Technological Influences on Nonverbal Communication
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As in previous chapters dealing with master themes, this chapter includes conceptual material from earlier chapters applied in specific ways. A considerable body of work has been created in the past few decades, aspects of which are discussed here.
Humans create their social worlds; they also invent and use communicative technologies. From the invention of the pencil to the internet, all technologies have influenced human behavior. Television, radio, film and the internet, in particular, deeply influence human perceptions, beliefs and behaviors (Altheide, 1997; Brown, Childers, Bauman & Koch, 1990;Couch, 1996;Dyson, 1996; Grossberg, Martella & Whitney, 1998; McLuhan, 1962, 1964). They are referred to as communicative technologies. The focus of this chapter is mostly on television and the internet, or computer. It has been said that in cyberspace, there is a world in the wires (Jones, 1995;Kitchin, 1998; Rheingold, 1991).
Humans create a mediated telepresence through the use of television and the internet. For example, sitcoms, framed and targeted at specific audiences are fictional, but they contain enough life reality to engage the viewer. The viewer of a sitcom brings a frame of reference to the sitcom which includes her beliefs, values, attitudes and personal schemas. The sitcom contains frames of reference, too, and in the interaction, the viewer creates a new set of meanings. Most people view television selectively. For example, the person who believes that TV is a debased medium appealing to crass tastes will either avoid using television or watch it very selectively (Baran, McIntyre & Meyer, 1984).
The advent of the computer, e-mail and cyberreality have significantly altered the ways that humans communicate. It may be argued that the technologies associated with the computer have fundamentally altered human experience. For example, in oral societies face-to-face communication is the norm but, in a heavily mediated society, face-to-face communication is replaced, and filtered by a technological lens. As communicative technologies have evolved, the relationships between humans have been transformed.Television and the computer are contemporary forms of mass media, but they are very different technologies. The internet is interactive, as in the use of e-mail, and television is usually directed from station to audience, although this is changing rapidly as the internet teams up with television.
The telegraph, the auto and airplanes each deeply influenced human society before the advent of television and the computer and even more modern technologies will follow them. Even today satellites course the skies, creating avenues for international communication, even interplanetary communication. People in the Western world are involved in a remarkable revolution in the ways that humans can communicate. Behavior, time, place and culture are being transformed.
Young people may not so easily observe how their nonverbal behavior is affected by modern media, lacking an historical perspective due to their age. Of course, they can and do read about past events as they study human history, but the perspective of older people is based on actual experiences where modern communicative technologies did not exist. Perhaps the best way for a young person to imagine the influence of the present-day media is to focus on speed and activities. A young person might ask how the internet has influenced how quickly she is able to receive messages and how her academic life is now centered on the use of the computer. She might also analyze the time she spends in front of a television set, on a daily basis. This chapter focuses on the ways that modern communicative technologies, especially television and the internet, influence human behavior both in the shaping of the social background and in the influence of behavior in daily life. The SI approach is particularly useful in the understanding of that influence.
The Reality Myth. This myth suggests that the media present reality as it is. Reality, of course, is created by individuals in interaction with others. The media represent or mediate social reality. Cyber-reality is a visual fabrication of everyday life. It is not everyday life, although it may influence the work and play of individuals.
The Media Distribution Myth. This myth implies that the media are distributed evenly throughout society; in actuality, people have differential access to the media. Although this is changing, the aged, the poor and some members of ethnic groups do not have the same access as do mainstream White Americans.
The Uniform Influence Myth. This myth suggests that all people are uniformly influenced by the media. In actuality, the background of people, their age, ethnicity, gender and culture influence their use and interpretations, as advertisers know.
The printing press and the telegraph were precursors to the advent of television and the computer. "What hath God Wrought?" the question asked by Morse, sent more than 150 years ago from Washington to Baltimore on the telegraph, foreshadowed the emergence of the modern, electronic society. The telegraph and the telephone, created in 1876, deeply influenced the patterning of society before the age of computers and television. Communicative technologies, such as television, radio and the internet have, in a similar way, substantially altered the ways that humans do things. As discussed in earlier chapters, people construct the meanings of events and activities, as noted below.
Framing the Construction of Reality
Searle suggests that there are three parts to the construction of reality. The three parts are objective reality, or the factual world, what Searle has called the brute facts; symbolic reality, such as art forms, plays, literature, media contents; and subjective reality, which is the reality constructed by the individual on the basis of objective and symbolic reality. (Maine & Adoni, 1984; Searle, 1995). The media discussed in this chapter fall into his version of symbolic reality.
That the media influence human society is clear; just how they do so is less than clear. A variety of theories (1) have been proposed in the scientific study of the media. How a television program is framed is important. Is a program that deals with pornography framed as a problem for womens' rights; or, is it presented as pleasurable for men? The way it is framed influences how the situation is defined (Severin & Tankard, 1997). Perhaps more than any other theorist, Marshall McLuhan gave the study of the media an early push, an impetus. He declared that the medium not only bears a message, but it is a message by itself. The popular phrase is that the medium is the message (McLuhan,1964).
This seminal work delineated the ways in which human society is altered and influenced by the type of media that is dominant at a given time. The oral world was different from the newer print world and the print world was very different from the world of television. Each medium has its own type of influence on human behavior. Whole civilizations have been variously influenced by their technologies (Couch, 1984). Runners bore messages in ancient civilizations. The quipu was used to count in early Incan societies. Smoke was used as a signalling mechanism by early Americans. Satellites flash messages instantly in the modern world. Technologies, created by humans, return the compliment; they are involved in creating societies, influencing human affairs.
