This article was very intriguing, there are several key concepts and points that stood out to me besides the basic (PSH, basic, good one Sam) descriptions of information and communication and they're ties to rhetoric. These points include the distinct bonds that communication and information have and how they influence each other, our overload of information (so true!), and the relationship between information and communication to our information overloaded preoccupation with digitization and hermeneutics.
Ong started off with differentiating between the two very interwoven terms, and explaining that although one (information) is much older than the other, the two have been apart of each others "lives" since the beginning, it just hasn't been understood. First, he explained that in order to have communication systems we need to have life, consciousness and working bodies- which are naturally made up of many information systems that aid and support in the communication process. Second, which I find very interesting, is when he expresses that "communication can consciously envelop information systems." Explaining further, in reference to the human genome project (which is where Ong begins to introduce the effects technology has on these systems), that "human beings are making this enormous code, previously entirely unconscious, subject to conscious communication and control." Lastly, he explains that human verbal communication can "build into itself and its activities any number of artificial information systems." (aka,computers!) This is where digital rhetoric can slightly step into the picture- that because of our conscious communicating, we are able to form these spaces that hold information with the use of information systems, in order to communicate.Phew.
Next up, INFORMATION OVERLOAD. I totally got sidetracked and began looking up all of these statistics about the amount of information we consume in comparison to earlier generations, I couldn't find the exact statistic I was searching for but I did come across these lil' gems,This Is How Much Information The World Consumes Each Year and The American Diet: 34 Gigabytes a Day.
So, eventually I got back to Ong, and was trying to analyze what he was trying to explain in this section when he said that "rhetoric is attaining a new dominance"..(hmmm could this be digital rhetoric?-is what came to mind.) What I took from this section was that, we started off with initially just realizing the power of rhetoric- and all we cared/studied/practiced about/understood were the communication systems of the discipline, but, now that we have begun to understand information systems and have been applying how we can use these info. systems with what we've already been studying (and mastering) for thousands of years about communication systems, putting the two together, is like attaining a new super power..and it's developing within digital spaces....and like I said before, it's getting creepy.
Lastly, which I will keep super short and sweet, because I don't want to write a novel, is my thoughts on the section on our
*Note: By the end of this entry I officially will never forget how to spell
Solid insights and interesting introspection on the readings. To help develop your differentiation between communication and information, what is the difference between information consumption and information processing?
ReplyDeleteBefore I go Google the difference, my first inclination is to say that information consumption is the sole action of reading, listening, or just viewing (may I say, consuming?) information (in whatever medium the information is portrayed)--while information processing is not only the act of "consuming" the information but also analyzing, questioning, reflecting, sharing, and absorbing the information (and may I say,processing).
ReplyDeleteheh heh...critical engagement-solid differentiation. :)
ReplyDelete