City as classroom : understanding language and media 9780772550200, 0772550204

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City as Classroom Understanding Language and Media

McLUHAN HUTCHON McLUHAN

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VTR (optional)

Figure 5

Experiment by moving the monitor to various angles,

acquainted with the

full

focus at different distances, that only a very tiny

until

range of effects you can get. tilting

movement

the camera as you

of the

do

you are

Zoom and so.

Notice

equipment can have dramatic

86

City as Classroom

effects

on the image. You can also vary the quality of the image by

using the controls for 'Contrast', 'Brightness' and 'Vertical Linearity'

on the monitor.

how

If

to use 'Beam'

you have expert supervision, you may be shown and 'Target' on the camera. With these you have

complex instrument for generating a great variety of delicate and precise images. Remember that "...a TV is an instrument for making images, some of which may be pictures..." Would you a very

define these images as 'pictures'? Are they unique to

TV?

Find out from technicians about other TV-only effects, such as

How

matte key and chroma key.

Could they be used

in

could these be used

artistically?

teaching or learning? Try composing (and

makes Take tapes of your best productions to broadcast-

taping) light ballets for different kinds of music. Baroque music for a

good

start.

and cable TV stations

Remember

to

for professional

keep them

comment.

Will they air

as short as ads, at least at

them?

first.

For Further Study: Culkin, John.

Doing the Media. (See note on

p. 64.)

Key, Wilson Bryan. Media Sexploitation. Englewood tice-Hall,

1976. (See note on

Cliffs, N.J.:

Pren-

p. 29.)

Marsh, Ken, Holzman, David and

Schiff, Morton. Independent Video. Arrow Books, 625 Third Street, San Francisco, Calif. 94107 (Distributed by Simon and Schuster, Order Number 21887). Pub-

Straight

lished 1974.

"Complete Guide to the

New

the

Physics, Operations,

and Application of

Television for the Student, the Artist, and for

Community

TV."

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. (See note on p. 33.) Radical Software. Issues Street,

New

1—5. Raindance

Corporation, 8 East 12th

York City 10003.

Issue 4 has a special

Canada and

addresses of people interested

with video. The magazine

is

California section with

in

filled

talking to other

with experiments and

to use video equipment. Excellent diagrams.

names and

people working

Most

new ways

of the issues

date from 1971. Originally conceived as "The Alternative Television

Movement."

Schwartz, Tony. The Responsive Chord. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday,

TV

Anchor Books, 1973.

uses the eye as an ear. Essential for television study.

Properties of the

Media

87

Shamberg, Michael and Raindance Corporation. Guerilla Television. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. (Issue No. 6 of Radical Software.)

New ways

9.

and make

to use television

it

work

for you.

Radio

Make a

list

of

the kinds of radio broadcasting and scientific

all

uses of radio. 1.

Chart the range of services to the community or the country that

each type provides, and make notes about the users of each type.

When were now

2. 'Public radio'

of

What

the radio networks established?

services

do they

provide?

about

AM and FM broadcasting.

usually refers to

program that

List

the types

and make notes format, the announcers they em-

'public radio' stations broadcast,

their general

pace and

daily

ploy and the announcers' attitudes to the listeners. 3.

Ham

radio, that

is,

amateur

radio,

is

probably

much more complex

and more extensive than you imagine. Talk to several hams about the range of amateur radio activities and their relation to other branches of broadcasting and electronics. You

some hams through

caster without a public', at least

Who

what is what other media is this public.

or

The

a radio parts store. in

may be able to locate ham is a 'broad-

radio

the sense that a disk jockey has a

'out there' for the

ham

radio operator?

In

sort of broadcaster-audience relationship to

be found? Aside from hams, are there any other users of amateur radio?

One of the most notable features of radio is the spoken word. may be why radio so seldom plays with speech, just as the

This

newspaper seldom plays with 4.

type.

Collect radio slang: expressions involving aspects of radio that have

passed into more old (that

longer

in

is

common

known, but not

use. in

Note whether the slang

common

use, like 'cat's whiskers'). In

used? Does

it

is

current,

use), or old-time (that

what

reveal the function of radio

in

situations

is

is

no

the slang

these situations?

88

5.

City as Classroom

Practice the 'radio announcer's voice'

delivery

— and

when

it

is

You might

cast situations.

— the

reasonably good, try

on the telephone. What

caster's voice

is

Is

is

the effect?

'putting on'

in

nonbroad-

If

the broad-

what ways is it the wrong audience? When would

not proper to those situations, it

it

at a party, in a conversation or

it

discussion, or

inappropriate?

broadcaster's tone and

try using

in

the 'party voice' or the 'conversation voice' or the 'telephone voice'

be

just as inappropriate to

an announcer?

Why?

Research the history of radio. the radio age, the time leading up to the Second World War, programs rather than stations got the attention, and programs dif-

6. In

fered widely.

They included broadcasts

of music, both light

serious, children's features, sports events,

great humorists Allen, quiz

like

Jack Benny,

in

'n

Andy, Fanny Bryce, Fred

shows, soap operas and suspense shows. Almost none of

these programs remain, and

change

Amos

and

adventure episodes, the

this fact

demonstrates a tremendous

the interests of radio audiences.

Interview people

what you can about

who

used to

listen to

these old shows. Learn

and the part radio played in their world. How have audiences changed? Find out when this change took place and what brought about the change in the audiences' interests. What circumstances or changes might threaten their listening habits

today's radio programs?

Investigate 7.

news broadcasting.

Ask radio news reporters

how

a radio

news

story

is

put together

from incoming information, what governs rejection of items not used

and the editing of items that are used. Look for any clues of assumptions made about the audience, their interests, attention span or bias. Does the news vary greatly from one station to another? Since you will be recording copyright material, get permission from a favorite station to tape a central portion. Clip

segment

of broadcast with the

the newscast out and replace

it

news

as

its

with a news

broadcast of equivalent length taped from a very different type of

What is the effect? What does this experiment you about the attitude of each station to its audience and about the kind of audience each station has? When you have arranged for the necessary permissions, try taping news constructed for another medium and replacing a radio news broadcast with it. Does it work? If not, what is wrong with it? After obtaining the permissions you need, try constructing a news station. Play the tape. tell

8.