The media have been referred to as designs for society. Their built-in structure and the ways they are used influence and pattern human behaviors (Couch, 1996). For example, members of a pastoral sheep raising society, an oral society, having few or no communicative technologies, are likely to talk face-to-face about events in their lives. Intersubjective, shared meanings are deeply imbedded in the pastoral setting. Time slows down and the pace of events is slowed. The sheepherder's sense of place is keen. He eats no fast food. It is likely that the lives of his sheep-raising parents and grandparents were very similar; they lived the same way. If a person was identified as a sheepherder, everyone in a pastoral society knew what that meant. Daily life was routine, patterned and continuous. Seasons changed the patterns, but the sheepherder identity remained intact. All is different in modern society. Technologies intrude in human affairs, shaping and altering how people communicate. They constitute designs for human human action and behavior.
The SI approach emphasizes the dramaturgical behavior of humans in interaction. Humans engage in daily mini-sociodramas. They act toward others as though they were performing a role on stage; things may be going on backstage (Goffman, 1969) but people are attentive to what they must do to accomplish tasks or plans. Television, film, the radio and the internet have become part of the sociodrama of everyday life. True, they present artificial sociodramas, but people interact with them as though they were real. The media present symbolic messages to people who make sense of them in terms of their experiences. By comparing the media content to real world content, individuals come to terms with the meaning of the media presentation (Davis & Baran, 1981).
Television "talks" in the sense that the producers may try to send specific messages, especially through advertising. Programs bear messages. Advertisers and organizations deliberately target their messages. For example, The Health Education Council produced an anti-smoking ad showing a young child in a wheel chair smoking; the child was asked how many cigarettes he smoked (Baran & McIntyre. 1984). The viewer filled in the blanks. This process of filling in the blanks occurs in all visual presentations, film or television; it occurs as well in the messages that are exchanged on the internet. Each activity engages the individual in an active symbolizing process.
Perhaps American have a taste for things that are slick and colorful. Television producers sometimes seem to act as though that were the case. It has been said that if one has taste, he loses interest in television, an interesting statement from a writer who spent time on the major networks (Gitlin, 1983). On the other hand, it appears that television is furnishing the bridge between the 'lively classical arts' and the tastes of the everyday viewer. One can watch professional wrestling or one may watch an opera, not by sitting in an auditorium, but by sitting in her home, merely switching channels. Mediated reality is instantly available. There is no requirement that one drive or walk to a theatre or to purchase tickets in advance. As one television critic put it, we have "instant everything".
The internet is synchronously interactive, providing a forum in which imagination plays an important role. Often, one person in interaction with another via e-mail, forums or chat groups, does not know who the other party is. This aspect of the internet tends to mask identities. People can pretend to be who they are not. Masks have been used over the centuries in drama, as in China, to disguise or create new characters, but the electronic mask is modern, requiring little training to use. The internet enables a person to put on new face. The computer, like television, is a design for action.
Framing the Pervasiveness of Electronic Media
It is argued that the electronic media, including television, have created changes in physical spaces, including things as basic as shopping malls and as large as cities in dramatic ways. Fun and pleasure, as well as crime, are associated with these places (Altheide, 1997). Not only do people have telepresence, they have co-presence; that is, television sets and other communicative devices are everywhere that people are.
Television is found in nearly every public quarter. Bars and restaurants, hospital waiting rooms, automobiles, and even camps in the distant mountains have television screens. In some places, screens may be so large that they seem to engulf the audience. Humans seem not to tire of watching human behavior. The author remembers watching a Superbowl and by switching channels, he could watch the war in Iraq! Both activities were real in that they were really happening, but they were mediated, altered by the technology of television.
Family eating patterns traditionally centered on the dining room table where face-to-face communication took place. Discussion about daily matters was important at the dinner table. Television displaced the family table; now, family members may gather around the television set located in the entertainment center, eating a fast-food take-out. In very practical ways, technologies shape human behavioral patterns; they are designs for living influencing how people relate to one another.
Early scholarship focused on the effects of tool use by humans (Innis, 1951;McLuhan, 1962, 1964, Ong, 1982). All tools, from the use of a pencil to the use of e-mail extend the potential for human interaction, just as the bulldozer extends the ability of humans to change the surface of the earth. The effects are often taken for granted, not felt or observed in everyday life. How many people ask or think about how the use of pencil and paper created new patterns of interaction in everday behavior? It is the business of scholars to ask these questions. Yet, the effects on the daily life of the student is obvious, even pronounced. Writing, whether on papyrus or modern paper, stabilizes society, leading to the storage of knowledge in libraries. In short, pencils, used to write, extend the fingers and the mind. All communicative technologies are symbolic extensions of human behavior.
The printing press of course increased the speed with which humans could exchange their printed messages. Today, the creation of new technologies or twists on older ones, many very sophisticated, is mushrooming. It is not a slow, linear process; it is, seemingly, an exponential process. The half-life of technological invention is reduced more and more, as Moore's Law suggests. In other words, technologies have always influenced human behavior. But previous inventions came about relatively slowly. In present times new inventions are produced in very short periods of time (Schramm, 1988). One of the outcomes of this shortened time period between inventions is that young people may introduce their parents to a new technology, not the other way around, as in the past.
Television and the internet diffentially influence human behavior as discussed in the following sections.
As mentioned above, researchers want to know how human behavior is influenced by the media, essentially television in this case. Television, of course, is a relatively recent invention, not available to the masses until after mid-century. A number of research approaches or models have been used.
Framing Research Models
The "bullet theory", a naive and simplistic theory of the power of television to influence people directly, was used in early research. The use of propaganda in WWII influenced the development of this model. Propaganda was a one-way process, designed to make people think or do things. The Americans and their Allies and the Germans and the Axis powers used propaganda extensively (Ellul, 1964, 1973). The bullet theory suggested that, as in the trajectory of a bullet, the message reached its target, the audience, directly and it was received as it was sent. But media messages must fall upon "ready soil" so to speak; humans must be ready to accept them, to interpret and use them, and they do so in various ways. Messages may have little direct influence as suggested by the bullet theory.
