Often, when we think of new technologies, we may first think of the reasons that technologies are adopted. In the case of the moveable type printing press, we learn through the course content on Connect, through Ong (1982), and Bolter (2001) that the alphabet and economics have a lot to do with it.
In this post I’d like to focus on two aspects that may have slowed adoption, or at least acted as constraining factors: psychological points-of-reference when a new technology is first introduced, and economics.
From the course content we learned that Guttenberg didn’t seek to change the look and feel of writing. This was a wise decision, a decision held in common with other technological success stories. First, get people to adopt a new and strange technology by making the thing friendly and understandable in current terms. Afterwards, users will gradually grow accustomed to the new technology and their views will shift to the new design/tech. This is a pattern elucidated by Don Norman in “The design of everyday things” (Norman, 2002) (this book is a classic in fields such as design and technology, and I heartily encourage anyone to read this book). After this, the process of exploration sets in. People begin to explore the affordances of the new technology. How does this pattern relate to the oral, residual oral, and literate groupings urged by Ong (1982)?
Another example, with mobiles we no longer require “windows” or a “desktop” (e.g., data is held within apps rather than as files or folders on desktops/laptops) on our smart phones…we simply tap to open applications, slide and tap it closes. The screen is the thing we directly engage with. This is so intuitive for us now that it’s feeding back into computer operating systems like Windows 10, albeit with the accents of that technology’s own character (e.g., bigger screens, keyboard, mouse, more complex applications) rather than that of mobile (e.g., small touch screen, haptics, on-screen typing).
This reminds me of an article (Newitz, 2015) I recently read about writing science fiction (and futurism). In the article, the author mentions how you may introduce many new concepts, but that maintaining threads/anchors to the contemporary world are necessary so that readers can keep their bearings. As a new technology is created, the analogy may be something like “Work this new technology into the day-to-day narrative that people tell themselves,” or maybe “Gradually show people they’re living in the future, else watch their attention wander.” What analogies do you see? How else might we connect these two thoughts?
The first moveable printing presses in China were used mainly to disseminate the Diamond Sutra, a holy Buddhist text of great import. (McLuhan, 2011) The text included images. The very act of creating these books was also seen as a type of prayer by Buddhists. This is similar to what the original printing presses were used for in Europe: to disseminate holy images. Actually, the printing of text itself took some time, even with Guttenberg’s discovery of moveable type, to move into the production of books. And when society did start to exploit the many affordances of moveable type Europeans, as with the Chinese, began with their holy book: the Bible.
The reason for the delay is manifold, but one contributing factor was the scribe/student-based economics of publishing in Medieval Europe. Universities educated students by having them write texts relayed orally by professors (i.e., dictation). By copying down dictations, the student learned to write, to read, to memorize important quotations (especially Biblical, but also texts from the classical era), and to produce books. (McLuhan, 2011)
To emphasize the last: students were producing books. These books were added to the student’s personal library as an important resource, else they were sold. So, while books would (later) allow for cheaper and readily available books for all, students initially spoke out when universities began to incorporate printed texts and move away from the dictation model that had prevailed.(McLuhan, 2011) The similarities and differences between medieval university students and those of today in regards to the economics of course texts is noticeable. What connections do you see?
From a standpoint of educational theory, constructionism and apprenticeships immediately spring to mind. How would you link medieval writing education to tech education today?
Adoption of technology can also influence wider societal trends, but only insofar as the number of people adopting that technology warrant. So, for instance, while we learn in Ong () that the written word influenced how people approached reality, McLuhan in “The Guttenberg Galaxy” argues that writing alone did not suffice to shift the balance from orality into textuality. (McLuhan, 2011) Perhaps we may say that in Ongian terms, the oral culture was at odds with a “residual oral culture” rather than a full writing culture, with the “residual oral culture” of the scribes being too slow to sustainability increase their ambit of influence on wider society.
McLuhan notes that at the dawn of the printing press, there was a still a certain tension between orality and textuality, and that while writing was helping make inroads for a visual-based approach to, well, all of reality, a deadlock remained. (McLuhan, 2011, 129-131)
The sheer numbers of works created (cheaply) by the printing press finally broke that deadlock. Sometimes, then, the full disruptive potential of a technology (e.g., the written word) cannot be attained until certain socio-economic conditions are met. (McLuhan, 2011, 129-131)
I’m here reminded that while computers did begin to disrupt the world to a certain degree with their invention in the first half of the 20th century, it wasn’t until the invention of the personal computer and the internet towards the end of the 20th century that we popular culture starts to realize the true affordances and disruptions of that technology. In what ways does this relate to Moore’s law? In what ways does this then relate to writing as a technology?
