TEST:
Introduction:
Are we witnessing the twilight of modernity?
Does the new century opened a new era of mankind?
What nobody can deny is that modernity is in crisis. Theories of modernity does not have answers to new questions raised by the new century poses. Many authors suggest that modernity is dead. The rupture of the great stories, new theoretical concepts, vast empty spaces, no answers for new paradigms.
So, we are facing a new revolution?
Unlike other revolutions in the past of mankind, this is not only marked a revolution in technology, as many believe, but it is a knowledge revolution. It is a revolution with respect to the deepest convictions and beliefs of human beings.
In this new scenario, and no doubt the media have an extraordinary influence on the way of acting or thinking of people, and how they shape the way that men know and understand the reality around them.
Electronic media definitely changed not only the history of communications, but the public and private life of individuals. They helped to reshape family patterns, social and even political.
We originally envisioned as an educational tool became a factory of fiction and entertainment, reproduction of social stereotypes, ideological control and cultural identity construction.
Then one might ask: What is the new role will be to the media in this new era?
This paper intends to address this problem, a critical look at the relationships, the impact, opportunities and questions posed by this new knowledge revolution and its relationship with the media, and with the play of domination and resistance played in the field of communication and culture.
The conclusions, without trying to lower expectations, only a large space left open for further discussion. Perhaps
are raised more questions than answers, more uncertainties than certainties. I am convinced that this is the starting point for a necessary exercise critical and reflective in order to begin to understand what is happening to us.
technology, communication, and the evolution of society
Historically, man has felt the need to communicate with others, to express thoughts, ideas, emotions of trace of himself. Well recognized in man the need to seek, namely, information created, expressed and conveyed by others. The creation search and retrieval of information are therefore essential actions to human nature. Maybe that's why in the world history, evolutionary leaps of mankind have been marked by major advances have occurred in the communication capacity of man.
The history is long and complex process that has evolved over many thousands of years. This process was not linear but, in contrast, has undergone great revolutions, which have completely transformed the way humans relate to the universe.
Each of these revolutions, has been characterized by an invention or new technology, in turn related to some new form of communication. Alvin Toffler
[1] has raised in his scheme of "waves" in reference to each of the milestones of mankind that have determined these revolutions.
The first was the Green Revolution, from 8000 BC when man invented agriculture and began a new life: no longer homeless, abandoned its primitive stage, begins to form stable communities and villages appear first . Man makes agriculture his main livelihood, and with it, there is also livestock and after a trade. The forces need to invention of numbers, which evolve to give rise to writing (cuneiform and hieroglyphic). By 1000 BC the Phoenicians invented the alphabet, a set of graphs that allows the representation of sounds. Thus, writing is known as the most important event of the agricultural revolution and also be including the starting point of the very history of humanity, represents the first technological breakthrough achieved by man in the process of communication.
The second great revolution of mankind, is the Industrial Revolution, which marks its beginning just after the invention of printing by Johannes Gutenberg in the 1400 With print ad begins a new phase characterized by the mass of knowledge, because a growing number of people with access to written information. Also starting to take shape the emerging new knowledge and new technological developments: the adding machine, the mechanical clock, the sewing machine. At this stage were also important discoveries in biology, electricity, chemistry, medicine, all with the potential to survive and make themselves known through the press, which is transformed and the second man's technological breakthrough in the evolution of communicative process .
The third and biggest revolution of mankind, in which we still find ourselves yet, is the Knowledge Revolution. This last revolution, unlike the others, focuses on human beings in their ability to communicate and transform itself. If the industrial revolution was an expression of the muscle, the machinery, this is what the mind. Labor, land and capital, which were key elements of previous eras, are today being replaced by information and knowledge as the basis of the economy. There are more international and social demands greater individualism and freedom.
Beyond the visions that many analysts have about the postmodern age, regardless Name that different authors have preferred (Revolution Intelligence, Knowledge, Information) is certainly the man currently starring in a real revolution. A period of rapid and constant change that began with the major steps of computing and information technology and has as a milestone to the Internet, which is recognized as a new form of human communication, a new leap in the communication process.
is clear that the evolution of technology has always meant an advance in human communication processes and, of course, both technology and communication-related elements in a dialectical process, have endured one by one steps of the natural evolution of our society.
Modernism, Postmodernism and the crisis of an exhausted model
The era of modernity lies in the early twentieth century mainly and leading place is Europe. As I said José María Sbert [2] "Europe had more influence in the world, the Belle Époque of the early twentieth century was rather the culmination of a long period of triumphant ascent of modernity ... "
Many philosophical and technological advances were consummated before and at the beginning of this century. In the nineteenth century had provided the first instant media: cable telegraph (Samuel Morse in 1844) and the wireless telegraph (Guglielmo Marconi in 1895). The engineer Alexander Graham Bell brought the phone in 1876. The steam engine, mass production, the vigorous entry of the book, and some other inventions were the ones who were the guidelines for development that we have now.