Cultivation theory suggests that heavy users of television differ from light users in how they use television and in the ways that they are influenced by it. Heavy users may "resonate" more with the topic shown on television than do light users. Television may also produce a general climate of fear or uncertainty in some populations. For example, women may fear crime more than males do; even though both may be watching the same program, males and females may differ in the in the fear or apprehension that is triggered by the program. In short, televised programs and advertisements differentially influence viewers even though they may be watchin the televised activity (Severin & Tankard, 1997).
As mentioned, one of the key ways that television influences human behavior is through advertising. Advertising is basically about persuasion designed usually, but not always, to make money. Advertisers "construct" their audiences; that is, they aim at women or men, children or parents, Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, or other target groups (Turow, 1997). Once the audience is constructed, advertisers find ways to get the attention of people in that audience, using bright colors, sexual themes, or other ways that are known to gain attention. Persuasive communications try to tap the emotions or they try to associate well-known people with the product. They may even try to shock an audience to get attention.
Whatever persuasive technique they use, they try to build a symbolic bridge to the audience; they try to create a need in the mind of the viewer for the product. Advertisers will try to sell their product by showing how it will benefit the purchaser; they will claim that their product is superior, more beautiful, more useful or in some way better than other products, presenting this information as "fact". Unlike the use of propaganda which is essentially a one-way process designed to "brainwash" viewers, television producers try to engage the viewer interactively with their presentation. By engaging his emotions and his mind, their chances of selling their products to him are increased. Perhaps he will not go out and buy a product immediately, but the images are there for future reference. In short, advertisers know that by appealing to basic human needs, values or identities, they can tug at feelings, influence the emotions and move people to act, to purchase their product.
On the other hand, advertisements may be designed to keep their product name in front of a target audience. They may want everybody to join the "millions" who have bought their product. The fact that MacDonald's claims to have sold billions of hamburgers influences some people to buy using the kind of reasoning that suggests that if so many people have bought them, they must be good. People who are not aware of the persuasive techniques used in these advertisements may be uncritical about the product, a situation that helps the advertiser achieve her or his goals (Larson, 1983).
Audiences, of course, are not real entities; they are constructed abstractions, (Turow, 1997) used for a purpose, as in advertising. Advertisers construct the audience that they wish to target, a children's audience being very different from an adult audience. The age, gender and race are important to advertisers, who pitch their products directly at them. Although there is considerable discussion in modern American society about whether, how, or how much television and film influence young people in good and bad ways, clearly there are effects and influences; otherwise, businesses would not spend millions of dollars to sell their products nor would so much effort be spent studying their effects. Nor wood scholars be studying the impact of television on children's nonverbal behavior. Dr. Robert S. Feldman, at the University of Massachussetts, has set up an internet site designed precisely to study how television impacts on children's behaviors. He believes that television distorts or exaggerates real life and that it draws upon limited emotions, such as anger, happiness and sadness.
Advertisers, of course, are part of the mix. They lead their customers to their products, using clever, attractive, emotional messages. Some advertisers have even used seductive ways to influence viewers, as in subliminal advertising. How much subliminal advertising really works is not clear, although popular books have been written about the process (Key,1973).
Subliminal processes operate below the threshold of the senses; they are said to 'work' on the subconscious mind in suggestive ways. Whether they work or not remains an issue. Their use has been the subject of legal controversy. For example, advertisers have produced subliminal messages in films seen in theaters, hoping that without realizing it, members in the audience will be motivated by the subliminal message to buy their product. Of course, theree are serious, ethical issues involved in the use of undisclosed, hidden messages, designed to make people do things. Whether the message works or not is another question, although those professionals who practice hypnotism may have a special understanding of how it works. Mead referred to humans as walking somnambulists, meaning that people at times may move about, without realizing they have done so, as in sleepwalking.
On one hand, advertising presents an opportunity for businesses to present their products in responsible ways on television and on the internet. On the other hand, another view of advertising says that it is saturated with excessive and obsessive commercialism, with sensationalism and distortion in an attempt to get to the audience, the effect being to distort the consumers's world (Bogart, 1995). As has been said "there are no plain women on television," a statement attributed to John Ford, a producer; television needs beautiful women and advertisers frequently play up the beautiful body to sell a product.
Television, of course, conveys visual symbolism to people. MTV, a relatively new television format owned by Viacom, the owner of CBS Television, targets a specific audience, using youthful images and music that is appealing to mostly a Black audience. Children's programs rely upon fuzzy lifeless characters that come alive in a child's imagination, as in Sesame Street on public broadcasting networks. Indeed, PBS stations intentionally downplay advertising so that 'cultural' programs are less influenced by commercial advertising. Jock sports and extreme sports are aimed at young males. In short, symbols that appeal to different audiences are continually created to build a bridge to that audience. Not all audience members respond to the same symbolism in the same ways.
Internet has become a powerful socializing tool. One need only read the articles that are presented in Wired Magazine or through the Hypermedia Research Centre see the impact of the internet. Cybersociology Magazine is advertises itself as a forum for the discussion of the social scientific study of cyberspace. The internet influences human behavior in ways that are different from the influence of television. As mentioned, people can mask their identities on the internet, but they also gain access to information, to chat groups, to friends, even to college courses on the internet. In short, the internet via the computer has radically altered behavioral patterns, some of them negative, as discussed later in the chapter.
The computer and the internet have brought about technospeak, new words that originate with specialists and become part of the public lexicon. New words, such as emoticons, netizens (net-citizens) and netropolis (net-metropolis), cyberpunk, spamming, hyper-reality, and cyber-rapture are part of a new language used by tekkies. A netiquette is a type of coded communication used in a virtual community where geographical boundaries do not exist (Herring, 1996).
