[note: we never got to these two overheads. However, looking
at them might supplement class lecture and discussion. With each
communication epoch, one can ask, how is communication replicated, stored,
transmitted, and interpreted. Changing one of these elements can reconfigure
all the rest, and change an era. As in the case of our six-fold analytic,
elaborating these four communication factors in connection with a communication
technology or era can reveal a great deal about the age and its possibilities.
Today computers are involved in all four factors. Can you elaborate how?
Further, money is to be made by improving any one of these factors.]
Communication Technology Activities
- Replication- making a copy
- Storage- preserving the communication for the
future
- Transmission- getting the message out
- Interpretation/Consumption- what does it mean?
Communication prior to invention of printing
I
- Replication
- Bards- teach special students the mnemonic tricks
and stories
- Scribes/mandarins/monks/scholars- specialists
of the written word
- Material- Know the material side (paper/skin and ink
production); papyrus, clay.
- Skills- Many skills- painting, drafting
- Labor
- Rome- slave labor- documents for the empire; scholars
- Medieval- sacred labor-
- (Modern -machine labor)
- Storage
- Bards- memorize
- Scribes/mandarins/monks/scholars- specialists
of the written word
- vellum to paper in 12th c. - wider access to books
- Transmission
- Bards- do a multi-year circuit; meet other bards
- Scribes/mandarins/monks/scholars- specialists
of the written word
- connected to transportation: trade, migration, pilgrimage,
conquest
- Interpretation/Consumption
- Bards- (oral) teller of stories; could 'recite/innovate'
for days
- Ancient
- Homer (Ancient Greek)- blind; 800 BCE
- Vedas (India), Avestan (Iran), etc.
- Modern
- Parry & Lord- Yugoslavian bards still live! (1930s)
- Lo Bagre- griot- village story tellers
- Scribes/mandarins/monks/scholars- specialists
of the written word
- Texts organized for memorization and (oral) debate
- Rulers are often illiterate- need specialists
- Scribes will write/read for public- at most market
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