Enlightenment, time of birth of the encyclopedia headed by Rousseau, was the main impetus to open the sound horizon to many people. The birth of the book expanded the possibilities of communication and dissemination of reading and writing, and in the sixteenth century produced printers thousands of books in various languages. In the seventeenth century, the publication of newspapers was common in several western European countries and generalized extended into the American colonies. Especially from the early twentieth century, newspapers, magazines and books read in the world produced changes in the way of acting and feeling of men. The effectiveness of print was blunt, is how slowly was spreading so happy to know a bit more than what history has left us. Through the reading of historical events and people were enjoying the pleasure of developing reading and writing learning that leave us.
its Industrial Revolution part showed the people the importance of providing the various work activities. The manufacturing was losing ground to the machines that man invented. Working hours were reduced allowing more leisure time.
In a neat description of modernity, tell Marshall Berman [3] : "It is a landscape of steam engines, factories, railroads, vast new areas of industry, teeming cities that have grown from night to morning, often with dreadful human consequences, newspapers, telegrams, telegraph, telephone and other mass media reporting a increasingly large scale, nation-states and multinational collections ever stronger, the mass social movements fighting against the modernization from above with their own forms of modernization from below, from a ever-expanding global market that encompasses everything capable of the most spectacular growth, capable of a waste and a terrible devastation, capable of anything, except to provide strength and stability. "
Breaking the paradigms of modernity comes to the 60's and 70's and some authors report that the postmodern era has forged since then with this concept, which at first was the crisis of models and feel have reached a crossroads of blind alleys. The wars between nations, the failure of economic models were political and cultural currency. These latter examples usually cited José María Sbert in its letter of postmodernity: "The highlight of the sixties, together with growing prosperity, was the presence of those born shortly after the war that set the tone revolutionary the atmosphere of the time [...] Members of that generation were so many that they formed part of a true culture apart. Perhaps the economic relief contributed to a special provision to the generosity and also allowed greater freedom. "
Meanwhile José Rubio Carracedo [4] says that postmodernism is an attitude of moral outrage at the excesses and disasters caused by the program of modernity"
Postmodernism is a season of contrasts and constant changes that alienated the world. According to Marco Levario Turcott [5] in his article published in the weekly Etcetera provides that "Postmodernism can be seen only as an expression of the crisis of modernity [...] postmodernism is an expression that dramatizes the problems caused by incomplete modernity. "
In the postmodern revealing characteristics that show the different aspects and perspectives. For example, the postmodern distrust of institutions and asserts its independence. Is indifferent to matters of collective life, preferring to retire to private life. It is an attitude that leads to loneliness and lack of solidarity. It is notable for its lack of utopia and hope in a better future than the present. The postmodern person does not believe in the possibility of change and transformation, he prefers to take full advantage of this, live for today and have fun. But mostly discarded the norms and values \u200b\u200bto be delivered to the enjoyment of the immediate following the impulses and passions. In the Postmodernism reason demands but the feeling.
The influence of the media:
Many sociologists have tried to explain the major cultural transformation processes experienced by the society throughout its history, identifying broad changes in values, beliefs and attitudes and inclinations of the actors.
In this sense, John Thompson [6] provides another look different and enlightening on how market transformations in the cultural domain when he says: "If at first when we focus less on values, attitudes and beliefs, but rather in symbolic forms and their modes of production and circulation in the social world, then we should realize that with the advent of modern societies in the late the Middle Ages and early modern period, there was a systematic cultural transformation. Under a series of technical innovations associated with printing and then the encoding electronic information is produced, reproduced and put into circulation, symbolic forms an unprecedented scale. The communication and interaction patterns began to change in profound ways and irreversible. "
occurs and what Thompson calls himself the "mediation of culture" based on the development of media organizations that appear in the second half of the fifteenth century.
Referring to the importance of the invention of printing said Luciano Sanguinetti [7] : "Considered the press as a communication technology, its gravity will be as important as the emergence of language. The invention of printing marked the end of a long learning of writing in the West [...] limited to the elites had to come to this invention, the hand Renaissance return to western legal culture. "
Since then, the media have become increasingly significant role in social change and greater influence on the behavior of individuals.
We have come a long way from that concept of media messages that have effects on audiences, observable and measurable behaviors, the theory of the hypodermic needle, through the whole teaching of sociology and behavioral psychology, where overarching question was: What do the media with their audiences?.
hand, in the most recent research of current Latin American (Martin-Barbero [8] , Gonzalez [9] ) more interested in knowing the different ways in which society relates and interacts with the media. Ultimately what makes the partnership with the media, rather than what they do with that.