Framing Technospeak
What do the following terms mean?: Viral marketing, legacy systems, pure play, telephone space, B2C, disintermediation, Dynabook, freenet, FAQ, multiplexing. WYSWYG.
Who are these mutants and are they good or bad?: The Wolverine, Sabretooth, Toad, Jean Grey, Mystique, Cyclops, Rogue, Storm (USA Today, July 14, 2000).
Techno-speak terms are neologisms, invented to be used in a community of users. Few people outside the so-called tekkie realm understand the terminology, although a term such as spamming appears to have entered the wider public realm. In a fast changing society, new symbols are needed, as the half-life of technological knowledge becomes shorter and shorter.
The creation of virtual communities implies that there is an identifable citizenry whose common bond is the web. Electronically networked, without boundaries, electronic communities exist in techno-space. It is nowhere and everywhere. One merely needs to know how to talk to the citizens and she, too, becomes part of that citizenry. Sculptors, painters and other artists have historically plied their craft in their special lofts or labs. Their craft was specialized and they may have taken years to perfect it. The computer provides yet another way to enact presence. Virtual reality is the result of the ability of a person to image life, forms and processes on the computer. In short the imagination of the painter is brought home to the everyday user of the internet. People can simulate the body on the internet, with or without artistic training. Like any other application of the computer, the creation of virtual reality can be used in positive and negative ways, as psychologists assert.
Face-to-face communication permits the participants to display their full bodies to others. As mentioned, the full human sensorium comes into play in face-to-face enactments. Humans in areas of the world that lack communicative technologies still rely upon primal communication. They may represent their cultures through paintings on cave walls or other places in the landscape, and they may embellish their faces with paint, but essentially their interactivel conduct is face-to-face. In cultures saturated by the use of television, the computer and the internet, the human sensorium does not come into play in the same ways. Television is essentially a visual medium; the radio is an aural medium, each influencing viewers and listeners through these body channels (McLuhan, 1962, 1964; Couch, 1996; Denning, 1999).
By using modern tools, engineers are able to mimic all of the human senses. Voice, face and fingerprint recognitions systems already exist. Can smell and taste systems be far behind? Obviously not; in the print media, scratch-off perfume smells have been used. As technological development continues in increasingly sophisticated ways, the way that the real body works in face-to-face interaction, in which the full sensorium is deployed, will be mimicked. Robots will be able to see, hear, feel, taste, and touch, just as humans do. But, of course, this will be artificial reality, however useful and imaginative the robot is.
The contexts of human action are shifting rapidly. Moore's Law dictates that the growth of computer technologies is seemingly exponential, with doubling effects occurring over an increasingly shorter period of time. New technologies create new contexts influencing existing human habits. As mentioned, television is used in medical buildings and malls, in restaurants, schools and bars. The telepresence leads to a new co-presence (Altheide, 1997). Because television is available, new forms of association are engendered. The geography of place and space is altered. Old boundaries are eliminated and new boundaries formed. Time barriers are crossed with ease. It takes no longer to read a newspaper located nearly anywhere on the globe than it takes to go to the store to buy a paper.
Friends communicate across oceans and continents instantly. No paper and pens are needed. People born into these contexts may take them for granted. Until they experience alternative realities, young people, born into these technological contexts, may not know how dramatically modern communicative technologies have altered society. The capability of modern communicative technology to increase and diffuse human exchanges seems boundless (Denning, 1999;Mossk, 1997).
Lag time was a difficult problem in early communication when stage coaches delivered the mail or when couriers ran with messages. A waiting period was necessary. The country doctor may be summoned too late, the distance too far. Even with the advent of the daily newspaper, lag time is apparent when one compares online newservices with print services. The New York Times, the Washington Post or the Boston Globe or any other newwspaper, but the on-line version is available instantly, as are newspapers from around the world. News that is found in paper print is old by the time it gets delivered to the front door.
In short, the new electronic technologies reduce lag time to almost nothing. Following Moore's Law, there have been 18 doublings of the speed of microprocessors since their invention (Denning, 1999). The computer, which drives the speed of change, is becoming more and more sophisticated. The author in writing this book used four major library systems on-line, each in a different part of the United States. Although he went physically to the libraries, his search for materials was facilitated by the use of the internet, his library time dramatically reduced.
The gee-whiz aspect, the world of wonder, associated with the development of new technologies, gives new meaning to mind-body-machine interaction.
Framing Cyborgs
Cyborg-like human-machinery is being used in medicine, in research and by engineering companies. Pioneering medical devices, such as the artificial human heart, have been used for decades; modern research is now more sophisticated. Electronic gadgets may be used to increase brain power; nerve circulation can be improved electronically; the small intestine can be observed by a very small, wandering, picture-taking computer; robots simulate human activities; computers can read voices. In short, the electro-bionic human is here. No longer do people say "gee-whiz" with every new development; they are getting used to the idea that cyberculture and cyborgculture are here, giving new meaning to the term "human extension". The Cyborg factor, of course, is a fanciful metaphor; nevertheless, it gives one pause for thought.
Modern electronic media serve to provide a new looking glass, one that was not anticipated by Cooley (1970), who coined the term, "looking glass self". Of course, people always filter reality perceptually, but television and the internet not only present filtered reality, they construct artificial realities. The bodies of the ideal man and the ideal woman are constantly presented on television. Now, the perfectly pixeled female body has been created in virtual reality. Dr. Aki Ross, star of the Final Fantasy, a science-fiction move, is called "The Perfect model: Gorgeous, No Complaints, Made of Pixels". She is said to be a combination of Sigourney Weaver and Julia Roberts (La Ferla, May 5, 2001).
