Christoph Reuss wrote:
>
> While Brad's observation (below) is certainly true for the 'traditional'
> media and records -- one-way media with centralistic, big producers --,
> I don't agree with his extrapolation onto the Internet, because that's
> a de-central 'all-way' medium with "prosumers" (producers are consumers,
> and vice-versa)
[snip]
> On Sat, 20 Jan 2001, Brad McCormick wrote:
> > On NPR All Things Considered a while back, there was a piece
> > on the musicians who play in nightclubs and other places.
> > It struck me as a parable of what new communication media
> > in general tend to do to *increase* inequalities and to create
> > ever higher "heights" for a few than were previously
> > possible for anybody:
[snip]
> > (Marshall McLuhan did not look forward with
> > enthusiasm to the coming of "the global village"....)
Of course "things are not so simple".
Reading Chris's
response to my posting led me to think of the telephone,
which seems to me to be an example of a "de-centric medium with
producers as consumers" etc. Even if there are not as many
phone calls as emails, there are zillions of them, between
Every(man|woman|child)-sub-m and Every(man|woman|child)-sub-n
where m is not equal n and both m and n are between 1 and
about 6,000,000,000. And almost all of them become part of
that part of human "history" which is of no interest to
historians unless, perhaps, an Annals-type historian happens
to pick one of them to use as an example of a type, i.e.,
precisely because it is of no particular interest in and for itself.
I am also reminded of Michelet's anguishing description
of "the little people" (e.g., me, even if not thee...),
who end up even more dead than the rest, because they
are not kept alive by proxy in "culture": their
words and deeds in no way continuing in circulation in the
living discourse of posterity (unlike, e.g.
Sophocles or Goethe or Napoleon et al.)
My guess is that the "popularizing" effects of the
Internet may be somewhat similar to the telephone.
I hypothesize that my personal website gets more
hits than most, and, in 4 years, the total is probably
less than the margin of error in the hit count of
one "major" website for one day. I am reminded of
"the vanity press", as an analogy for the effort I
have put into my personal website.
"Yours in discourse...."
+\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
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