9.

Properties of the

Media

89

which there are no announcers, just the sounds of the events themselves. Why is the announcer considered necessary? What is his role in making news 'news'? If there were no announcer, would it be necessary to space different items on the tapes by using ads? What impact would news have, if it were broadcast without announcers? In what way would its impact be different? 10. Find someone in your class or in your school who is adept at mimicking voices, and who can mimic about six well-known people. Ask this student to list the names of these people and number them. Write out a script for a radio news broadcast, either a 'homemade' broadcast or a transcript of a real one. Number the items and hand the script to the impersonator. Ask him or her to use voice No. 1 to read item No. 1, voice No. 2 to read item No. 2, and so on to the end of the news. Tape the broadcast, timing it to the right length; if tape

in

possible, tape

What

is

in real

commercials.

the effect of this 'broadcast' on an audience that has no

particular expectation their

impact changed?

it? What happens to the news items? Is What would be the effect of asking the im-

about

personator to read the entire broadcast Try

and

it

see.

Does an announcer have

in just

one or two voices?

to read 'deadpan'?

Why?

Investigate radio commercials. 11.

What happens to the nature of the news and its significance to the when there are no commercials before, during or after it? What happens a brief commercial follows every news item? Make

audience

if

an audiotape to 12.

try

the different effects.

What happens when commercials from one

station are used to re-

When you on tape, using a

place commercials on a quite different kind of station?

have arranged

for the permissions

you need,

try

it

favorite station's programs. Discuss the effects obtained, asking yourselves:

•

Do

the characteristics of the

show from

any easier to • •

How How

How do

two

stations' audiences,

one

Station X, the other for the ads from Station Y,

for the

become

'see'?

two audiences the two audiences

are the

different?

are

similar?

radio audiences differ from the audiences of other

media

you have studied? 1 3.

Ask the members of some other •

How much

class in

your school:

time do you spend listening to the radio every day?

• Which stations or programs do you tune

in?

90

City as Classroom

• Which do you

like

best?

• Which do you never tune

•

Do you

in?

listen to stations or

programs?

Discuss the answers you get, and ask yourselves:

• Can radio

listeners

be grouped into 'audiences' according to

their

levels of taste?

• Can they be grouped according to their age? • To what extent do musical interests tend to •

Do members

of

Would

listening?

with them, or 1 4.

one group mind,

if

if

members

'teeny boppers' mind,

if

reflect

age groups?

of another share their

a 'rock head' listened

in

an adult joined their listening group?

Compare a radio news audience with the news magazines.

readers of newspapers and

If this seems difficult, try comparing the audiences for radio- and newspaper ads. List three characteristics which they share and three in which they differ.

Arrange to 1 5.

visit

various radio stations.

From the public

relations

other sources you can

departments of radio stations and whatever

find,

station's staff imagines

obtain a profile of their listeners, as the

them.

What do

think their broadcasting and programs

do

the people at the station for their

audiences? Which

programs' audiences are the largest? 1 6.

them

to

services does the director think the station provides for

its

Talk with the program directors of various radio stations. Ask discuss the nature and composition of their audiences:

•

Who

•

How does a director 'pull Why is this important?

• •

What

makes up the

station's

audience?

the audience together'?

audiences?

•

How would

•

What

•

What does

the director describe a typical listener?

are the expectations of the listeners to various types of

programs? the director think are the satisfactions of the audi-

ence? • Are there any satisfactions lacking supplied

•

Is

in

one type

of

program that are

another?

the listener's attention to the broadcast expected or necessary?

Talk to class for a their

in

show hosts, disk jockeys — perhaps one would visit the chat— and announcers, and ask the same questions about

audiences and the

'ideal listener'.

Media

Properties of the

17.

91

Often stations present themselves to potential advertisers as decoying Is

people into groups of

this true of

relation

listeners for advertisers to 'have a shot

between

at'.

Does the station's staff see any programs and their advertisements? Have

the stations you their

visit?

they any policies relating to advertisements or products? Investigate radio receiving 1 8.

How many

its

How many

are

uses.

How many

radios has your class access to?

members?

class

equipment and

owned by

are

their parents?

owned by What kind

of radios are they? 1 9.

The

transistor radio

used very differently from a plug-in

is

two types

different uses of the

of radio.

What

set. List

the

the reason for these

is

differences? If

there were no battery-powered transistor radios,

would

listening

change? Would the composition of radio audi-

habits of audiences

ences change? Would radio stations change

what

their tactics? In

ways? 20. Discuss the conveniences of the earphone.

What Is

possibilities

does

it

Is

ground 7

figure or

it

.

create?

the earphone a sensible attachment for a console radio or a

table

model?

What itself

Why? What

difference does the earphone

make?

the effect or the significance of using the transistor radio

is

as an

What when it

earphone?

the function of radio cal 'object' to

listen

to,

or

are the listener's satisfactions? is is

used it

in this

way?

tending to

Is it still

become

a

What

is

mechani-

the listener's

'companion'? 21.

Get one

of the

members

of your class to build an old-fashioned complete with cat's whiskers and earphone, but

crystal radio set

without

batteries.

Use only parts that were available

of radio; don't settle for

modern

'fixed crystals'.

It

digging and ingenuity, but the parts can be found.

working

well, let the

members

in its

student

operation and

who made let

it

in

the early days

may

take a

When

little

the set

is

instruct several other class

each of them

in

turn use

it

to

do

all

radio-listening for several

days or a week. Does the experience

change the sense

radio

of

what

is?

Does

it

change program

prefer-

ences?

ForFurtherStudy: Briggs,

Asa.

The

Volume London: Oxford Volume The Golden Age of Wireless, The War of Words, 1970.

Birth of Broadcasting.

University Press, 1961.

1965. Volume

An

Ml,

I.

II,

excellent history of broadcasting

in

the United Kingdom.

City as Classroom

92

CB Slang

Dictionary. Dell Purse

Book 1109.

New

York: Dell Publishing

Co., Inc., 1976.