Many people, fail to realize that TV reality is representational; it biases and filters everyday reality. For example, the major news programs which try to project the image of authority, are actually presenting highly selected news, merely a small portion of the news that could be presented. Yet, the news sets the agenda for the day for many people.
The influence of television and the internet is not uniform across society nor are all people blindly influenced by them. Women, members of ethnic groups, the aged and children have differential access to television and the internet. They tend to use it differently, too.
The concept of multiple selves was discussed in chapter four as a normal growth pattern, but in the blur of activities that are associated with television and the internet, young people may struggle with identity formation or suffer from chronic revision of who they are, resulting in neurasthenia or anomie (Grodin & Lindlof, 1996). A replacement of real persons by artificial persons, the abandonment of the essential self, may occur due to the effects of television, the internet and other salient mediating technologies. In short, there may be unintended, latent and negative influences resulting from the use of modern communicative technologies.
How directly television influences behavior varies, but certainly there are copycat behaviors. As mentioned, television promotes the perfectly formed woman to viewers. To be contemporary, the media must promote a woman whose sizes and BMI index are very different from a few years ago when women were shorter and a bit heavier. Today, the models are thinner and taller, as the beauty queens attest. The image of beauty queens, projected on television, becomes a template, a looking glass, against which one measures herself. Some women, unfortunately, are negatively influenced. Women can become anorexic or buliminic as they strive to achieve the perfect BMI (Moss & Kidd, May 20,2000). Some people, of course, already have unhealthy goals; such depiction on television or in print media can increase the state of unhealth.
Given the saturation of society by the print, film and television media it has been strongly suggested that the formation of the identity process is made difficult and confusing (Gergen, 1991). Media effects and influences are dynamic and pervasive. A media culture immerses every person in it. People are bathed in a society saturated by the media.(Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signiorelli, 1986; Gergen, 1991).
American society has always been violent, varying from one period to another, as noted in the Westward movement in early America, discussed in chapter six. Violence is known to all societies, some being violent more than others. The classic Marxist position is that the story of humankind is the story of stuggle, members of one class against members of another. In some ways, it appears that the media, especially television, are mere overlays of the everyday routines of society that have contributed to the structure of dominance (Altheide, 1997), which suggests that the violence that is found in society will continue to be found on television.
Scholars have focused on the relationship between television and violence (Lefkowitz, Tron, Walder & Huesman, 1972). Some scholars suggest that viewing TV violence has a cathartic effect; in other words, viewing violence is a way of reducing the likelihood that the viewer will be violent because it channels and diffuses violent tendencies. Others hold very different perspectives. For example, a major study called The Great American Values Test (Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach & Grube, 1984) revealed that viewers of a specially designed program changed their values after watching it; people who were dependent on television, compared to those who watched it less, changed their values more by comparison. In short, television programs can and do influence people, especially those who are dependent upon it. The issue of whether and how television influences people, their beliefs and behavior is salient in contemporary society where young people are shown in the media shooting one another, bullying each other and increasingly engaging in crimes. The question naturally arises about the role of the media in influencing the behaviors. It was reported in 1973 that by age 12, the average child had watched 101,000 violent episodes on television, including 13,400 deaths (Severin & Tankard, 1997). It would be interesting to know if the same pattern holds in present-day society.
Popular materials, such as television programs, films and internet communications, do not by themselves contain meaning. Humans create and attach meanings to them. Mediated 'reality' is not life reality; rather, it is representive of life having enough life-like characteristics to make it recognizable. When it appeals to the way that humans think and make sense of their worlds, communicative technologies are influential. Indeed, cults can form around the presentations of television and film.
Framing Cultish Behaviors
People devote strong attachments to a person, a principle or types of fads. Often, mass media create cultish followings, such as those formed around the Grateful Dead or Madonna. Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Star Trek and other film and television productions have attracted cult-like followers, showing the power of the media to appeal to the ways that people think and make sense of their worlds (Whitmore, 1989).
The Superbowl is celebrated with feverish passion, almost orgy-like. People are attracted to Disney World productions in great numbers. The Woodstock event in Rome, NY attracted thousands of apparently disinhibited people. People swarm to religious and social events: Do the media inspire these assemblies or do they merely serve to point them out? Clearly, most of them are sociodramas that are made possible only by the media.
The media, referring here to television and the internet due to the lack of space, play important and useful roles in society. They disseminate information, form bonds of association, and present forums for the resolution of problems. The internet is useful in business and education, in medicine and science. The beneficial uses and influences of these media are profound. Many scholars promote their virtues. They can serve to help educate a society, to make it more literate, more aware of aspects of human existence that would not otherwise be available. The downside is serious, too. Scholars, concerned about the quality of life in a society dominated by television and the internet, have focused on selected topics discussed below.
Humans appear to have a need for stimulation; television and the internet provide it. The need for stimulation, when extreme, as in the over-use of the internet, seems to be almost pathological, a form of cyber-rapture. Research suggests that some surfers seem to prefer porno-sex found on the net to the real thing (Couch, 1996) and that virtual reality blurs one's sense of reality. The suggestion is made that those who prefer virtual reality over everyday reality may lose their ability to distinguish the two realities. In a sense, the perception of reality, whether it has been stimulated by television or the internet, becomes reality for the person engaged. The issue seems to be that porn on the internet may promote behaviors that are not considered healthy.
The obvious way that the use of communicative technologies influence nonverbal communication is shown by the amount of time that individuals engage in TV viewing or computer interaction. When people watch television, use video games, surf the net or engage others in e-mail they do so at the expense of engaging in other activities. The popular image of the couch potato and the TV as a babysitter are well known. Background music can be used while one is typing a book or running for exercise, but viewing television or using the internet are more consummate activities. In this respect, they may be forms of serious, diversionary play. Television and the internet can inform, beguile, amuse, stimulate, affect emotions and provide opportunities to pass time. Postman worries that people are amusing themselves to death(1985)
While there is a serious work side in the use of modern communicative media--for example "knowbots" may eventually take over some of the roles now performed by librarians (Lebow, 1995)-- excessive reliance upon TV or the internet for entertainment takes up time once used for direct personal contact (Bogart, 1995). The social skills that are learned in direct interaction with others are given less time to form. Perhaps parents and researchers rightfully show concern when their children spend too much uncontrolled and unsupervised time in front of the television set or on the internet.