Thus, in analyzing the process of receiving means Guillermo Orozco Gómez [10] raises what he calls the emancipation of the audience: "This emancipation becomes particularly relevant at a time like the present where on the one hand we are witnessing an increasing privatization of culture and ultimately the "public." And secondly, we are witnessing a rapid jump of oral culture (the logic of the story) to the electronic culture (commercial logic), without fully recreated assumed and written culture (the logic of the argument). [...] The TV is increasingly in respect of the public, and propose to capture what is relevant in this area that goes beyond us in space and time, but paradoxically puts us in the here and now , to be shown on the screen and putting our own house in which invades the areas of privacy. "
Nicholas Negroponte [11] valued for their part in the information age, the media became, at once larger and smaller. "New forms of broadcast reached audiences increasing [...] while magazines, video cassettes and cable services were examples of the segmentation."
Negroponte in his work emphasizes the dissociation that occurs between the unbridled pursuit of technology supporting the development of media and the low quality of content, and begins to question the information overload of our times. Seventy channels and nothing to see say the singer Bruce Springting.
Meanwhile, media in Latin America have had a particular role in the process of incorporation into modernity, as described by José Joaquín Brunner [12] : "The emergence of new media Latin American media, especially television, is the basis for a complete reorganization of our cultures and their traditional structures of support. While other companies have agreed to modernity on the basis of the written word and its counterpart in universal and compulsory education in Latin America are incorporated into it by combining electronic images with illiteracy, school incomplete and backward simultaneously with an intense internationalization of the symbolic world of the masses. "
Meanwhile in Argentina since the early 50s, when there was awareness of the enormous influence that the media had on society, the national government began to establish a regulatory framework for them, when had not yet installed the ideas of development in Latin America, which prevail in the 60's and 70's, and that far from questioning or attempting to modify this situation, end up celebrating.
In later years, when currents critical thinking was strengthened in Latin America, Spain, at the hands of the military dictatorship, came the interventions to the radio and TV channels, who left in state hands virtually all media, reaffirming the different situations of domination and resistance that were played in the field of communication and culture.
In the early 90's in line with the implementation of neoliberal policies in Argentina, were privatized media, comprised the largest media groups, and were planted the foundations for a progressive foreign ownership of media companies.
simultaneously appeared the first alternative FM stations, which would later become one of the most contentious of the broadcast today, as is the phenomenon of hiding from the media, backed by the inaction of a state fails does not meet basic duties of providing an adequate regulatory framework.
In return, those were the years in which the media were erected as the main forum for complaints against widespread corruption, paradoxically generated from the ideological framework that had enabled its new corporate vision of highly concentrated, mostly formed by foreign capital.
The high level of legitimacy enjoyed by the media against the company, led to the late 90's, a survey revealed the credibility of the press in 55.1%, well above other traditional institutions like the church, unions or even the government. While these figures were weaker after the institutional crisis that shook our country at the beginning of this decade, facing the new political scenario, the media continue to enjoy the confidence of much of our society.
Conclusions:
In an article published in 1988, I remember reading an article Warren Bennis, President of the University of Cincinnati, I was struck by the apocalyptic sense of it. In a section of the report Bennis said: "The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there for that man not to touch the computer. " Bennis certainly was wrong, and their forecasts are not met or never met.
Man's Search to improve your lifestyle, including communication process, is what has pushed the constant emergence of new and better technologies. Moreover, every advance in the communication process, accompanied technological evolution, allow definitions exist today as the Information Society and Knowledge Society, both referring to a global age where apparently, the possibilities are limitless human communication and, where transmission and transfer of information developed in quantities endless, from anywhere in the world with incredible speed. However
humanity continues to grow, evolve and as the man exists, his quest to live, and communicate more and better not stop. The evolution of human communication, and with it the man and his technology are ongoing. Surely, new revolutions come, and new ways of communicating.
Finally, I leave this paragraph, Jose Joaquin Brunner: "Then up ahead, inevitably, we will always meet with the great question of mass culture and how to make it in the condition of our own development, we aspire to democracy and modernity that invades us through it. "
Prof. Eduardo Daniel Esarey
August 2004
Revised and corrected December 2005
REFERENCES:
[1] Avin Toffler - The Third Wave "- 1980
[2] José María Sbert The end of time, and a new era? - 2000
[3] Marshall Berman - "All that is solid melts into air" - 1988
[4] José Rubio Carracedo - "Moral education, post-modernity and democracy" - 1996
[5] Mario Levario Turkott - "Critique of Postmodernism" - 1997
[6] John B. Thompson - "The Media and Modernity" -
[7] Luciano Sanguinetti - Communication and Media "-
[8] Jesus Martin-Barbero -" From the media to mediation "- 1986
[9] Jorge González -" cultural fronts "- 1987
[10] Guillermo Orozco Gomez -" The hearing before the screen "1996
[11] Nicholas Negroponte - "Being Digital" - 1996
[12] Jose Joaquin Brunner - "Media, modernity and culture " - 1989
Copyright © 2005 by Eduardo Esarey
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