Dictionary of Citizens' Band Radio Slang that

you a

will tell

about attitudes to radio and the satisfactions of

lot

radio, as well as

popular attitudes to almost every aspect of the contemporary environment.

McDayter, Walter

E.,

ed.

Through A Critical Canada Ltd., 1971.

A

A Media

Mosaic: Canadian Communications

Eye. Toronto: Holt, Rinehart

collection of articles

on

all

and Winston of

aspects of the media

Canada,

in

written by the communicators themselves.

McWhinnie, D. The Art of Radio. London: Faber & A classic on radio.

10.

Faber, 1959.

Audiotape

Organize teams and work areas

for

audiotape experiments.

most of the following exercises and projects with tape decks, you to work in teams of about four students. These teams could work simultaneously at projects in other media, such as magazines or TV, especially if available equipment is limited. Some students will quickly show natural facility and expertise, and they can be asked to train others when their turn comes. For the longer projects at the end of this unit, you may prefer to subdivide your team and do some of your work in pairs. For

may want

Teams

of four students could operate

in

pairs,

with

two students

on cassettes 'in the field'. They might then return with their material and help the other two students, the 'splice and edit' team, to select material and transfer or 'dub' it to 6.35 mm tape. To avoid accidental loss of valuable material, always keep your last generation; it is best to keep all cassettes until the stage of final or semi-final editing; then, of course, cassettes can be erased and reused. Before the edit teams prepare the final tape, they may wish to make a further selection and dub, if another reel-to-reel deck is available, but they should try to keep the number of dubs to a minimum, since each

engaged

in

collecting 'raw material'

time they re-record, there

is

the possibility of loss of quality of sound.

Close to their work-center, the teams should fasten up a piece of string long enough to hold at least a half-dozen clothespins: they to hold

little

pieces of tape during splicing and editing.

will

use these

Properties of the

Media

93

Collect equipment and materials for your experiments. to radio stations, scrounge any old, reusable tape the you have. Often stations keep boxes or drawers of tapes from old shows and 'spots' and commercials that they no longer need. If you can get some of these, you can use them as a resource for sound effects. The bits of tape you erase are useful for splicing into other tapes. Empty reels and the 'leader' tape are useful, too. You will find the following equipment essential for your experiments:

During your

staff

can

visits

let

• Several cassette decks, with microphones, batteries, and two or three cassettes for each team.

•

One

microphone, metre

reel-to-reel tape deck, with

for reading

and 'pause button'. A model with a patch cord is preferable, so that sound can be dubbed from cassette decks. If your tape deck has no patch cord, one can easily be made. • Tape splicer, 'leader' and splicing tape. Kits are cheap and available at most hi-fi stores.

sound

• For a

tone control,

levels,

list

possible,

of essential recordings, see pp. 98-99.

The following equipment you can get access to it: •

if

A second

is

not essential, but you

will find

reel-to-reel tape deck, or separate 'record'

back' heads for the

first

it

helpful,

and

if

'play-

one, so that you can get effects of echo

and delay. • •

An

equalizer, for adjusting or

molding the tone range and quality

of

sound during dubbing.

A

bulk tape-eraser for wiping tapes clean after use. This can easily

be made from old junk TV transformers. Ask a radio station engineer

• • •

A A A

how

to

do

this.

set of patch cords to

connect

all

equipment.

professional editing block for splicing.

stopwatch.

Before you begin these exercises, records of

listen,

if

you possibly can, to the

Tony Schwartz and Glenn Gould's The Latecomers and

dis-

cuss them. (See pp. 98-99.)

Use the tape recorder 1

.

in

Tape the whole of a

some

familiar situations.

class discussion

the tape, or a significant portion of

and discuss and

criticize

the session.

on any subject you it,

like.

Replay

but not just edited 'goodies',

94

City as Classroom

Ask one or two members

down

maximum

of your class to edit the entire tape

may be done by dubbing to another tape recorder or by using a razor blade and editing block. As there may be no one 'right version' or 'best effect', to a

try editing

the tape several ways, as

documentary

This could be a

result interesting?

sharpen

length of five minutes. Editing

How

can

school, or even tive or useful?

splicing in

in

Do

not use a narrator.

the

Is

tape be used as a tool to

classes, of education, of the roles of the

Would

students

in

another part of the

another school, find the tape interesting, instrucnot,

If

for a five-minute broadcast.

this sort of

awareness of

critical

student and the teacher?

if

or a satire.

why

not? Could

it

be made interesting? Try

taped radio ads and introducing and ending the discussion

with music or news to simulate a

real

broadcast. Discuss the effect of

these additions.

up a tape recorder with ten to fifteen students it so that the microphone can be passed easily from one student to another. Choose a poem of suitable length and let each student in turn read onto the tape a couple of lines, a sentence, or a quatrain, at most. When the poem has been read, play the tape once or twice and then discuss the strengths and

2. In

a poetry class, set

seated

in

a circle

around

defects of the reading.

Have the poem read again in such a way that no one reads the same lines as before. Play the tape and criticize it: is the meaning of the poem any clearer? How well do the poet's sound effects, rhymes and puns and rhythms contribute to the poem? How can the reading be further improved? Are there musical or semantic weaknesses the 3.

4.

poem? Now

read the

poem

a third time, or try a different

in

poem.

just made (Exercise 2) and dub in sound effects, both to enhance the devices the poet has already used and to change the poem's ground. Do you find that a poem becomes easier to understand when it is heard through another medium, in this instance, the tape recorder? In other words, is the figure of the poem clearer to you when you change the ground?

Take some of the tapes you have

Using tape, rather than the printed page, as the means of presenting the

poem you have been

listener.

Cut out

all

create the effect of the

meaning and Is

it

reading to an audience, edit the tape for a

the material that

poem,

is

not absolutely necessary to

or anything that detracts from

necessary to change the sequence of

lines or of

order to present on tape the essential effect of the think that

its

effect.

it is,

try

it.

images

poem?