References:
Bolter, Jay David (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print [2nd edition]. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. (Original work published 1991)
McLuhan, Marshall (2011). The Guttenberg galaxy: The making of typographic man. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (Original work published 1962)
Newitz, Annalee (2015, November 9th). Karl Schroeder Talks About Futurism vs. Science Fiction. Retrieved from https://io9.gizmodo.com/5382767/karl-schroeder-talks-about-futurism-vs-science-fiction
Norman, Donald (2002). The design of everyday things. New York: Basic books. (Oringinal work published in 1988)
Ong, Walter (1982). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen.
george backhouse
July 5, 2018 — 1:49 pm
Hi MacKenzie,
I enjoyed reading your post. You spoke to the economic constraints that determine the shape and form of print technology, the residuality of oral culture in the age of digital technology and you also made mention of the manner in which religious texts were the first to be experimented on when a new technology emerges. I would like to pick up on a point you made about academic scholars producing their own texts. Your emphasis was on the “production” of the texts, something I also find quite intriguing.
The move away from oral modes of learning at university (dictation) towards producing one’s own hard-copy books is certainly a big change. It meant that scholars no longer had to be present at a lecture in order to access information. It also meant – as you pointed out – that scholars could add knowledge to their own libraries. This will surely have had a tremendous impact on the psychology as well as the economy of learning. Both, as we know, undergo a change during the remediation process.
In more recent times, digital technology has also precipitated significant changes in scholarship and the way we learn. One such area that has undergone a massive change since the remediation of print is textual criticism. The move from textual criticism to hypertext criticism has significantly changed the way in which scholars engage with and analyse texts. This is as true for the humanities as it is for the sciences (Apollon, D. & Haugen, O. E., 2014).
The remediation of print has also reshaped the other ways in which students learn. Hayles (2012) tells us that “the small habitual actions associated with web interactions – clicking the mouse, moving a cursor etc. – may be extraordinarily effective in repurposing our neural circuitry, so that the changes are not only psychological, but physical as well”. This change may seem minor, but it is certainly not negligible.
Finally, the remediation of print has also had devastating consequences for the economy. This is not something that comes immediately to mind when one considers all the advantages it has. From Schiller (2014) we learn that “the financial and economic crisis [of 2008] originated, paradoxically, in the heartland of advanced information and communications technology”, citing digital capitalism as one of the primary contributing agents in the crisis.
References
Hayles, N.K. (2012). How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technologies. Retrieved at https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/book/32655/
Haugen, O. E. and Apollon, D. (2014). The Digital Turn in Textual Scholarship: Historical and Typological Perspectives. In Apollon, D., Belisle, C., & Regnier, P. (Eds.), Digital Critical Editions (pp. 33-34). Illinois: University of Illinois Press. Retrieved at https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/book/32655/
Schiller, D. (2014). Digital Depression: Information Technology and Economic Crisis. Retrieved at https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/book/35214/
kamille brodber
July 6, 2018 — 3:32 pm
Hi Mackenzie,
I enjoyed reading your post and it made me think about as human beings with have to be eased into change. Some argue that our fear of change is instinctual and is tied to the uncertainty of the unknown. I therefore agree with your assessment that in trying to get people to adopt new technology it is best to make it connect with what already exists before replacing the old technology with the new. This reminds me of some of the hurdles that existed with the introduction of the telegraph and the facsimile. These technologies were not initially runaway hits with the masses because people could not understand how these new technologies would improve on their existing way of life. However, once people recognised how it could help communication across long distances the technologies became successful. Linking existing technology with new technology has also been vital to the survival of e-books. When digital books came out some persons were sceptical about their survival. However, what made this technology also work is that it didn’t try to do something totally new; it used the same format that books had and tried to make them more mobile and easily available.
In your piece you mentioned that when introducing new concepts, it’s useful to maintain a connection with the familiar. This made me think about trying to get my students to stop being reliant on dictated notes. With my older students I always try to get them to be active listeners in the class and then to jot down key points of what I have said. This process is never easy, and it is usually met with reluctance. I think that my approach maybe wrong and that I should be gradually easing them into this new way of doing things by maintaining some amount of dictation until they can recognise that they are able to manage the note-taking for themselves.
mackenzie moyer
July 25, 2018 — 12:37 pm
That’s a very interesting dilemma, regarding dictation. I just had a random idea, tell me what you think: don’t let the class write down anything until someone is able to ask a penetrating/revealing question, or is able to say something you’ve said in a different way, or produce a graphical representation of what you’ve said.
In this way, students are encouraged to practice the act of teaching itself; a form of reflection; a meta-cognitive activity that can boost overall comprehension.
Perhaps this could be linked to some timing or points mechanism: there are only certain junctures where students are able to ask/summarize/teach/reflect, triggered either by certain points in the lecture (say, every 5 minutes, or perhaps when a sub-topic is completed) and/or by a certain number of these interactions from students (e.g., you guys need to come up with 5 ask/summarize/teach/reflect demonstrations for this sub-topic before you’re allowed to take notes).
This may also afford the benefit of spaced practice: perhaps they can only write notes about a sub-topic before the current sub-topic, staggering and integrating their current understandings.
Thanks for the opportunity of playing with this challenge 🙂
-Mackenzie