Thoughts from CMU 302

Being a bit of a history buff I found the readings from DFB to be particularly interesting and especially the comments from Alexis de Tocqueville. He characterizes the print industry as being incredibly high paced, relatively speaking, with the typical circulation lasting no more than a day. In addition he describes it as being far less formal than the strict form taken by “aristocratic literature.” Where style will be “loose…strong, and bold.” Furthermore emphasis will be placed on speed over accuracy, brevity over length, and imagination over depth. Stefanac rightly acknowledges just how closely this resembles the current talk about blogging. But more than just this comparison this seems to be the conversation surrounding every new advancement in mass communication. This begs the question, are these qualities being infused into these new mediums simply a reflection of societies changing attitudes? The conversation surrounding new technology suggest to me that these notions come from the medium themselves, this I find is not entirely correct. Sure the internet moves infinitely faster than print media but did it really make the choice to sacrifice accuracy for a few more seconds? This was a human decision in the race to break the latest story.

This also makes me wonder, as much as we are just discovering what a mediated society and wireless world can provide us, is our next major advancement going to elminate the need for words at all? With every movement society seems to be losing some the artful component that should accompany the business of writing. What will a degree in English or journalism really mean if whole thoughts are narrowed down to a few syllables? Of course there emerges a new form or art with each new technological form and in that regard we are benefiting. Will in the close future be able to earn a degree in blogging and reporting in the electronic world? Is that even possible since what is unique about bloggers is their removal from the conventions of antiquated reporting? When this becomes a reality it seems like blogging will become the very thing it sought to revolutionize, in other words a streamline system that seeks to act subjectively in order to conform.

Questions

1) What is going to prevent blogging from falling into a preset form of expectations that has come to monopolize print media?

2) Where do you see our next great advancement coming from and will it be surrounded by a conversation similar to that of Alexis de Tocqueville? In other words is the next big thing going to be more informal, and faster still?