If

in

you

Properties of the

Media

95

Use sound effects both where they seem called for by the poem, and where they will help to make the poem more concise. Try this with poems written by four or five different authors of different periods. Try to translate something of each poem's essence into terms relevant to your audience. This try

it

what you

at least:

is

a very difficult exercise, but

are really doing

updating an old situation

is

contemporary audience. You might get some help with this exercise by looking at professional examples: for instance, Bob Dylan's contemporary version of Ecclesiastes in his "Bells of Rhymney." for a

The tape recorder

more than

is

just

memory

an electric

engineers have long known, and as you

have

will

or record, as

realized after

some

of

the projects you have completed. Like the microphone, the tape recorder is

and laying bare a

a tool for dissecting

Try making 5.

Go

some

situation.

tapes outside your classroom.

brief

through the school with a tape recorder and collect the sounds of

school. Don't try to collect extraordinary sounds, but get the routine,

usual sounds that everyone generally ignores: bells and buzzers, the

opening and closing of classroom doors, sounds

and

the hallways, on

in

perhaps echoes

never attends

—

to;

short, the acoustic

in

fifteen

ground, too.

A

the classrooms

the sounds that a student makes and hears and

all

Tape ten or

in

the sounds of conversation,

stairs, at lockers,

ground

of school routine.

minutes of these sounds. This

will be difficult, because you, too, are accustomed to ignoring them: they are your

blindfold student might

your tape

Edit logical,

down

in

two

narrative sequence.

Your

edit,

with

thirty

class for suggestions to help

and eliminate any sounds that are not self-explanatory:

this sort of exercise,

have a

tape should be from

final

seconds to one minute long. Ask the

you

be of some help to you.

or three different ways, avoiding a

brief

severe editing

tape that presents concisely

best.

is

some

You should

finally

of the 'experience of

the school'.

You might classroom

try a similar

activities, for

process with other aspects of school

example — but be sure to

ject in cooperation with

your teachers

— or

life:

carry out this pro-

the cafeteria at lunch-

time, or sports events. 6.

A few

days before the next big holiday, collect a wide sample of

people's expectations and plans for the occasion. Edit your tape

down

to a duration of thirty seconds to

present a collage of 7.

Make

a tape of

because there

comments about

young is

so

one minute

in

children, perhaps preschoolers. This

much

order to

the holiday. is

difficult,

material available. For this reason, pick a

.

96

City as Classroom

games

particular aspect of children's lives:

or fights or their

com-

ments about adults or their language'. You have probably noticed that young children have ways of communicating that are quite different from those of adults and that are not restricted to words. Collect a variety of children's nonverbal language, such as cries, grunts, shouts

and wordless songs, that

meanings.

your collection to a thirty-second tape that puts on

Edit

have

all

and obvious

clear

display part of the complex, private world of children. It will be evident that there is no room on such brief tapes for a narrator, and no place for introductory remarks. If a tape is accurate and well done, the sounds will explain themselves more eloquently than any narrator. Because they do so by relating directly to the hearer's experience, they will have greater force and impact. There is no reason, in any

of these exercises, to ease listeners

with,

"Now

here's a familiar

sound

first few exercises more ambitious projects.

After the

in

in

we

or out of their

all

making very

own

experience

"

know

brief tapes,

move

to

The following exercises are for producing tapes two to four minutes long. You may need to collect a half-hour's taped material to make an adequate three-minute sound portrait or essay. 8. Collect a number of students' ideas about going to school: ask how school makes them feel; what they think the purpose of school is; how they plan to use what they learn. Ask for comparisons between their own school and other schools, for school jokes and school grievances. 9.

Collect material for a portrait of students: the

disappointments of the students found school. This

is

a larger subject than Exercise

in

8,

life,

loves, joys

and

the corridors of your

because

it

presents the

entire lifestyle of the student.

10.

Make

members' and together. Making a 'family portrait' is a demanding exercise. So is making a picture of 'where you live'. These exercises both ask students to a portrait of your family, presenting the different

voices, thoughts

and personalities

individually

examine and to report on things they normally take

for granted or

ignore. 1 1

Make

a 'sound picture' of your

'picture' of

extend the

'picture' to

logical, narrative

tion

home.

In this

exercise you can

make

a

your house or apartment inside and outside, or you can include your

whole neighborhood. Avoid

sequences that might

from the overall

effect.

distract the listener's atten-

Properties of the

Other suggestions

for

medium-length projects

Media

97

humor, either current

are:

or from the past; youth or age, with conversations with old people or

young people; World War

II

and ideas and opinions about war held by

veterans, as well as anecdotes and accounts of their experiences; a

supermarket;

a

pawnshop;

and

children

their

games,

world:

slang,

school, their ideas about food, the 'space race', politics; a 'portrait

depth' of one child, exploring

all

in

you can about the people and things

that matter to him or her.

Older or more ambitious or more experienced students may wish to try more extensive projects and exercises. These projects should be from six to eight minutes long in their final form: keep in mind the audience's attention span and stamina! Your initial tapes may require editing down from an hour or more of raw material, but the

same raw

material

may

contain

gems

for use in briefer

projects.

An example old veteran recalled

in

how

of this kind of 'find' occurred during an interview with an

He had taken

a hospital.

he and

his

part

in

the Klondike gold rush and

companions, desperate

for food,

had once made

porcupine soup. The interviewer was preparing a project on veterans,

and

immediate purpose the veteran's story was of no use, but he in the veteran's wavering voice: "First, y' see, y' gotta

for his

recorded the recipe

get a porcupine..." This portion of the tape edited three minutes and

made

a delightful

down

and entertaining item

to just over all

by

itself.

The local radio station loved it and often played "Porcupine Soup." You should think of these longer projects as 'sound essays': they often give deep insight into aspects of our milieu. In longer pieces of this kind you will have to use some strategies to tie the different elements together and give the whole production dramatic unity. Here are some suggestions for topics. 12. Arrange to tape on-the-bus interviews with bus drivers about their

work, the bus, the route, passengers,

traffic

policemen and any other

topic the drivers mention, including examples of their slang and jokes. Separate various

segments of your 'sound essay' with

re-

peated, typical noises: the horn or the opening and closing of the

doors or the these. of

13.

your

Make

falling of

coins into the coinbox, or combinations of

The repeated sounds a

will

give unity to the different elements

'essay'.

documentary about policemen,

their

life

at

home and

at

work, their problems, their image, their relations to the criminal world, crooks they have known, cases they have been on, the worst or best parts of being a policeman.

