From Oral to Electronic Culture

1. From Oral to Electronic Culture Modernity and the Rise of the Mass Media CMNS 130

2. Agenda • In the first hour: • Explore how the history of communication in Canada typifies the transmission model of communication • In the second hour: • How is the history of communication told over wider space and time? CMNS 130

3. STUDY QUESTIONS FOR THIS WEEK • Why are Canadian media( esp. radio) central to the stories of Canadian nation-building? • What are narratives and why are they important in the study of communication history? • What is ‘modernity’ and how are communication media implicated in the emergence of ‘modernity’? CMNS 130

4. History of Study in Canada • Originally tied to policy studies in the university • ( policy, political economy and geography disciplines) • SFU’s school created in 1983 • Focus on transmission, the medium, the physical difficulties of communication over vast space & time • Thus, focussed on media and the emergence of the nation state • CANUCK QUIZ Q: WHAT IS THE FIRST NATIONAL POLICY? CMNS 130

5. History of Canadian Communication Studies • Originally tied to policy studies in the university • ( policy, political economy and geography disciplines) • SFU’s school created in 1983 • Focus on transmission, the medium, the physical difficulties of communication over vast space & time • Thus, focussed on media and the emergence of the nation state • CANUCK QUIZ Q: WHAT IS THE FIRST NATIONAL POLICY? CMNS 130

6. The Second National Policy • like the railroad, communication seen as important for the transmission and reception of ideas, goods and services throughout Canada • central to: • Western settlement • Economic infrastructure • Social development • Much early spending by the Canadian State was to connect cities, peoples and markets • rail, hydroelectric power, telegraph, post system, heavy regulation of telephones to ensure extension of service, and provision of public radio • An early Tariff Wall until the 1930s to stimulate national business and manufacture ( See CC: 26-30) CMNS 130

7. A Multi Party Pact • The Second National Policy sustained high political consensus • Overspill of US radio signals and predatory competition, combined with the social needs of Canadian citizens led to creation of the Aird Committee and unanimous resolution to create a public radio corporation • Widespread public movement’s rallying cry was: ‘The State or the United States’ ( Graham Spry: see Spry foundation www.com.umontreal.ca/spry • A national royal commission studied the “National Development of Arts and Letters” ( Massey Commission) and argued for a national interest in unity and identity in 1952-- values embedded in successive broadcast acts since with multi party consensus until the 1990s CMNS 130

8. Framing the Canadian History • The Mass Media were seen through the lense of a history of ‘cultural nationalism’, focussed on sending, and receiving Canadian information, ideas and entertainment • But, they were also seen through a lense of fear of fascism ( CC: 52) • That new technologies like radio could make the individual part of a mass, undifferentiated, unsupported, and easy prey for authoritarian appeals. • That “mass” media would inevitably carry “low” social status CMNS 130

9. Canadian Transmission Model • Defining markers of transmission model: • Size of country: second largest land mass in the world • Low population density: 32 million or about 3 people per sq k: among the lowest in the world • 200 mile corridor along the 49th parallel: US • Initially dependent upon natural resource ( staple) exports, needing good communication links to imperial country • What Aitken, a noted economist calls Canada tradition of ‘defensive expansionism’ CMNS 130

10. Adoption of Innovation • Telegraph & rise of international news agencies 1850s-1900s • Canada longest telegraph network in the world • A Canadian invented standardized time • Sir Sandford Fleming • Telephony-1900s • Canada site of first transatlantic phone message • ( Cape Breton: Alexander Graham Bell) CMNS 130

11. Adoption Cont’d • Radio-1930s-50s • Canada first public monopoly radio service on its rail service (CNR) • Television-1950s-70s • First and fastest nation to widely disseminate cable television • Satellite—1980s • Canada first geostationary domestic satellite system • Internet—1990s • Canada among fasted adopters of Internet: now over 3 in 4 citizen users • Among first 3 nations to wire up all schools ( School Net) CMNS 130

12. Adoption/ Cont’d II • Canada is among the most developed communications infrastructures in the world • Many key inventors, medium theorists, rapid adoption of communication technologies, often promoted by the State CMNS 130

