Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1978

for communicating information- - a linear code, an abstract code, depending on the sense of sight. This made a difference in his way of thinking. McLuhan is right about this: whenever the sensory balance of communication changes, man's way of using informa tion changes with it. What Will be the Effects of the New Age? The effects of print were thus highly dramatic. The Age of Information grows chiefly out of the newer media. Will its effects be comparable to those of print? If I were wise I should sit down after posing that question. It is a great deal easier to talk about the effects of print than about television and compu ters. Hindsight is always 20-20; foresight is astigmatic; And the situation is too uncertain. . . . We may be facing an upheaval. . . . I should analyze the present situation: we have a pretty good idea where the train is going, but are much less sure where we are going. We know more about the technology, in other words, than about the human effects. In the remaining few minutes I am going to suggest more questions than I can answer. New Technology? More often than any other question I am asked whether any startlingly new technology is waiting in the wings. What is the next medium, for example- - the successor to television. And the answer is, of course, that we don't know. . . . Most of the exciting technology that is waiting to come on stage is of the nature of wave guides, laser beams, fibre optics, capable of multiplying channel capacity by hundreds or thousands. Microcomputers are no longer new, but they will let the ordinary man call forth some of the magic of the great machines. Electronic mail is now quite feasible and may well take over half of all postal service by 1990. But these are not really new; they are merely extensions of things we know and do. When the really new things appear, they will surprise us, as did most of the other great technologies. Ordinary Men Will Have More Control of the Media But I want to suggest one development that is already with us, and is likely to have an effect much greater than we realize. The complexity, size, cost, requisite skills of the mass media have typically made them one-way channels. The ordinary man has played little part in them except to be in their audience. But this is changing. The typewriter and the Xerox machine together have made it possible for any man to be his own publisher. Tape recorders, walkie- talkies, citizen-band radios have made it possible for ordinary men to play a role in broadcasting that once seemed impossible. Movie cameras have become so relatively cheap and simple that home movies are becoming a device for communicating and for popular art, as well as a record. Videorecording will probably pass home movie making in the next decade. The impressive thing to me is not that this technology exists, but how many people— especially young people— are deeply interested in making use of it. . . . And the significance of this to me is that the day of one-way media, of BigMedia and little Man, is ending. The media seem not to be so big ， after all. Some of my colleagues think that the "next medium ”， if we can call it that, will be a home infor mation centre, fed by 24 or 48 channel cable, over which the owner will have considerably more control than he has over his television set today. He will be able to pre-order entertainment— television or movies— and call up news on specific topics. He will record media programmes that come at a time incon venient for him. He will call up home-study lessons whenever he is ready for them. He will shop electroni cally, through cablevision. Anewspaper can be printed for him in his home by facsimile. He can ask questions which a library or a data bank will answer by scanning its resources. And so forth. This is not infeasible, although presently rather expensive. And all of it means more control for little Man over Big Media. How Will the Knowledge Gap be Affected? What will be the effect of an Age of Information on the knowledge gap? In knowledge as in economics, there is a cruel paradox: the rich get richer, the poor relatively poorer. Informationally deprived people, other things being equal, learn less than informa tionally rich people even if given the same oppor tunities. Better educated people learn more from the news; children from stimulating homes learn more in school; and so forth. As a matter of fact, will such an enormous flow of information as we anticipate make any difference at all in whether people are better informed? . . . My best conclusion is that whether we do have signifi cantly better informed people, whether we are able to reduce the knowledge gap, will depend in great part 35