City as Classroom

98

Another team might make a similar documentary on teachers: ask to tell you their reasons for choosing to be teachers, and about changes they have seen in their profession, in students, in their

them

subject or

its

presentation,

in

the curriculum; ask what their views

on the purpose of schools and education, and what they think schools should be like; ask about problems of teachers and teacher

are

jokes.

Tapes of this kind, when they are edited to eliminate all but the most revealing information and sounds, can be more incisive than any essay, more revealing than any photograph. They tell much more than just a person's occupation: they expose honestly, if they are done well, the individual and the culture.

Other possible subjects

for this

type of documentary are students, auc-

tions, jobs, 'the old days', leisure, city'

contemporary music, a

'portrait of a

or of a town.

14. Take

some

of the 'out-takes', bits of tape

ing exercises,

left

over from the preced-

which contain conversations with people about them-

and their occupations. Select four or five rather different segments about a half-minute in length and splice them together. Make a typewritten transcript of what each voice says and have the class read it and discuss their impressions of each speaker. Then play the tape for the class. What happens? Why? 15. Arrange to take a selection of the briefer tapes — those between fifteen seconds and two minutes long — to one of the radio stations you visited earlier. Play your tapes for disk jockeys and for the program director, explaining the nature of the exercises and your own aims in making the particular tapes. Ask for their opinions of the tapes. Are they suitable for broadcast? Would the station be interselves

them as public-interest spots? Many of the livelier on the lookout for original material that will catch and hold the attention of their audience. They are usually pleased

ested

in

airing

stations are always

when

a supply of such items

is

offered them. Moreover, they are

usually willing to reciprocate the favor

advice

in

exchange. And there

is

and donate tape and

reels

and

nothing to match the satisfaction

you will get from hearing something you have made presented to a whole city!

For Further Study:

*The Sound of Children. Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, N.Y. (Manufactured by Capitol Records,

A

Inc.,

Custom

Service Department).

Popular Photography presentation by Tony Schwartz on

how

to

Properties of the

Media

record the sound of children. Essential for students learning

how

99

to

use audiotape.

*The Idea of North. Glenn Could.

CBC

Records.

tems, Box 500, Station A, Toronto, Ontario,

CBC

Learning Sys-

Canada (Manufactured

Canada by RCA Ltd., Department for CBC Learning Systems). Pianist and composer Glenn Gould uses audiotaped voices in

people heading north on a

train to create a

of

composition which

expresses "the Idea of North." Essential for students studying composition with audiotape.

*The Latecomers. Glenn Gould.

CBC

Learning Systems.

Gould again uses audiotape of voices and of the sea to present a composition expressing Newfoundland. Very useful for those studying composition with human and natural sounds. *NEW YORK 19. Folkways Records and Service Corp., N.Y. Album No. 5558.

Conceived, recorded, edited and narrated by Tony Schwartz. (2 Ip set with pamWorld Soundscape Project, Sonic Research Studio, Communication Studies Dept., Simon Fraser University, Burnaby 2, B.C., Canada. Manufactured through Ensemble Productions Ltd., Vancouver, B.C. Record No. EPN 186. Composer Murray Schafer produces a soundscape of the city of Vancouver. Schafer is interested in orchestrating the sounds of our environment and in combating noise pollution. Essential for students studying taping of city and environmental sounds. Any work done by students might be sent to the World Soundscape Project.

*The Vancouver Soundscape. Murray Schafer. phlet).

Document No.

5 of

11

In

.

Telephone

Chapter One, telephone exercises were proposed

ground or

terms.

It

would be

even to rerun the

Make a 1. In

list

a

Chapter One, Section

Make

live?

a

make

phone

a

poem. What

list

of

figure/

1

.)

now available.

of the kinds of telephone service

England a person can

in

idea at this time to review your results

exercises. (See

day', or a prayer, or a

you

good

study

for

call

to get a 'recipe for the

similar services are available

where

the 'extra services' and disservices avail-

all

able to telephone-users.

Conversely, what people or services can you not

either di-

call

rectly or at all? 2.

Why

do long-distance

calls?

Do

'has to

go

In fact,

just

one

calls

more than

cost the telephone-user

company more because

they cost the telephone

local

the voice

farther'?

every single

call

wire, since the

rest of the calls

being

uses the entire telphone system, and not

whole system

made

is

at that time.

If

required to handle

there were only

the system would be hopelessly glutted. For

no matter what distance

it

this reason,

all

one

the

wire,

every

call,

has to cover, requires the existence of the

entire system. Bell

3.

Telephone has

town Can you

carried out experiments in

two

has given a

or

privileges.

find out

at a

which the Company

time unlimited,

free,

long-distance

what happened?

What new developments have you noted

in

telephone equipment

and services? 4.

What would happen phones and no

to telephone habits,

direct-dial service

it

predial conditions

Of

who remember

continue.

equipment has possible to find places where

is

Dialing

course, there are

predial telephones. Interview

to find out about the changes that 5.

there were no dials on

anywhere?

transformed telephone use, but still

if

What would happen

some

many people

of these people

have occurred.

to the public's attitude to telephones,

denly there were no operators and

all

if

matic? Recorded messages can sometimes give you a taste of situation.

Suppose that

all

telephone

calls

office.

The telephone system would

agents except for servicemen

who

this

were handled by one,

huge, self-regulating electronic complex with an extension

home and

sud-

telephone service was auto-

require

appeared at long

in

every

no human

intervals in

little

Properties of the

green trucks to make

new phone

connections.

Media

How would

1

01

people

react to such telephonic automation? 6.

What would happen

if telephone companies were to introduce videophone service? (Bell Telephone recently completed technology for videophone service, but decided not to extend it to the public.) Consider how present attitudes to the telephone would change, if videophone were introduced. If you were 'on the air', as if you were appearing on TV, every time you picked up the phone, how would this alter your figure/ground relation to the phone and to your public? Would you have more or less privacy on the videophone than on the present type of phone? Would using the videophone be the equivalent of meeting your friends to socialize? Ask your friends their views about the possibility of using videophone service.

