Style vs Substance (How we communicate)
The other day I was presented with the following concept:
We currently are in a transitional stage of information sharing, we are moving from the 3rd epoch (the Gutenberg Galaxy) to the 4th (the Information Age). The 1st being the Tribal Oral Tradition, where information was freely spread in the oral tradition with no formal writing. The 2nd being the Manuscript Age, where information was spread by the literate, which happened to be mostly clergy and a very few nobles.
Then it was presented that due to the Gutenberg Galaxy age style became more important in communication than substance, mass media, communicating effectively to a wider audience. So, now in the Information Age we may be returning to a form of communication more akin to the Oral Tradition.
However, to me, the notion of style (I do love style) over substance offends. But inorder to sell what you say you must give your audience a show. Perhaps this is still true and has always been true.
We currently are in a transitional stage of information sharing, we are moving from the 3rd epoch (the Gutenberg Galaxy) to the 4th (the Information Age). The 1st being the Tribal Oral Tradition, where information was freely spread in the oral tradition with no formal writing. The 2nd being the Manuscript Age, where information was spread by the literate, which happened to be mostly clergy and a very few nobles.
Then it was presented that due to the Gutenberg Galaxy age style became more important in communication than substance, mass media, communicating effectively to a wider audience. So, now in the Information Age we may be returning to a form of communication more akin to the Oral Tradition.
However, to me, the notion of style (I do love style) over substance offends. But inorder to sell what you say you must give your audience a show. Perhaps this is still true and has always been true.
Comments
I don't think you can make the medium the message.
Originally posted by ena
Information transfer is a multistage process, seven stages to it, if I remember correctly.
I don't think you can make the medium the message.
" The Medium is the message " Marshall McCluhan
Now there's a blast from the past. !
its got some good ideas in it . . as well has his other ideas about the effects on cultures from the shift in our perceptual environment wrought by the changes in media
and his ideas of what can be called a medium . . . good stuff worth a read
style is substance, substance is style: the medium has more impact than anything conveyed by that medium except that what it conveys is also another medium . . . down on to the body . . extensions of the body
Originally posted by pfflam
its got some good ideas in it . . as well has his other ideas about the effects on cultures from the shift in our perceptual environment wrought by the changes in media
Reminds me the topic of my Thesis in Ed-Psych was entitled
"Phenomenological analysis of perceptual shift changes"
( cognitive markers & the process of cognition )
I guess this may be a weird corralation of the scientific idea of the observer having an effect on the subject, so that the behavior of the subject is different from it's behavior if not observed, but predictable by past observations and relations.
Maybe I'm rambling on tangents that aren't related due to my sleep dep.
Originally posted by ena
Information transfer is a multistage process, seven stages to it, if I remember correctly.
I don't think you can make the medium the message.
Tomorow it will be a 14 stage process, a big improvement compared to the old current process.
Some are found of the 20 stage process, but it's just silly marketing crap.
originally posted by Powerdoc
Tomorow it will be a 14 stage process, a big improvement compared to the old current process.
Some are found of the 20 stage process, but it's just silly marketing crap.
Damn! I'm still stuck with a 1 stage "diarhea" style of communication. And boy does it stink.
Originally posted by LiquidR
Damn! I'm still stuck with a 1 stage "diarhea" style of communication. And boy does it stink.
There's something distinctly anal about this topic...
originally posted by aquafire
There's something distinctly anal about this topic...
If I went to the second stage, it would involve flatulence.
But I digress, I'll probably continue to digress.
Originally posted by LiquidR
Well, here is another monkey I'd like to throw in this barrel. The audience. What effect does the audience have on both the media and the medium. In a live presentation such a thing may be obvious. But what of electronic media?
I guess this may be a weird corralation of the scientific idea of the observer having an effect on the subject, so that the behavior of the subject is different from it's behavior if not observed, but predictable by past observations and relations.
Maybe I'm rambling on tangents that aren't related due to my sleep dep.
That is part of the cirquit of effects that condition our experience; our identities, and our relationships to phenomena: a feedback loop.
Audience reception helps change the development of environments through focus and interest (purchase power, trends, excitement, religions, etc) but also, collectively a group can effect the environment of reception through any number of means: the whole is more than the sum of its parts and a collection (a crowd, an audience, members of a BBboard) can form a certain sort of mood, or temperment that truly conditions the reception of experience.
the philospher Martin Heidegger says that we are in-the-world-moodwise: meaning, that in very existential terms, our moods (not simply meant as emotional up or down but more fundamentally) condition the manner in which we take experience into an interpreted world: not just our 'feeling' about the world but the world itself:
the rationality bound to that world is also conditional upon the frame within which that experience takes place . . . and that frame includes mood . . .
. and etc