who would of thought when they were young that the post office would ever go out of business where today that is a problem we are dealing with currently. Everything is being sent over email or via some social network like Facebook or twitter.

1. Define “hard” determinism and “soft” determinism in relation to communication media. 

Arguably, hard determinism is similar to the necessity to communicate between information and data systems.  Because of modern technology it was inevitable that something like the internet or intranet would be created.  Soft determinism would be similar to facebook or twitter, and the many different facets of social media that became into existence or available due to the existence of the internet.

1. Identify an unintended social consequence of a technological advancement that took place before you were born. What was the intended use, and how did the unintended consequence evolve? 

I believe the big one would be the atom bomb. Even its creator was scared for the use of this technology in bad hands.Most great technologies have almost always came from the military due to it was the government that was usually the only one interested and with the pocket book to look into these new breakthrough technologies plus the military had plans and wanted the right to use it for military purposes.

1. Levinson argues in favor of free will and our ability to control uses and effects of technology. Can you think of situations where free will and the use of technology are obstructed? How do these obstructions come about? How do they change? 

The first thing that comes to mind is having your phones on during when you are aboard a aircraft that it might affect security or other devices that the signal could be interfered or intertwined.

Chapter 2: The First Digital Medium

1. Why does Levinson refer to the phonetic alphabet as “the first digital medium?' What unique advantages does it have over oral or pictographic communication? What disadvantages? 

I believe Levinson by saying “the first digital medium” he is referring to almost like bits of data or binary code. Where when you put together certain letter from the alphabet is forms a word or begins to have meaning to us. Its advantage over oral or pictographic communications is “transportability” and its ability to be stored and processed. The ability to share ideas outside your culture was probably the biggest impact i see in it over oral or pictograph.

1. Levinson discusses the Egyptian priestly class as maintaining a “monopoly of knowledge.” He again uses the term later when discussing the Dark Ages. Explain how the monopoly of knowledge was used in ancient Egypt to maintain a specific world view. 

The ancients that had power where the only ones that had access to information and would there for pass it down to the lower hierarchy in a certain way so that they can maintain dictating their specific world view.

1. Discuss any contemporary examples of knowledge monopolies as they may exist today. 

1. Describe how technical jargon is used to maintain a monopoly of knowledge, and by whom. Discuss positive and negative consequences of specialist jargon. 
2. Consider the disaster at the Library of Alexandria and the centralization of knowledge storage. Does cloud computing present a similar danger in centralizing knowledge and information. Discuss threats and dependencies when our information devices are dumb receivers and contain no inherent information.