What can you Every

new

ety: the

discover about telephone-users?

service, as

it

becomes

group of people

who

available, creates a

use the service, and

new group

who

are

in

soci-

formed by

its

use into a select body which did not exist as such before. 7.

What

modern telephone services constructed? Are who do not use the telephone? Are there groups of people who despise or resent or fear the phone? The European dislike of the home telephone is well known. What is the user-groups have

there groups

in

our society

reason? 8.

Why

can most people not

resist

answering a ringing phone? What

experiments can you invent to find out?

Make

anecdotes to illustrate the lengths to which go to answer the phone, and some of the suspense and frustration they feel when they are unable to answer it. At what moment does the person who answers a telephone call feel the greatest degree of suspense? Is this 'involvement'? Why do some people grit their teeth and snarl at recorded messages? What sort of people get angry at them, and what sort endure them? When the voice on the line does not indicate any human people

9.

a collection of

will

participation

in

the transaction, does the caller

become merely

a

mechanical device, an extension of the telephone? 10.

Muzak,

itself

a

medium worth

careful attention, can

'program' the feelings and productivity of people (and,

cows and

to.

It is

a

telephones? Could pleasant

Muzak

of the sort played

put on the phones to cool the national temper it

when

seems, of

ground deliberately made to be heard, but Could something similar be done with the nation's

of plants).

not listened

be used to it

an election was due?

If

this

in

a

on

crisis,

FM

radio be

or to

could be done, would

it

warm

achieve

102

City as Classroom

Make your own

results?

your

calls,

if

this

is

Your experient may have to and it should include all

investigation.

continue for several days to be a

fair test,

possible.

sound track work best or least well. tell you about the effects of the media you have taped on the sensibilities of their hearers? Your results may indicate, not that radio allows a greater variety of mate-

Keep notes on what kinds

What do

rial

of

the results of your experiment

than the telephone, but that radio audiences find

some

material

congenial that telephone-users can't tolerate. (Look at the jacket of

McLuhan and Nevitt's Take Today: The Executive as Dropout.) You might experiment in the same way with other kinds of sound track. For example, what effect would a laugh track or prerecorded applause have on the habits of telephone-users?

How does One

the telephone affect

its

users?

of the notable characteristics of the

volve by creating intervals. This

phone, and

it

applies to

what

is is

telephone

is

its

ability to in-

the simple secret of the ringing teleoften termed by engineers a 'shared

information space' of users.

A

perceptive reporter, present at the

Boston and Washington, noted:

first

"When

I

telegraph hook-up between

can say, standing here, that at

moment

in Washington, Congressman So-and-so is saying the folwhat have evolved is a new form of consciousness." It was the speed of virtually instantaneous communication which deeply impressed the early users of the telegraph. Instantaneous communication is even more impressive when the telephone-user's voice is heard simultaneously in two places, though his body stays in one of them. 11. Make a collection of the ways in which phones are used in various media: novels, short stories, radio, TV. Note specific examples. How are phones used in movies to create or heighten suspense? 12. There seems to be a certain magic in the very name 'Bell Telephone', which has positively influenced its success. Do you think the company would have been as successful if it had been called 'Kraphainicz Telephone Links' or 'Alex's Phone Service' or 'Albatross Telephone

this

lowing, then

I

and Telegraph'? Note that names create figure/ground situations: the name serves as ground for the thing named. Construct experiments to find out under what circumstances a telephone can become symbolic. What can 13.

it

Make time.

symbolize? a collection of telephone slang over a considerable period of

Note

its

meanings and, when

possible,

examples of

its

use.

Media

Properties of the

Can jokes be

1

03

phone? Are there any

told successfully over the

three

seem funny over the phone? Have two or teams experiment with a 'chain' joke. The last person to be

called

may

kinds of jokes that don't

write the joke

down and

next day. Did the joke change

in

read

it

or retell

any way as

it

to the class the

was being passed on?

it

Consider the effects of any special telephone equipment. 14.

What

the figure/ground significance of the interest

is

telephone equipment? sorts of users are

15.

What

antique

in

sorts of users share this interest?

not interested

in

What

antique telephones?

Suppose that all telephones were known bugged? How would social habits change? practices change?

permanently

be

to

How would

business

Could new or different uses be made of the telephone? 16.

Some people have

taught reading very effectively over the tele-

phone. Try teaching a child to read on the phone, using headlines

and ads from the evening paper. Each party needs to have the same paper. 17.

Suppose that a group of imaginative advertisers met with the phone company's executives and offered the public a deal: "You can have totally free

telephone service, including long-distance

vided that you

will

allow us to play a five-second ad

of your conversation. This ad might

be

for

calling, pro-

every minute

in

anything from diapers to

Chryslers, from crowbars to pickles."

Would

the public be

likely

Why?

to accept such an arrangement?

Are there particular groups that would agree to such a procedure,

Make a What does this

while the large majority of people would not?

survey

immediate neighborhood to

tell

find out.

in your you about

the telephone's relation to privacy?

Suppose that the phone service. What

public agreed to this proposal and got free

kinds of ads

would be needed

presentation? Could advertisers use the sort of ad

now

for

telephone

broadcast on

rock-station radio? Explain your answer.

Tape some sations.

What

try interjecting them in phone converwork best? What kinds are least effective? would this type of advertising have on telephone

typical ads

and

kind of ads

What effect Would the

users?

format of such ads have to be controlled?

Would

telephone-users have to be given a choice of the kinds of ads they

wished to

hear, or

advertising?

would

Would

it

be best to arrange

for

all

to hear the

same

the regular interruptions for advertising bring

104

City as Classroom

about a change conversation ?

in

the present conventions of telephone calling and

Would

Which would be

the caller or the ad be figure?

ground?

which would be suitable

for

telephone conversations. Using a tape recorder,

try

dozen ads

18. Write a

inserting into

for familiar products,

few days. What effect have the ads on your telephone conversations? Do you think such ads would playing

them over your phone

for a

have to be replaced frequently? Would they have to be replaced

more frequently than

radio ads?