As pointed out above, modern mediating technologies can influence everyday life pervasively, filtering reality, altering ways of doing things, setting agendas. They influence self construals, the way people dress and walk, the way humans enact lines of action and they change the ways that human activity is channeled. The internet is challenging old ways of thinking about the self, of relationships and of society. Interestingly, the internet provides an opportunity for people to act out identities anonymously, playing with alternate versions of the self in psychodrama (Gackenbach, 1998). Moods and identities can be artificially created, possibly leading to disinhibition. (Herring,1996).
Framing Models for Males
It has been suggested that television influences the type of men that young men will become. Do young people, especially males, lose control of their aggressiveness and impulses under the influence of television? Television can promote negative images, such as mutants with names like Magneto, Sabretooth or Toad; yet, at the same time, television can promote positive images. The Lion King, perhaps, teaches positive values and the value of hard work(USA Today, July 14, 2000). At best, the influence of television on male behaviors seems to be mixed.
It is easy to blame television and the internet for inspiring negative behaviors, providing a simple answer to complex problems. Both technologies may influence people in very positive ways, too. As an example, the internet can be used for playful expressivity and artfulness by clever people (Danet & Aycock, 2000). Even forms of socio-drama may be performed on the internet. Very creative work can be done on the internet; very profound presentations may be found on television.
It has already been mentioned that television and the internet provide stimulation which seems to be a pervasive need among many youth. Both television and the internet are engaging, attractive communicative media. But scholars, researchers and parents are concerned that overuse may be a sign of addiction. Indeed, in a recent court case, the defense claimed that his client was addicted to the use of the internet.
Humans have always created fantasies. People grow up reading literature about villains and heroes, about lovers and lost love, and about tragedy and success. American culture is imbued with this imagination quotient. The internet provides MUDs, or multi-user dungeons, where the imagination roams. It is easy to understand why young people are attracted to them. Young people are often passionate users of the internet because it engages the imagination (Gackenbach, 1998).
Some scholars are concerned that internet users will be abusers, become addictive, engage in hidden and dangerous exchanges and so on. All kinds of information are available on the internet, including pornographic and salacious materials, which young people can access if they wish to. Of course it and other kinds of information does not merely hang out there; it gets into the ways that people think, into their conceptualizations and their social relations. Perhaps it is extreme, but some scholars believe that the influence of the internet is pervasive enough to influence how people view nature and the universe (Martin, 1995). That is, as a technology, it is transforming the social order and how people think about their social worlds.
A narrow band could be drawn across the Northern Hemisphere, ranging from Japan and Taiwan through the United States into Northern and Western Europe, outlining the path of technologically developed countries. The American and European film industries distribute their wares to distribution points throughout the Southern Hemisphere. With the exception of Iran, most mid-Eastern states get about 40 to 60 percent of their television programs, mostly entertainment, from the United States and Europe (Mowlana, 1996). One side effect is that English is becoming the language of choice around the globe.
Framing Third World Communications Controversies
Is it third world development or is it yet another example of the vestiges of colonialism in which powerful countries dominated less powerful countries in the third world? In 1991, UNESCO adopted a policy supporting "free, independent and pluralistic media." Freedom, rather than control, was the issue then, as it is now (Agee, Ault & Emery, 1997).
In the modern world, Japanese, European and American companies, members of the "first world" are the prime movers and shakers of the global mass media market (Turow, 1997). No longer do North Americans dominate the market as they did earlier. Members of the Third World, of course, are still dependent by and large upon the export of media and media products from the North.
Some parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America remain outside the direct influence of these technologies. Relatively closed societies, such as China, restrict television and internet access to its citizens, although this is changing rapidly. The use of stationary satellites provides the means to broadcast television globally, potentially providing access to all members of the human race. The internet and wireless telephones are gradually being used throughout the world. A canopy of electronic activity is being put into place as suggested decades ago in a spiritual metaphor by Teilhard de Chardin, a futurist, who wrote The Phenomenon of Man.
Symbolically, the world is being hardwired. Indeed, countries with advanced military systems and space systems, use a global net of satellites for transmission. Ship to shore missiles are directed using global satellites. Traditional tribal customs are still practiced in parts of the Amazon basin, but tribal members may have short-wave radios. Traditional societies seem to be slowly blending into modern ones. How much change should be expected? How much change is desirable from the unique perspectives of various cultures? Vast technological changes are occurring in a world where most languages in oral societies have not yet been written down! Is the end to diversity in sight? (Mowlana, 1996).
Isolated groups found on the Islands of Oceania, in the Great Outback of Australia, in deeper parts of Africa and in Amazonia in South America and even in the severely cold climates of the Arctic Region are now able to have voices of their own. Indigenous people, many sheltered from modern technologies, are not indifferent to using television, the radio and the internet to establish their own voices (Browne, 1996).
It has been suggested that the internet can promote new dimensions and relationships in cross-cultural affairs, in East-West and North-south relations. But, of course, each culture, containing rules of conduct and various display rules, will use the technology differently. For example, display rules about self-disclosure vary greatly. Chinese people and Native Americans do not engage in self-disclosure as readily as do Americans generally. Will these display rules change in a faceless internet relationship? The cultural assumptions, the display rules, the cultural ways of communicating vary widely among cultures and nations (Kincaid & Monge, 1987).