13. Paradoxes • Paradox: Canada is not a major manufacturer of communication technologies • dependent on imports for TV equipment, computer signalling equipment, satellites, although emerging in fibre optics & blackberry handset etc • Paradox: content development ( message, production) not kept up with transmission/distribution development– eg. School Net CMNS 130

14. Fast Facts • Canadian Share of Prime Time English TV Entertainment …9% • Canadian Share of Sound recording..11% • Canadian Share of Film: 3% • Canadian per capita advertising is ¾ that of the US • Suffers the small market problem • Overspill from the US CMNS 130

15. A Canadian Thumbnail History of a Medium • Radio: • As a technology, uses the electromagnetic spectrum • Considered a scarce resource • Compelled nations to cooperate to allocate it territorially • Compelled rationing of licenses thus a form of ‘regulation’ • Radio first used as a marine navigational aid in 1905 • The War demonstrated the even greater importance of radio to national security • RCA/Westinghouse emerged from WWI as major electrical manufacturers in the US who had branch plants in Canada ( CC: 74) • Marconi in Montreal set up the first Canadian radio station ( CFCF) • By 1923 …30 stations in operation..growing to 60 by 1930 when about one in three Canadians had a radio set • But with a limited capital base, stations turned to advertising, or joined US radio networks NBC and CBS • “non aligned” stations were knocked off their frequencies by US super-radiostations CMNS 130

16. Thumbnail Cont’d • Market chaos and the absence of Canadian programming precipitated demands for a Royal Commission hearing • A proposal to ‘nationalize’ radio • Caused a debate for citizens at the time: • Is it important for Canada to have its own mass media? • Who should own the mass media? • Who should control them? • How should they be financed? • The answers: Yes, Government, and tax or licence fee money • But, expropriation never occurred, and through a lack of political will subsequently the CBC became reliant on private stations to reach coast to coast to coast, and then reliant on advertising • Canada had a mixed system from the outset, but did borrow from the Imperial model of the BBC CMNS 130

17. Thumbs and nails 3 • As a medium, broadcasting then, took very different path than print • It was seen as too important to be left to the market • The Canadian government, like many around the world, broke with the pattern of private ownership • Radio could be the 20th century equivalent to the railroad, reasoned then PM Bennett • A very special industry in its ability to foster nationwide inter-communication (CC:73). • Given the protective language barrier in Quebec, french radio thrived, even producing dramas • A nationalist, middle class elite later argued: • “there are important things in the life of a nation which cannot be weighed or measured” • National traditions, national unity, national pride and national identity exist not only the material sphere but in the realm of ideas • Saw broadcasting as quintessentially a cultural policy: a “public trust” and “public service” • With extensive social responsibilities: to educate, uplift, and entertain CMNS 130

18. Thumbs and Nails 4 • To reinforce the nation-building cultural responsibilities, the Canadian government: • Passed a Broadcasting Act • Established a public corporation • Required private broadcasters to air 35% Canadian music over the day since 1971 • MAPL • Music: composed by a Canadian • Artists: artists performing lyrics are Canadian • Performance: in or recorded in Canada • Lyrics: written by a Canadian CMNS 130

19. Fast Forward • Canadians listen to 19 hours of radio a week • There are 913 English stations, 275 French and 35 third language stations • Total revenues around $1.3 billion with about $277 million in profit • $78 million is paid by private stations to promote Canadian artists • Source: CRTC Broadcast Monitoring Report, 2006 CMNS 130

20. History of Communication Re-entering the Time Machine CMNS 130

21. Today’s Agenda • Historical Narratives: Media and Modernity CMNS 130

22. STUDY QUESTIONS • What are Narratives? • Identify Three Main Epochs of Communication • What is ‘technological determinism’? What is the cultural critique of it? ( CC: 58-59) CMNS 130

23. Big Picture Ideas Today • History of Communication involves a Selective Story or Narrative • Narrative:a story or depiction of actual or fictional events • Narrative: the telling of a story in a certain way • The Story revolves around communication technology and its relationship to society and culture • Story can be technology centric--even determinist • Story can have broader focus on social change: the emergence of modernity CMNS 130

24. Ideas II • Canada’s story is one of technological nationalism • Use of communication technologies to settle the country from sea to sea • Associated with national railroad( telegraph)(national public radio: CBC) • Assertion and protection of national sovereignty in journey from colony to nation • reflected in the policy focus in the study of communication itself But what is the Global Story? CMNS 130

