Social Networking, the "Third Place," and the Evolution of Communication

Communication has, as indicated here, changed dramatically. The language of ownership is changing, and, as Chuck indicates, this presents new challenges for the way we express intellectual property. The idea of "sound byte" communication is very challenging. One one hand, it is essential to get to the heart of a premise; on the other hand, so much is left untold when the information is entirely direct. What we do know, however, is that one little bit of information combined with another (as this enterprise suggests) creates stronger resources for the good of the community.

Yes, communication is evolving, but that may not be the important point. It is the rate at which communication is evolving that has the greatest impact on educators. I recently attended an admissions talk at Carnegie Mellon University, in which the speaker (whose name I don't recall) claimed that the breathing space between revolutionizing developments is decreasing exponentially. In very round numbers, here are the claims about watershed events: speech: 50,000 years ago - a breathing space of 45,000 years writing: 5,000 years ago - a breathing space of 4,500 years printing press: 500 years ago - a breathing space of 450 computers: 50 years ago - a breathing space of 45 Web 2.0: 5 years ago Now, we might quibble about the numbers or the events chosen, and in fact communication per se was not the primary focus of the talk. However, the main point is, I think, salient. That is, the rate at which watershed events occurs has increased to the point where it is impossible to train an individual in the use of existing tools for thought (or modes of communication) and have any hope that that knowledge will stand him in good stead for the remainder of his life. This creates a crisis in education. By the time we are done talking about Web 2.0 and it's implications for education, the next big thing will already be happening. In the span of my lifetime, written communication has evolved from paper and pen delivered by the US Postal Service, to email, and on to IM/text messaging/wikis ... you name it. email did not kill snail mail entirely, and wikis have not (yet) been the death knoll of email, but it is clear that new modes of communication have emerged, and continue to emerge, at a frightening rate.

As an academic media librarian, one area of communication that is problematic is how to digitally deliver media to our learning communities from the confines of our purchased DVD, VHS and audio book collections; rich media that is often desired not just in their entirety but also in creative or selective bits and pieces. In short, the challenges of media and U.S. copyright law.

I think the main challenge is managing vendor digital rights. The Teach Act and Fair Use facilitates some of the educational challenges concerning media and digital delivery, but not, for example, the essential act of creating the digital copy, the .wmv or .mov file that is necessary for content streaming or download, despite robust DRM encoding (digital rights management) which attempts to protect the hard earned work of artist and distributors.

Electronic communication is not only about the dialectical exchange of our personal day-to-day and intellectual writings and media, but I hope also about communicating commercially available media. I'm by no means an expert in this area, but I would be interested in hearing more about the challenges that other institutions are facing in this area of electronic communication.