“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine” – REM, 2006

"[C]ivilization has been dominated at different stages by various media of communication such as clay, papyrus, parchment, and paper produced first from rags and then from wood. Each medium has its significance for the type of monopoly of knowledge which will be built and which will destroy the conditions suited to creative thought and be displaced by a new medium with its peculiar type of monopoly of knowledge."  (Innis, Harold. (1949). The Press: A Neglected Factor in the Economic History of the Twentieth Century. London: Oxford University Press, p. 5).

Do you agree with this statement? Provide examples from the history and current state of

publishing to make your argument.

            While the addition of new mediums of communication does reduce the monopoly the proceeding technology had, it does not destroy the conditions suited to creative thought. Each new communication piece is enabling – it allows more of the masses to access information and to advance knowledge. The advancement of knowledge, both humane and scientific, depends upon the human ability to think about something unexpected – a “new idea” (Crowley & Heyer, p. 57) be it from stoytelling to the telegragh, from the fax to Web 2.0.

The essential here is not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Rather media users must be taught to be discerning. Information is one thing, the knowledge and wisdom that comes from it is another. As is the respect needed toward works created. The challenge resides in the education of the masses to effectively respect, interpret, and work with that which the latest medium produces. 

Below is the video that goes with the blog. Please open your itunes and select your favorite NMN song (or two - 4m50sec) while doing so to add "your own touch of creativity to the process".

Best, 

LJ
References

Ayers, P., C. Matthews, and Yates, B.. (2008). How Wikipedia Works: And How You Can Be a Part of It. San Francisco: No Starch Press.

Brun, Axel (2008). Blogs, Wikipedia, Second life, and Beyond : from production to produsage. Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York.

Carey, J.W. (1969). ‘Harold Adams Innis and Marshall McLuhan’, in Phelan, J, Communications Control: Readings in the Motives and Structures of Censorship, Sheed and Ward, New York, pp. 43 – 77. Retrieved from http://gcalacouris.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/arts2090-research-essay-the-social-factor-in-the-creation-destruction-of-monopolies-of-knowledge/

Coppens, P. (n.d). Corpus Hermeticum. Retrieved from http://www.philipcoppens.com/artmemory.html

Cormode, G., & Krishnamurthy, B. (2008). Key differences between Web 1.0 and Web
2.0. First Monday, 13(6), 1.

Crowley, D. J.& Heyer, P. (2006). Communication in history: technology, culture, society. llyn & Bacon/Pearson, Canada

Dittmar, J. E. (2011). Information Technology and Economic Change: The Impact of the Printing Press. Quarterly Journal Of Economics, 126(3), 1133-1172.

Eisenstein, E. L. (1979). The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and cultural transformations in early modern Europe. In , Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications & cultural transformations in early modern Europe.

Heyer, P. 2003, Harold Innis, Rowman & Littlefield, Maryland. http://seyakalu.wordpress.com/tag/arts2090/ 

MacCulloch, D., Laven, M., & Duffy, E. (2006). Recent Trends in the Study of Christianity in Sixteenth-Century Europe. Renaissance Quarterly, 59(3), 697-731.