[Air-l] impressions?

[Nathaniel Poor]

Charles and list-folk:

This reminds me of on area of my work (there's always more to learn 
though).

Utopian visions for electronic communication technologies happen with 
every such technology, as pointed out by James Carey (his Communication 
as Culture (1989) is one of my favorite comm books). (There is a 
citizen utopia, which I think comes first, and is about democracy, but 
this always seems to move over to a consumer utopia, so nowadays the 
net isn't about global democracy but global shopping and b2b...)

However, we're not living in some amazing utopia (or are we, sort of). 
These visions must fade over time (this is post-hoc reasoning though). 
What I mean is, we wouldn't have had the "the Internet will change 
everything and utopia etc!" discourse if, say, cable television had 
succeeded in doing so, or TV, the telephone, the telegraph. We get used 
to the new technologies once they are not so new. The utopian discourse 
fades. I think that is what you are seeing. I believe it is called 
something like "creeping normalcy" (we slowly adjust to change, the 
undergrads are perhaps more used to it since as you point out it is 
"normal" for them).

I would have thought that they would relate better to the stuff they've 
experienced, and had a harder time with the histories they are not 
familiar with. (I've read and seen that history is not what you've 
lived though, so perhaps the detachment helps them with perspective.)

The telegraph was amazing, the first technology to really separate 
transportation and communication. We don't even use it any more, 
although we use its technological descendants (there is more to be said 
there), and Western Union (US perspective, sorry) wires funds nowadays. 
Like Internet visions of utopia, it is passé....

my $0.02

ndp...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Nathaniel D. Poor
Ph.D. Candidate
Dept. of Communication Studies
http://www.umich.edu/~natpoor

On Friday, May 16, 2003, at 01:29 PM, Charles Ess wrote:

> Dear aoir-ists (like the Greek...)
>
> We're in the midst of finals grading, but I had a rather extraordinary
> experience with a class that has raised a question for me - or, 
> rather, you
> (I hope).
>
> I teach a "Global Futures" course, the capstone of our general 
> education
> curriculum (Global Perspectives) which restructures liberal arts 
> education
> to focus squarely on becoming "liberated persons who participate
> meaningfully in a global community."
> We look at a lot of texts, ranging from Biblical and Islamic utopias to
> Plato's Republic to Erich Fromm's _To Have or To Be_ - all of which,
> somewhat to my surprise, the students really like.  (These are largely
> critical of consumer society - but the students see the criticisms and 
> agree
> with them in varying degrees.)
> In that context, I've also been using an anthology by Erik Bucy, 
> _Living in
> the Information Age: A Media Reader_ which offers a terrific selection 
> of
> essays from a range of perspectives on a range of topics, including 
> the role
> of the Internet in catalyzing a new revolution that would help realize
> Enlightenment dreams of greater democracy, freedom, and prosperity.
>
> My assumption was - in keeping with a lot of the common wisdom of 
> higher
> education specialists, sociologists, etc. - that my students, as having
> grown up with the Internet and being deeply immersed in electronic 
> media,
> would find these readings directly relevant to their lives.
>
> Imagine my surprise when my sections this year (fall '02 and spring 
> '03)
> with near unaninimity (sp) agreed that this selection of readings 
> could be
> dropped with no loss to the class!
>
> Their summary judgment: especially the more radical visions of the 
> Internet
> and the Web (ala Barlow and many others) leading to a new Renaissance, 
> etc.
> just seemed "so '90s"!
>
> For them, it appears that these technologies are utilitarian in the 
> most
> boring of senses; precisely because they have grown up with them, they 
> seem
> no more "revolutionary" than cars or telephones - even cellphones.  
> Rather,
> these technologies are really, merely tools for them.  While as a 
> researcher
> and ethicist, I think there are all sorts of questions to be asked as 
> to
> impacts of using these technologies - for them, these questions are 
> far less
> pressing than examining the impacts of globalization on economies and 
> the
> environment, for example.
> (And, FWIW, these are not, as a group, especially "liberal" students.)
>
> I've no idea if my students are representative of anything.  But I was
> _stunned_ by this - especially as it so sharply contrasts with the 
> buzz and
> excitement about all of these things in other quarters..
> At the same time, it fits with a comment Phil Agre passed on a couple 
> of
> years ago as we were discussing the apparent death of postmodernism.  I
> asked him why he thought it had passed, and his simple comment was: 
> because
> the art students aren't interested in it anymore.
>
> This may just be an excuse to avoid grading papers and a waste of 
> bandwidth
> - but I'm curious if this strikes a resonant chord with aoir folk who
> actually _research_ these things?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Charles Ess
> Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies
> Drury University
> 900 N. Benton Ave.                          Voice: 417-873-7230
> Springfield, MO  65802  USA            FAX: 417-873-7435
> Home page:  http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html
> Co-chair, CATaC: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/catac/
>
> Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23
>
>
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