In his book, The Shallows, Nicholas Carr reminds us that most of us have never
“paused to ponder, must less question, the media revolution that has been playing out
all around us, in our homes, our workplaces, our schools.” Until recently, the history of
media has been a “tale of fragmentation.”
For example, books and newspapers were limited to text and images. They
couldn’t handle visual images or sounds. Radio, telephones, and tape players were
limited to sounds, but they could not display text except in small quantities.
If you wanted to use numbers, you needed a calculator. There wasn’t an all-purpose
technology or medium that could handle all of this together.
The distribution of this media was also fragmented. If your business was words,
you printed them on paper. If you wanted to distribute songs, you recorded them onto
vinyl records or magnetic tape. If you wanted to sell movies, you wound them onto
spools of film or videotape. And if you wanted to distribute television programs and
commercials, you broadcast them through the air or sent them down coaxial cables.
Once information was digitized, it changed everything. These old boundaries of
media began to disappear. The special purpose tools of production and distribution were
replaced by all purpose tools like computers and the Internet. And these new platforms
allowed for less expensive distribution.
When these new technologies arrived, the old ones didn’t disappear. We still buy
books and go to movies and listen to the radio. But we can also see that the new
technologies are increasingly replacing the old technologies.
People (especially young people) are more likely to read a book on an iPad or a
Kindle. They are more likely to watch a television program on their computer or smart
phone. Most of us are more likely to take pictures with a digital camera rather than use a
film camera. And more and more of us are likely to look up an address or phone number
online instead of grabbing the White Pages or the Yellow Pages.
These are just a few changes unfolding before our eyes in the media revolution.
I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.