With the arrival of new technologies, perhaps sponsored by large corporations, by governments or by religious groups the patterned ways of doing things get interrupted. For example, in a story told to the author personally, Indians who lived in the back regions of India, when shown health films were puzzled because only the heads of the actors were shown in the film. There was perceptual confusion because only part of the person was shown! In a story told by the New York Times many years ago, when the United States landed a man on the moon, a leader of an African tribe said it couldn't be so because he could not see the person on the moon. In short, these stories, not meant to demean individuals, illustrate cultural assumptions and patterns which are disturbed, or overlayed, when new media become part of the environment. This overlay would seem to benefit some people and not others.
Television and the internet can provide new political arenas for formerly disempowered people. There is a politics in what is popular (Brown, 1990); in short, many women believe that television mispresents their real interests and that the medium can be used more effectively to promote egalitarianism.
The poor are often aliens in an affluent society such as the United States (Daniel, 1970). Despite the belief in the egalitarian ethos, the American occupational structure is stratified (Blau, 1967). The haves and the have-nots are on the opposite sides of a digital divide. To the extent that there is class "warfare" between the information rich and the information poor, the rich win the war (Perelman, 1998). For example, only recently has the Navajo Nation been hardwired for the internet. The President of the United States visited Shiprock, New Mexico, taking computer technology to the local Indian schools. Schools for Navajo youth now use film, videography and the computer in the classroom. Yet, many tribal members on many reservations, not only the Navajo, do not have telephones and school dropout rates are very high. The digital divide is a metaphor that suggests that females, older people, Blacks, Native Americans and most members of Third World countries, do not have the same access to the computer and related technologies as do mainstream, college educated white males. The concern is that, as in education, the gulf will negatively influence their life chances. Recent research suggests that today 50 percent of the users of the internet are femalein the United States, a dramatic change from the recent past (Rheingold, 1991). Nevertheless, concern is expressed that the gender divide and associated problems will find their way onto the net. Internet interaction is supposedly faceless; however, gender is displayed in writing patterns, in cursive style and expressive styles. Females use a variety of phrases, styles and emphases that can "give them away."
Framing the Digital Divide
People with low incomes and little education and people who are above 60 years old are less likely to have or to use a computer, although this pattern is changing.
A recent survey shows that almost all Americans under sixty years of age have used a computer; nearly 9 in 10 people say they are enthusiastic about the computer; more than two-thirds say that they need a computer at work; over half of the respondents say they are getting a multi-media system at home; it is the young people who are the most enthusiastic about using computers.
The same survey by National Public Radio suggested that Americans were concerned about many things as well. They believe that the have and have-not gap is widening, widening the racial problems; they are afraid that pornography will influence their children; and, they are afraid that their privacy will be intruded upon (National Public Radio, March 1, 2000).
Like the telephone and television, once luxuries affordable to only a few members of American society, the computer has become an essential ingredient of American society. People need it; it is not a mere toy. It extends what people can do in vital ways.
The texture of society is changing from gemeinschaft, a personal community, to gesellschaft, an impersonal community (Braudel, 1972). Braudel is using German sociological concepts to depict society. The face-to-face community is personal; the mediated society is impersonal. A new pseudo-society is emerging, based not on face to face interaction, but on words and pictures located in techno-space, free of the constraints of time and place. The mediated face replaces the real living face.Virtual reality replaces everyday reality. Boundaries dissipate. Ironically, distance becomes localized.
The emergent electronic folk-culture exists at the present time. People in this community are not required to associate with a country or nationality, although they may do so if they wish. There are no political boundaries and there are few established rules and customs. The people in this community speak techno-speak, they use emoticons and special markers to let others know what they mean. Later, of course, they will see one another as technology improves, as television and the internet blend. For now, however, they are faceless citizens in an electronic community.
More and more, researchers are focusing on the interaction of modern communicative technologies and human biology. Television and the internet have been focused on the above, but there are offshoots of each technology, especially computer technology, that deeply influence human behaviors. Science fiction has shown the horrors of the robot-human connection in which humans are blended with steel to create a cyborg-like creature. Advances in science, in artificial intelligence and in robotics not only bring a sense of wonderment but a sense of fear about the possible negative, interactive consequences.
Framing the Cyborg Factor
Cybernetic organisms (Cyborgs) have been around since the 1950's, says Donna Haraway. It started when a white lab rat was implanted with a pump to inject precisely controlled doses of chemicals into the rat to alter its physiological parameters. It was part animal and part machine. Humans have been Cyborgian for some time. They are becoming like mechanized machines, eating treated foods, working out in ergonomically developed gymnasiums, wearing shoes specifically designed for exercise, taking artificially created medicines, getting implants. Modern Cyborgs are information machines (Wired Magazine, Feb 26, 2000). Can better human beings be created by combining machines with the biological body?
The Cyborg factor is imaginative, metaphorical. Indeed, the metaphor, the concept of a Cyborg has been trashed. Yet, the metaphor suggests the potentially intimate connection between humans and the machines they created. Almost daily, people are reminded of the new technological developments in medicine, engineering and science. One generation passes new technologies on to the next almost in a blur of confusion. The technological trajectory is not clearly focused, but it seems obvious that robots that can do what humans can do are forthcoming. Is the world of the born being replaced by the world of the made? Some scholars think that body, mind and machine function best when they are interactively engaged.
The half-life of technical knowledge, or the speed by which technology changes and is adapted for human use, is brief, perhaps less than five years in many bio-chemico-engineering fields. Until the 1900s, the half-life of technical knowledge was long. Today, one generation of computers, television and other advanced technologies, leads quickly to another. Moore's Law suggests that computer technology and software change several times a year, often in major ways. Much earlier, referring to the emerging technological society, where changes were slowly appearing, Jacques Ellul, an influential social theorist referred to "technological bluff", an illusionary factor that suggests that the introduction of new media bears a price; there are losses and gains, when one system overtakes another (Ellul, 1964). As it was then, it is now; there are losses and gains when one media overtakes another. Certainly there are lag effects.