What

kinds of conversation did the

telephone ads make impossible? Are any products advertise on the

any way not

How One

relatively

phone? Are any impossible? Were the ads

easy to

useful

in

directly associated with their subject matter?

could the telephone be used most effectively

in

our society?

new medium is that it is added to new go to war, as were, and the

of the difficulties created by each

an existing situation. The old and

outcome

is

it

compromise.

environment for the telephone by designing a new, 'telephone-age city' from the beginning. Start by planning the city's layout on the basis of a most efficient telephone system. When you have done that, add the streets, houses, public buildings and

19. Try to create an ideal

radio stations.

This exercise will require careful study, and superficially.

You

will

it

should not be done

probably want to draw a plan to accompany a

may not be a good idea to reorganize an existing city mentally: you may make too many built-in assumptions which you will not think to question. Remember, when you are making your plan, to avoid the absurdity of having people commute for hours every day to get to an office where they spend much of verbal description.

their

It

time on the telephone.

For Further Study:

Monopoly. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1 968; Pocket (Simon and Schuster), 1970 (paperback). Bell, the biggest monopoly in the world, still does its thinking in hardware terms, despite the fact that when we are on the phone,

Goulden,

Books,

we

J.C.

Inc.

have no bodies.

We are software

(information) only.

12. Clocks

"Alice started to her feet, for

it

flashed across her mind that she

had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket,

down went Alice after it, never watch to take out of it once considering how in the world she was to get out again." or a

.

.

.

Lewis Carroll Alice's

Find out

all

you can about the

Find out about the

1

Adventures

in

Wonderland

history of timekeeping.

Roman system

of hours

and 'watches'.

It

has been

called the basis of our time system. In

the monasteries of the Middle Ages, periods of time were signaled by

bells.

Each

bell

indicated that a

new

period or interval

each period might be of a different length from 2.

all

was

starting,

and

the others.

Read the description of bells and their social meanings in The Waning of the Middle Ages by J. Huizinga. Read Edgar Allan Poe's poem, "The Bells." List the kinds of bell sounds in your city today. Is there any legislation in your area governing bell-ringing?

Mechanical timepieces brought an end to variable measurements of time and to the 'suddenness' of recurring events: time became a gradual passing of 3.

When ing

moments which did clocks come

it

connected.

into general use?

were used before clocks? What

What

devices for timekeep-

specific uses

were made

of hour-

glasses? 4.

Read about the history of clocks in Lewis Mumford's Technics and Civilization and study the figure/ground interplay between the various kinds of clocks served.

5.

6.

List

{figure)

and the communities {ground) they

the differences between visual and acoustic timemarkers.

At what period of our cultural history did people begin to wear timepieces?

When were

When were

time zones established?

wristwatches invented?

Who

was responsible

for their

invention and adoption? 7.

What

is

watches? its

the process

whereby astronomers

When was Greenwich Mean Time

significance to the world?

regulate the world's

established and

what

is

.

106

City as Classroom

What concepts and Our time-sense

notions of time has our culture evolved?

has been called the most sophisticated

the world;

it

takes our children longer to acquire the time-sense of our culture than

it

in

takes children of any other culture to acquire theirs. 8.

Make

the ways there are in our culture of measuring time. methods used by scientists. What are the very latest developments? Keep a separate list for information you collect about time measurement in other cultures, particularly Asian and Oriental. a

list

of

all

Include special

9.

Make

a

of the properties that people

list

we

time: for example,

in

our culture ascribe to

think of time as 'flowing'

in

Add

a direction.

you do the experiments in this section. 10. Compile a list of all the usual and unusual 'time' expressions culture: "I haven't time." "Just a minute." "See here, now!" your

can,

list

to

as

make

a

of 'time' expressions used

list

people of those cultures use expressions

we

in

in If

other cultures.

don't?

Do we

our

you

Do

use ex-

pressions they don't?

Make

a

no longer current and which they were used. You may get information people and from historical novels.

iist

of 'time' expressions that are

note the period

from elderly

What

properties belonging to our ideas of time

from your 1 1

in

become evident

lists?

What sort of time is kept on a ship? What is the meaning of standard time to an orbiting What is its meaning to an astronaut on the moon? 'Tis

astronaut?

with our judgements as our watches, none

Go just

alike,

yet each believes his own. Alexander Pope, "Essay on Criticism"

12.

Suppose that there were no centralized time-keeping authority: what would happen to the notion of 'correct time'? (Remember that this was the situation until relatively recently.) Might people establish individual standards of timekeeping, as they do for clothing?

13.

Some years ago, "Work expands

C.

to

Northcote Parkinson formulated Parkinson's Law: fill

the time available." This law involves

assumptions both of which should be reflected expressions: container.

(1)

Do

that time

is

rigid

in

your

or invariable, and

(2)

list

two

of 'time'

that

it

is

a

people unaccustomed to clocks or watches make

either of these assumptions?

interview, consult literature.

If you cannot find any such people to Have people who don't relate to time

Properties of the

through watches and clocks a sense that the reverse time expands or contracts to

fit

is

true

1

07

— that

the available work? Have they a

sense of time as a container, a big bucket that envelops

Where do nonusers

experience?

Media

all

acts

and

of timepieces get their 'time sig-

nals'?

14. By extending the principle of time

munity,

we

measurement

have made the clock a kind of

to the entire

com-

social tyrant. T.S. Eliot's

"The Waste Land" features the clock as a kind of mechanical fate, like the ancient Creek goddess, Tyche (Greek T u x n ), presiding over the time-kept

What modern

city.

other references to time and poetry,

modern

in

art,

you find in contemporary

effects can

its

modern music and

in

rock music?

How do clocks and

watches affect

any character

15. Are there

not generally found

be

fairly said

traits of

compulsive watch-wearers that are

among people who do

that a person

who

not wear watches? Can

wears a watch

ornament makes the watch

for

their users?

a part of himself or herself?

watch-users relate to time differently from nonusers?

and personalities of people

who

and not

for use

habitually

Do

the

it

just

Do lives

wear watches become

well regulated? 16.