25. Social Histories: ‘Narratives’ • Mediamaking ( Grossberg et al, 2000) argues typically that the history of communication is presented as a ‘march of progress’ or ‘triumph of National Will” • a series of adoptions of technological inventions—which then shape the movement from oral to print to electronic cultures of communication • This tendency to technological determinism is at the heart of a transmission model of communication CMNS 130

26. Key Concept • Technological Determinism • Ascribing the main cause of social change to technology • In this case, communication technology • Thus, a theoretical or academic point of view that prioritizes the causal influence of communication media, and especially mass media, in social change CMNS 130

27. Canadian Communication Thinkers • Two key historians focus on the specificity of the communication media • Pioneers of the study of medium & technology theory • Often seen as determinist • Harold Adams Innis • The Bias of Communication • Empire and Communication • Marshall McLuhan • The Gutenberg Galaxy • Cited extensively by Grossberg et al CMNS 130

28. Overview of Medium Theory • Origin of Communication • Oral, • writing and • electronic forms of culture CMNS 130

29. Origin of Communication • People have always ‘communicated’: • Used non verbal signs, language and later symbols to exchange meaning in all agrarian and hunting societies • To exchange meaning the two people have to share assumptions about what the words or symbols mean, to agree that they mean the same thing to both • Exchange of meaning then depends not only the word but its cultural, economic and social context • As technology begins to mediate communication, the relation of the words to their context changes: another person distant over space and time may experience a word or meaning fragment from a totally different context CMNS 130

30. Oral Culture • Face to face interaction • A different sense of time • No record or fixation, thus history resides in the moment • Myth and fact intertwined • No concept of authorship: there is only performance • Social, interactive, collective • Elders become the repositories of knowledge, so may be resistant to change • Source: Walter Ong (CMNS 110: see CC: 55) CMNS 130

31. Writing Culture • Invention of the alphabet, and ways to ‘fix’ print in clay tablets, then papyrus, and then paper, change culture • Changes way of thinking: • No longer face to face, so can reach larger audiences: the concept of space and time enters • Fixation allows writer to ensure story how it intended to be; so the idea of individual authorship emerges • Texts allow fixed, written or permanent codes or rules of law to develop • Texts can now be verified, separate from the subject, allowing for the separation of ‘object’ from ‘subject’ and scientific discovery • Allows for linear thought: a fundamentally different kind of consciousness ( McLuhan) CC: 56-57 CMNS 130

32. Print Culture ( emergence of Modernity) • Writing changes relationship between communicator and audience • Can widen over space and time • Early print media centralized and made knowledge hierarchical The beginning of Empire: ( Innis, quoted in Grossberg et al, p. 41). • In a writing culture, fixed written rules or codes of law can develop • The individual reader emerges as separate from the community CMNS 130

33. Print Culture/Cont’d • Literacy allows power to be hoarded • This transformed with Gutenberg/ but printing press allowed the emergence of new classes ( no longer priest but merchant classes) but then a rehoarding of power • Innis: monopolies of knowledge can develop/be challenged and reemerge which challenge the rigid hierarchies of Church or State CMNS 130

34. Impact of the Printing Press • Control of writing harder to monopolize by elites or the Church • Allows for consumption of communication in private & spread of literacy • Allows the emergence of newspaper and novel CMNS 130

35. Gutenberg • The inventor of moveable type in Europe • Celebrated as a western invention • Celebrated as a democratic one: breaks elite church or feudal monopoly over communication • Seen as the turning point of modern communication • Positive/Progressive narratives abound CMNS 130

36. Against Gutenberg I • Innis: • The conditions of freedom of thought are in danger of being destroyed by science, technology and mechanization of knowledge • In Empire and Communication • Why? The printing press ( has) permitted the production of words on an unprecedented scale and increased the difficulties of thought: words have become powerless, • Gutenberg succeeds only in the devaluing of words, information and knowledge CMNS 130

37. Against Gutenberg II • Communication history criticized for its Western bias • Asian Scholars: printing press not a Western invention: existence in China centuries before did not have the same social consequence—therefore Gutenberg /technological determinism less strong than supposed -Michele Martin page 18-19 CMNS 130

