paradigm shifts in communication

Paradigm Shifts in CommunicationA timeline

What is a Paradigm Shift?

Paradigm ShiftA Paradigm Shift is when a significant change happens - usually from one fundamental view to a different view. In most cases, some type of major discontinuity occurs as well. Thomas Kuhn wrote about Paradigm Shift during the early 1960s, and explained how "series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions" caused "one conceptual world view to be replaced by another view.”

In laymen terms, Paradigm Shift is a popular, or perhaps, not so popular shift or transformation of the way we Humans perceive events, people, environment, and life altogether. It can be a national or international shift, and could have dramatic effects -- whether positive or negative -- on the way we live our lives today and in the future.

Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962

(Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962)

What are examples of some major Paradigm Shifts in history?

• Globalization 1.0 – amount of power a country had (steam, coal, wind) to compete with others as competition left national boundaries

• Globalization 2.0 – Multinational corporations emerge. Falling labor costs, technologies (tv, phone, internet) extend corporate reach

• Globalization 3.0 – Flattening of the world. Individuals now compete alongside corporations. Empowerment on the community level.

• Writing (linear)• Printing (literacy)• Mass Media I (photos, newspapers) • Mass Media II (Radio/TV)• The Toolshed Home (Bowling Alone)• Internet Super Highway (New Moveable Type)

Fang, A history of mass communication

Media Shifts

The Medium is the Message?

“…technological media are staples or natural resources, exactly as are

coal and cotton and oil” (8).

Marshall McLuhan (1911 – 1980)

University of Toronto• The Medium is the Message• Gutenberg’s Galaxy• The Global Village• Hot and Cold Media• Tetrads

“…it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action. The content or uses of such media are as diverse as they are ineffectual in shaping the form of human association” (McLuhan, 1)

“we are as numb in our new electric world as the native involved in our literate and mechanical culture” (5-6)

“our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot” (6)

“the effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance” (7).

• Are paradigm shifts technological? social? cultural?

• What is gained and lost when the entire earth shifts because of incremental changes in how systems work?

#1 – Alphabet / Printing Press

Johannes Gutenberg

• 1398 – 1468, Mainze, Germany• Wealthy Parents• Literate• Worked in Gem cutting and polishing• 1436 – 1460 devoted to printing

press• Died without proper recognition for

his accomplishment

The Gutenberg Press“Before its invention, all texts had to be copied by hand which was a long and tedious process. Handwritten books were called manuscripts and were made by monks, scholars, and scribes. The only people that could read, with few exceptions, were churchmen, government officials, university professors, and students.” –

Stephens, A History of News

• Printed first bible in 1456• As of 2003, the Gutenberg Bible census

includes 11 complete copies on vellum, 1 copy of the New Testament only on vellum, 48 substantially complete copies on paper

How did the Printing Press

change society? What did it

enhance? What did it take

away?

The Beginning of the Information Age?

“Printing made possible the age of science and discovery, reformations in religion, economic upheavals giving power to a mercantile class rather than to the aristocracy, and the transfer of power to the people through democracy” (Hiebert & Gibbons, 20).

Manipulation

“There was enough of an appreciation of the power of information in late medieval Europe to motivate efforts to hide deaths, close roads by which bad news might spread… and launch and disseminate false rumors…” (Heibert & Gibbons, 79).

Control“The printing press may have been the first means of circulating information that would in fact prove mightier than the sword, but it had one great drawback as a weapon: its bulkiness made if difficult to conceal, and, consequently, easy for authorities to regulate” (Heibert & Gibbons, 82)

ReligionEducationIndustryThoughtConflictIdeas

CommunityOrganization

Truth

#2 – Mass Media

“At an accelerating pace throughout the century, the electronic transmission of news

and entertainment changed virtually all features of American Life” (Robert Putnam,

Bowling Alone, 217).

How did the Mass Media change society?

What did it enhance? What did it take away?

Social Capital

Whereas physical capital refers to physical objects and human capital refers to the properties of individuals, social capital refers to connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them. In that sense social capital is closely related to what some have called ‘civic virtue.’

The Bowling Alone Phenomenon

Passive, or cold media (McLuhan) have an inverse relationship with social capital, creating less community, and contributing to social fractures, isolationism, and lack of empathy for others

Caused by TV?

Time Displacement – most all studies correlate negatively between time spent watching TV and time spent with others

Effects on the outlooks of viewers – “mean world effect” heavy watchers of TV are unusually cynical about the benevolence of other people

Effects on Children – Takes time away from most all of their socializing functions (play, groups, activities with others, outdoors, etc.)

Pretty much what we think of TV today…

Cultivating Reality…

According to a recent study: Over 3/4 of the female characters in TV sitcoms are underweight, and only 1 in 20 are above average in size.

