Life in the Network

Walter Ong has been studying media and communication for all of his life. In the beginning with the oral cultures, there was a different sense of time. There were no records and there weren’t any documents to go back to check. In the oral culture, the community was the basic unit of existence. Media Making – Mass Media in a Popular Culture Grossberg, Wartella, Whitney and Wise p35 Second Edition
The evolution of the written culture changed society where rules could be challenged and enforced. The literate were the leaders. The wealthy had the access to the printed material.

Continuing into the electronic culture was the birth of the telegraph. This allowed people to “transport� their thoughts and messages. This was immediate communication and the beginning of electronic media.

Similar to being tied to an oral discussion (time and place specific) or a written word or text, society began using the internet for transactional business and communication. But we were still tied to a modem and a computer. The written words we were able to access were just images from a server. Landrow’s article (p217) raises an interesting point about the benefit of the touch in a document. His example was of a finely detailed map compared to the same image on a computer screen. The pros for the map were the detail that may be lost on a computer but the pros for the computer were the ability to go interactive. Pick a spot on the map and dig deeper into the history. Find your way in a subway or train station with the touch of a finger. But I find the argument about the detail on a printed map appearing cleaner than a computer map as a little outdated. With the higher resolution monitors now we are able to duplicate the details to any specification.

It wasn’t practical to manufacture a portable computer given the size necessary for the memory and monitor. The introduction of the laptop alleviated the portability issue but we were still tied to a phone line and the necessary ISP’s. We had freedom to transport but we still had to be tied to an “umbilical� cord.

Once again technology has raced ahead with a myriad of wireless devices. We can pay for soda from a machine with a debit chip in our phone and we will soon be inserting a memory stick into the handle of the grocery cart for our shopping lists. It won’t be long before we look back and laugh at how we had to search for “hot spots� to get a quality signal.

Oh dear, Oh deer, what will they think of next!

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