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iThink
“communicating from a distance”.
Before the Industrial Revolution,
telecommunications took place at snail’s
pace—how quickly a letter arrived in the
hands of the recipient depended on the
speed of the physical transportation used
to transmit it. Letters from Stamford
Raffles in England would take at least
three months to reach Farquhar stuck
in the backwaters of Temasek—oh, how
cold the heart could grow!
The telegraph, used to transmit
telegrams, was developed and patented
in the United States in 1837 by Samuel
Morse. Using Morse code, telegrams
were charged according to how many
characters the message contained. So
to save costs, a msg wld proly luk lyk tis.
(They may not have known it then,
but these users were probably the
forerunners of SMS-mad Singaporeans.)
With the high costs involved, though, it
was only popular among the affluent.
The increasing popularity of the
telephone saw mass communication
take on epic proportions. By the 1980s,
people became increasingly mobile;
consequently, a Motorola researcher
and executive is widely considered to
Shoot
for change
16 coNNexSCIoNs
be the inventor of the first practical
mobile phone for handheld use in a nonvehicle
setting. Using a somewhat heavy
portable handset, Cooper made the first
call on a handheld mobile phone on April
3rd, 1973. The first commercial citywide
cellular network was launched in Japan
in 1979.
The subsequent advent of Short
Messaging Service, or SMS, has
changed our lives forever. It became
the messenger that could not be
shot, no matter how unwelcome the
message. Rightly or wrongly, SMS
is now even used by bosses to fire
their employees and by spouses to
end marriages. Are there benefits?
Indoubtedly! The photo of a fugitive
on the run, for instance, can be sent
to all mobile phone subscribers.
It is a remarkable use of mass
communication in social service (that
is, unless you are the fugitive).
But there are consequences to
such mass communications at our
fingertips. With messages getting
more abbreviated and transmissions
becoming more “faceless”, have we lost
the art of communication?
movies were a powerful medium
of communication in the 20th
century—but what continues
to make them vital today?
scI lecturer Nicole draper believes
that film and television have kept their
place as a distinctive medium because
they provide a “more immersive kind
of experience” than books. The visuals
allow you “to actually see stories play
out in front of you”.
It is this immersive social experience
THE fAcEbOOk
GENERATION
operating in the “faCeless”
world of the internet
As humankind continues to evolve,
so does communication. With the
development of the Internet in the mid-
1970s, the speed of communication has
been exponentially increased, and our
social interactions have transformed
to keep pace. First, there was the
introduction of Electronic Mail (e-mail).
Then came online chatrooms, online
SMS, popular social networking sites
such as Facebook and Friendster, and
much more. We no longer have to leave
messages on phones, or coordinate
different time zones across the world.
Communication has evolved to a stage
where it can now be carried out over
time and space, as and when and where
you like.
The benefits are obvious. But
what are the implications? Are we
controlling the pace of change or is
it controlling us? Inevitably, there
continued on page 18
that makes documentary films a
powerful tool with the potential to jolt
people into action and advocacy.
audiences crave “something new
and interesting, something that they
haven’t thought about or seen before”,
observes ms draper.
The movie, 15, for instance, which
was produced by singaporean
filmmaker royston Tan, is a gritty film
depicting the harshness of teenage
gangsters’ lives.