Resolved [in the Affirmative]: "Changes in Communication Technology Generally Represent Progress" By David Abrahamson Northwestern University Provost's Communications Domain Dinner Debate, 3/11/99 Provost Dumas, Moderator Michael Leff, my fellow panelists, distinguished guests... My esteemed colleague, Joel Mokyr, with his Progressivity Index of Technological Advance, has laid the firmest of philosophical foundations for our affirmative position. So perhaps there might be some value in my building on that. After very briefly summarizing the revolution in communication technology over the last 50 years, I would also like venture a prediction or two about the Internet, our latest transformative technology. It is, of course, a commonplace to speak of the vast changes in America's communications landscape since World War II. Hand in hand with other evidence of material progress during the period (for example, the unprecedented increases in affluence, education and leisure), the nation's social, political and cultural terrain underwent a series of sweeping transformations. In media terms, we are, of course, speaking here of: -- The rise of television in the 1950s, -- The subsequent zenith of the mass audience for all communications media in 1960s, --- Followed in the 1970s by the fractionization in both broadcast and print that continues today, -- And now, as the 1990s draw to a close, the digitally-based, computer- mediated revolution defined by the emergence of the Internet. If one ponders this yeasty ferment, comparing current phenomena with historical analogs, one can, without falling prey to what M.I.T.'s Leo Marx has termed "the rhetoric of the technological sublime," argue that the human condition has, in largely positive ways, been reasonably well served. To make my case, I would like to suggest, only half in jest, four corollaries to my co-panelist's most valuable Progressivity Index of Technological Advance (or PITA). My underlying hope is that, by drawing on the ways in which communications technology has evolved in the past, we might also illuminate the likely prospects for the future. The first of my four proposed quote-unquote laws of technologically- driven media evolution is an economic one. We might call it the Mincemeat Postulate of Probable Profitability. It states that communications technology will almost always evolve in a direction which privileges specialization of content and specificity of audience. Think, for example, of the magazine publishing industry in the 1970s, or the rise of cable and satellite television in the 1980s, and now the World Wide Web. In every instance, in pursuit by increased profit potential, the trend in each arena has, with seeming inevitability, proceeded toward the serving of smaller audiences with more targeted information which better suits their specific needs. And whatever one might think of the private profit motive, or 500 television channels, or the Babel that is the Internet , it can certainly be argued that the general result of such diversity is a greater good for a greater number. It might also be added that this postulate tends to undermine the argument of those who anxiously fear the predicted advent of global homogenization. Our second law is a social one. With your permission, perhaps we should call it the Gender Misinterpretation Imperative. Simply put, it is usually a matter of, well, the guys getting it wrong. Despite the broad and continuing dominance of females in most media audiences such as television and magazines, almost all observers failed to predict the role of women as prime consumers of Internet-based information. In point of fact, the latest data suggest that at present over 45 percent of Web users are women And, if historical experience is any guide, there is no apparent reason to believe that, in the not-too-distant future, this number might rise to 60 or even 70 percent. There are probably many sources for the misinterpretation, but certainly one of them is an incorrect presumption. It is the widespread but largely unproven belief that technophobia is over-represented in the female population. And if the advent of the Internet can in some way lay this particular canard to rest, one might argue that that could certainly be called progress. My third proposed law might best be understood as a political one. Based in large part on Law of Unintended Consequences (pace Daniel Moynihan), it could be called the Corollary of Unfathomable Consequences and Unmediated Effects. It states that, upon reaching a certain critical mass in terms of adoption, new communications technologies inevitably affect the nation's political processes. It was only in 1960, with the Kennedy-Nixon debates, that we first glimpsed the coming role of television in the nation's public life and its eventual centrality to the political discourse. My guess is that it is likely that the World Wide Web is poised to assume a similar role. And despite Matt Drudge and his ilk, who some feel are undermining the political processes, there also exists a growing potential for more democratic political participation by a more informed citizenry, based on more direct, less mediated, and more demand-driven access to more information. Our last law might be called the Axiom of Accelerative Cultural Change. It states, tongue only half in cheek, that the more suspect, problematical and confusing a new communications technology is, the more likely and -- important point -- the faster it will be adopted. Moreover, the rate of adoption will continue to increase exponentially over time, often adding to the angst and puzzlement. As a result, the transformational effects on culture will tend to be bewilderingly accelerative, difficult to understand, and unduly large in consequence. No wonder that we have difficulty equating such dislocation with the advancement of the human condition. We are what we communicate, and what we communicate is inevitably shaped by how we communicate. Perhaps we will never be completely conformable with a force in our lives as powerful as communication technology. Perhaps we never should. So, does improved technology, communications and otherwise, mean progress? Calling again on Professor Marx, he answers: "Yes, it certainly could mean just that. But only if we are willing to answer the next question. Progress toward what?" And that, of course, is not only an essential question for every age, but also, I hope, perhaps an interesting topic for another evening's debate. Thank you. Copyright 1999 David Abrahamson. All rights reserved.