38. Electronic Culture • Emergence of electrical messages ( telegraph) • Allowed almost instantaneous transmission over space and time • Fostered international rationalization of time ( standard time a Canadian inventors’ invention) CMNS 130

39. Electronic Cont’d • Carey thesis quoted in Grossberg et al: • Telegraph (1840s)marked the decisive separation of ‘transportation’ and ‘communication’ • Telegraph key to rise of international news/newspaper industry • Finalised the transformation of information into a commodity or thing • Together with the institution of advertising, contributes to rise of mass marketing, Industrialization • Rise of computers, satellites, internet further compress space and time • Early electronic era ( radio, TV) organized around nation states, and national masses • Search for larger markets/theory of mass society CMNS 130

40. Electronic Cont’d • Characterised by general interest /mass communication • Late electronic era ( satellite, internet) organized globally, and with global individuals • Characterized by specialised, personalised contents • Rarely linear or logical: more of a role for emotion and affect CMNS 130

41. Problems with Medium Theory • Speculating how the form and technology of communication changes culture often ascribes it a total power • Can lead analysts to say content & context are irrelevant • This is too simple a model of social or cultural causality CMNS 130

42. Major Epochs of Communication History • Pre Modern • ( oral and early print media) • Modern • ( late print and electronic media) • Post Modern • ( digital media) CMNS 130

43. Pre Modern ( 1000 BC to 1500s) • Pre Modern • Close association of control of communication with Church or rulers or monarchs • Agrarian, dispersed societies • ‘divine right’—rulers chosen by god • Elite production and dissemination of communication ( poets,scribes, monks, priests work by hand) CMNS 130

44. Pre Modern Cont’d • Much reliance upon spoken word • Transmission of values by word of mouth, elders • oral communication • Epic poems, sacred myths, storytelling • Focus on flexibility, traditional community knowledge CMNS 130

45. Pre Modern Con’td • Major historical event: invention of the alphabet and rise of clay tablets, parchment manuscripts • Custom, cosmology ( or coherent world view), unwritten rules • Time bias: social goal is to conserve and transmit core values of a society over generations ( (Innis in The Bias of Communication) • Oral communication has its limits: • Oral communication lasts only as long as it takes one to speak and it only reaches those within earshot • Yet social organizations have an eternal drive to communicate with long lasting and ever more far reaching effect CMNS 130

46. Modern Epoch • Dates from the Enlightenment and challenge to Church and rulers • 1700s-20th century • The twin economic and political process of modernization • Accelerates after the invention of the Gutenberg Press and wider dissemination of knowledge CMNS 130

47. Modernization • In economic organization, the changes to forms of capitalist production • the emergence of machineries applied to increase the scale of production: industrialization • Routinization of labour, processes to maximize profits & develop access to larger markets • Urbanization, transportation and communication essential to develop mass markets • Political modernization discussed next week • Modernization, however, creates a social institution with the characteristics of modernity CMNS 130

48. The Enlightenment and Modernity • an idealist vision of humans as rational creatures, capable of choosing between right and wrong • Refers to a period characterized by: • End of the Middle Ages and rise of the Renaissance where a ‘great chain of being’ ( vertical in line to a divine authority) placed man in a subservient position • Ideal of the ‘free’ and ‘creative’ man: humanistic vision • As the printing press spreads, so to does literacy and thirst for ideas • The rise of the individual author/freedom of expression emerges CMNS 130

49. Features of the Enlightenment • The enlightenment (1700 and 1800s) features the rise of science over religion: • rule of reason, scientific experimentation and proof, notion of science, technology and progress ruling society • The enlightenment gives rise to scientific experimentation • Rise of electricity, experiments with sending sounds and images over the electromagnetic spectrum and broader technical dissemination of communication • The Enlightenment sets the stage for invention of printing press, and successive waves of technological innovation/ displacement of technologies over time • Related to the historical construction of Modernity CMNS 130

50. What do We Mean by Modernity? • An Epoch • A set of qualities associated with the condition of modern or recent times • refers to a constellation of social, economic,philosophical changes associated with modernization and modernism • It emphasizes Science and Reason • Science and Reason could challenge established orthodoxies ( eg. Galileo said the earth revolved around the sun and was persecuted during the Catholic Inquisition for his sins) CMNS 130