At the present time, there appear to be emerging patterns in which the traditional media, such as TV, film, radio and print are blending with newer forms, such as data banks and multimedia computers; personal electronic media are becoming common, such as electronic bulletin boards, the internet and other data highways (Dizard,1997). And this dovetailing pattern is spreading across the globe. National boundaries are disappearing; power is being redistributed; self perceptions are changing. The global information society is here. The oral, the typographic and the electronic media influence human societies in different ways, but the most powerful of these influences are found in the electronic media.(2)
Of course, the social structure influences the growth of technology as well and the social structure is changing rapidly. If the medium is the message, as McLuhan told us, the message is complex, plural and often confusing (Couch, 1984, 1996). Cyberspace is still uncharted territory with a flavor of the Wild West.
Framing the New Netculture
We live in a new netculture where a virtual theatre exists. An imaginative carnival of wordplay is possible on the internet. People can move their players about in virtual space, puppets and images. There is a scrolling script that looks like a script of a play. Rituals can be created and recreated on the net. In effect, there is a new theatre on the net (Danet & Aycock, March 2, 2000).
Humans languages are symbolic; they symbolize human consciousness. At present, languages are bounded. Perhaps the 7,000 or so dialects and languages of the world will become extinct, or greatly modified. The new global community has its own language, as mentioned, although even here there is variation. The Japanese, for example, sometimes use different sets of emoticons than do Americans. But, it seems clear that future iconography and symbolism will be very different from that which exists today. Many symbols, of course, are enduring, existing over long periods of time, such as religious symbols, but others are more fleeting, such as the symbol of the Nike sneaker, of Coca Cola, of Levi jeans, symbols that will be modifed, or perhaps extinct in a few decades.
Early emblematics used circles, such as breast representations; early pottery bore water marks; seals were used as signatures later; pictorial writing was used by the Mayas; and, now math and cyber symbols have emerged. Culture and consciousness are being transformed with a swiftness not seen before (Sassoon,1997).
Symbols are powerful short-cuts to meaning. They tie experiences together, they blend the past and the present and the future and create a new consciousness by the users. Perhaps humans are moving from a Global Village to a Global Mind. The new language reflects the symbolism of technology. To some, the dawning of a new age, predicted in the 80s, seems to be here (Martin, 1995). The new electronic, communicative technologies are in some sense an extension of humans, of the human body, of brains and emotions. The old mind-body dualism seems to be gone, or at least blurred; the emotions are engaged in new ways on the internet as well. The body of flesh and blood, of neurons and brains, of emotions and feelings, is now symbolized in new ways.
Does human consciousness change when technology impacts on society? Many theorists believe that the essential building block of human consciousness, of time, space, place and experience is noted by the fact that humans speak, they symbolize. The question is whether the new technologies have their own form of language.
In a discussion on the internet, Jennifer Cobb, a theologian, asked, non-humorously, whether God could be found on the internet. Certainly, the advent of bioengineering, of genetic research, of computer artificial intelligence, of imaging possibilities, of intra and extra space discoveries make changes in the symbolic texts of everyday life. Even a very practical thing, such as shopping on the net, changes the meaning of shopping. Even now it is possible to formfit clothing to the self by creating a virtual 'you' on the net (Grant, June 27, 2000).
Post-modernists believe that the fabric of modernity is being replaced by postmodernity. That is, the meaning of power, of gender, of ethnicity is being altered substantially under the influence of "freeing" technologies. Some argue that a new egalitarianism may more easily be formed under the new circumstances. The concept of the looking glass self, espoused by Cooley decades ago, bears upon this section. The essence of that concept is that people see themselves in society; through interaction they become who they are. Human identity is achieved by reflecting on the events and contexts of everyday life. People negotiate the meaning of life. In short, the social text informs them.
The present texture of American society is very different compared to what it was in earlier times. A person born 200 years ago would hardly know how to live in the present society. Is there a newly emerging consciousness? If so, what is the nature of that consciousness? Answering that question is the work of people who live in that society. Human nonverbal communication is, and will be, deeply involved in the answer to the question, as the past, the present and the future seem to be blending together.
All technologies are invented by humans; they influence human society. In particular, the modern electronic media, especially television and the internet, deeply influence and change human society. Work, play and human nonverbal interaction are deeply and profoundly affected. The contexts in which humans live are alive with new meanings under the influence of these communicative media.
Cultural and social patterns are changing as technology changes, changed under the influence of the media. The great digital divide, for example, presents a problem for ethnic groups, the aged, and for members of less technologically developed countries and societies.
The achievement of human identity is made difficult by the saturation of society by the media. Conflicting images, roles and contexts may present problems for young people. By unwisely overusing television and the internet, young people may become copycats, junkies and "tekkies", isolated from the more healthy forms of association to be found in everyday life.
The future Global Village, so long discussed, seems to be here. New symbols, the new techno-speak may become a new language competing with spoken languages which seem to be disappearing. or at least buried under master forms of language. A new consciousness may be appearing, unbound by time, place, or space, not influenced by old power arrangements, reflecting a new egalitarianism in a post-modern world. The speed of change is dramatic, compressing yesterday, today and tomorrow into an ever narrowing time-frame.
Questions for Thought and Discussion
Carey, J. (1989). Communication as Culture. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman.
Couch, C. J. (1996). Information Technologies and Social Orders. New York: Aldine De Gruyter.
Dizard, W. Jr. (1997). Old Media, New Media: Mass Communications in the Information Age. New York: Longman.
Gitlin, T. (1983). Inside Prime Time. New York: Pantheon Books.
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: Signet Books.
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