Gender structure

“All family sitcoms — virtually all sitcoms now — are about a fat guy with a hot wife.”Rick Marin, former NYT television critic “Father Eats Best.” New York Times, November 24, 2004

Reinforcing norms

Whether the images are real or animated, the message is an overweight man can have a happy family life, but an overweight woman is destined to be alone…

According to Jim

Still StandingFamily Guy

Creating Dynamic Storytelling

Leisure timeEducation

Knowledge of the otherPolitics

Global ConnectionsSpeed of Life

Mean World EffectMinimizing Empathy

#3 – The World Wide Web

“The collapse of transaction costs makes it easier for people to get together—so much easier, in fact, that it is changing the world”

(Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, 48)

“It isn’t just that our communication tools are cheaper; they are also better. In particular, they are more favorable to innovative uses, because they are considered more flexible than our old ones. Radio, Television, and traditional phones all rely on a handful of commercial firms owning expensive hardware connected to cheap consumer devices that aren‘t capable of very much” (Shirky, 77)

“The splintering of media makes for a lot of incoherence or selective cognition (look at our country’s polarization), but it also decentralizes power and provides a better guarantee that the complete truth is out there…somewhere…in pieces” (Friedman, 44)

How did the Internet change

society? What did it

enhance? What did it take

away?

Industrial vs. Social Media• Reach - both industrial and social media technologies

provide scale and enable anyone to reach a global audience.• Accessibility - the means of production for industrial media

are typically owned privately or by government; social media tools are generally available to anyone at little or no cost.

• Usability - industrial media production typically requires specialized skills and training. Most social media does not, or in some cases reinvent skills, so anyone can operate the means of production.

• Recency - the time lag between communications produced by industrial media can be long, compared to social media (only the participants determine any delay in response).

• Permanence - industrial media, once created, cannot be altered, whereas social media can be altered almost instantaneously by comments or editing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

Shifting Information Flow1. Sharing 2. Cooperation (Production)3. Action (Collective)

“Ridiculously easy group-forming matters because the desire to be part of a group that shares, cooperates, or acts in concert is a basic human instinct that has always been constrained by transaction costs” (54).

The average attention span in 2012 - 8 secondsThe average attention span in 2000 - 12 secondsThe average attention span of a gold fish - 9 secondsPercent of teens who forget major details of close friends and relatives - 25 %Percent of people who forget their own birthdays from time to time - 7 %Average number of times per hour an office worker checks their email inbox - 30Average length watched of a single internet video - 2.7 minutes

Source: Harald Weinreich, Hartmut Obendorf, Eelco Herder, and Matthias Mayer: “Not Quite the Average: An Empirical Study of Web Use,” in the ACM Transactions on

the Web, vol. 2, no. 1 (February 2008), article #5.

Percent of page views that last less than 4 seconds: 17 %Percent of page views that lasted more than 10 minutes: 4 %Percent of words read on web pages with 111 words or less: 49 %Percent of words read on an average (593 words) web page: 28 %Users spend only 4.4 seconds more for each additional 100 words

Global Speed

DiversityPeer-to-peerConvergence

EducationCyber war

Talking with your parents (older paradigm shifts)

How have new tools shifted (FB, Tools, Mobile Phones) how we and brands communicate

Do brands have to shift….

Friedman / McLuhan (

THE MEDIA CASE STUDY: McLuhan’s Tetrads and Social Media

Tetrad = Any Set of 4 ThingsThe tetrad is a means of examining the effects on society of any technology/medium (put another way: a means of explaining the social processes underlying the adoption of a technology/medium) by dividing its effects into four categories and displaying them simultaneously.

Example #1 – Gun Powder

• Enhance: Range of Steel Bullets• Retrieve: Individual Hunting / Group

Charge• Reverse: Automated Death / No Code

of Honor• Make Obsolete: Individual Combat

The Automobile?• What does the medium enhance?• What does the medium make

obsolete?• What does the medium retrieve that

had been obsolesced earlier?• What does the medium flip into when

pushed to extremes?

Example #2 – The Automobile

• Enhance: Privacy• Retrieve: The Quest (road trips)• Reverse: Creates walking and mass

transit (traffic jams & malls)• Make Obsolete: Horse and Buggy /

Wagon

Broadcasting (Radio & TV)• What does the medium enhance?• What does the medium make

obsolete?• What does the medium retrieve that

had been obsolesced earlier?• What does the medium flip into when

pushed to extremes?

Example #3 – Broadcasting (radio & tv)

Enhance: Simultaneous access to everyone

Retrieve: Shared events, shared environment (The world watched 9/11)

Reverse: Theater, events become entertainment

Make Obsolete: Wires, cables, theatres

Tetrad Concept• What does the medium enhance?• What does the medium make

obsolete?• What does the medium retrieve that

had been obsolesced earlier?• What does the medium flip into when

pushed to extremes?

"We all have possibilities in us that ordinary life won’t let us realise. We all have only one birth and one death. We are all different, but in the narrow stream-bed of everyday life we are rolled together like pebbles until we all look alike. Or until we shake ourselves free and begin to act out the other parts that life denies us”

- Michael Frayn, on Max Reinhardt-