[Air-l] technology and symbolic praxis

[Douglas Galbi]

Thinking about how the Internet and other information and 
communiations technologies affect the economy of symbols?  
As additional food for thought, the following paper is available 
at http://www.galbithink.org :


A New Account of Personalization and Effective Communication

To contribute to understanding of information economies of daily 
life, this paper explores over time given names of a large number 
of persons.  Analysts since at least the 1940s have both condemned 
and praised mass media as a source of common culture or shared 
symbolic experiences.  Names, however, indicate a large, long-term 
decline in shared symbolic experience, a decline that the growth of 
mass media does not appear to have affected significantly.  Study 
of names also shows that action and personal relationships, along 
with time horizon, are central aspects of effective communication 
across a large population.  The observed preference for personalization 
over the past two centuries and the importance of action and personal 
relationships to effective communication are aspects of information 
economies that are likely to have continuing significance for industry 
developments, economic statistics, and public policy.

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Comments and suggestions welcomed.