To what To what

kinds of people

kinds of people

always consistent

do clocks and watches seem unnecessary? do they seem essential? Are these groups

in their

them? Ask some members watches to lend them

attitudes to timepieces and

in

their use of

class who are accustomed to wearing few days to members who are not in the habit of wearing watches. Ask the two groups to keep notes on their experience and report to the class on any changes in their sense of time and its rigidity or flexibility.

The

of

your

for a

rural railway station

of the platform.

The

had two clocks — one

porter, asked

different times, replied: "But,

clocks at

17.

Is

all

if

sir,

there any sort of

and

decorum

related to

watches and clocks? Are

demand them more when they must be ignored? Make

situations,

each end

they showed the same time?"

there any situations that

occasions

at

why they always showed why should we have two

and see

if

any patterns appear.

than others? Are there a

list

of such occasions

108

City as Classroom

A

businessman, dining with a friend, makes the gesture of

removing table,

his

wristwatch and putting

when he wishes

it

face-down on the

to say dramatically,

"My

time

is

yours."

18.

Under what

sorts of

circumstances does 'clock time' cease to be a

preoccupation?

serious

What

sorts

of

cultural

pressure relegate

watches to ornamental status? When a person uses a timepiece as jewelry, what does it indicate about his or her attitude to time? What is the difference between 'serious' and Mickey Mouse watches? What difference does each make to or in the user? Could an engineer or a scientist tolerate a precision, Mickey Mouse chronometer? 19.

Suppose that it were the fashion for us to carry an alarm clock with us in a pouch or purse, or to wear two or three or four watches: would our relation to time be in any way changed? How? Ask three or four students to try doing one of these things for a week and to report to the class on their observations.

For Further Study: Innis,

Harold.

Toronto

A

Changing Concepts of Time. Toronto: University

Press,

society that uses brick, stone or clay tablets for keeping

records has a totally different idea of time from a society

paper

is

Mumford, tion.

of

1952.

in

its

which

the material chiefly used for recording events. Lewis.

New

"The Mechanical Routine"

York: Harcourt, Brace

An analysis of human psyche.

&

in

Technics and Civiliza-

Co., 1934;

1963 (paperback).

the effects of arbitrary, clocked routines on the

Technics and Civilization.

A

study of the relationship between

effects

on the course of

civilization.

Poulet, Georges. Studies in

Human

human

Complete

artifacts

and

their

bibliographies.

Time. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins,

1956. In

contrast to geological and biological time,

special set of dimensions.

At

electric speeds,

all

human time time

is

has a

present.

13.

Computers

Find out 1

about the kinds of computers presently

available.

briefly how each kind works. If you can, find out what kinds computers are made possible by present technology. Compile lists of the present types of computer languages and note their basic differences. Are there kinds of computers that could oper-

Describe of

2.

ate without mathematics? 3.

Next, get a questionnaire or a test that

computer. Examine

What

it

carefully.

What

is

set

up to be scored by

kinds of questions are

kinds of questions cannot be asked,

What does

if

left

the questionnaire

a

out? is

to

you about the value of computerized statistics? By finding out what cannot be done by computer, you have taken a shortcut toward discovering what a computer is. be scored by a computer?

this tell

Investigate the changing notion of 'research' 4.

Ask three or four people, preferably

means people

men,

in

our culture.

'researchers',

to them. Ask educators, bankers, people in

in

what

'research'

entertainment,

the insurance business, small businessmen, big business-

academic researchers, scientists, 'backyard invengovernment officials. Look up the word 'research' in a number of dictionaries and compare the definitions with the interpretations given by the people you have questioned. Are there surprising differences or similarities? How far has the computer taken over quantitative research? Now arrange to visit three or four offices and departments to find out what actually goes on in the name of 'Research' or 'Research Administration'. Ask as many people as may be appropriate: industrialists,

tors',

5.

How much of the work of a Research Department has to do with computers and computer systems? • What does the word 'evaluation' mean in research?

•

•

Is

•

Is

evaluation related

in

there any element

measured?

some way in

to the notion of quantity?

their area of research that

cannot be

110

City as Classroom

Now

look up the

word

'evaluation'

in

several dictionaries,

and com-

pare the definitions with the interpretations given by the people you

have questioned. If

only figure can be quantified,

how

can quality of

life

or of service

{ground) be handled by the computer?

What changes have computers made 6.

in

our culture?

Interview your principal or vice-principal or one of your teachers to

see

how

the computer's speed has changed every feature of your

school.

How

does the BIU

student) relate to the

7.

(Basic Income Unit: allocation of funds per computer and to enrollment figures in schools

and universities? Ask an accountant or a bookkeeper about the changes that have come into his or her world since the computer. In the past, for example, the double entry system was generally used to record sorts of business transactions;

all

by using computers, businesses can

details on record. What is the effect of these new more detailed records? does the computer make possible new forms of future pro-

keep many more possibilities for

How

jections for business programs? 8.

For

many

years

now, we have had not government by democracy,

but government by bureaucracy, thanks to the computer. Interview

two all

•

members

of one government department and which they depend on the computer. Find out from the same department:

or three

the

ways

find

out

in

How many

committees are working within the department

at the

present time?

•

What

is

the structure of each committee?

some people members of more than one committee? • What percentage of her or his time does each member spend • Are

in

committee work? Ask a member of the department how his or her job would if the computer, xerox and telephone were all outlawed tomorrow. How would it change, if only the computer and xerox

change,

were outlawed? Investigate 9.

some

current uses of computers.

In what ways and to what extent do airlines and car rental agencies depend on the computer? Would the International Air Traffic Asso-

ciation

be able to function without the computer?

Properties of the

Media

111

which the space program makes of the computer and computer systems. Find out what kinds of agencies keep computerized files on people. For what segment of the population does each agency keep information on file? What kinds of information does each keep? What happens when the computer registers erroneous information about someone? Can anyone find out what information is on tape about him or her? What must a person do to correct misinformation?

10. List the uses

11.

Investigate attitude

is

what people know about computers and what

their

to them.

12.

Make a computer questionnaire to find out what factual information is known about computers, and what people's attitudes are to the computer. Do you know who invented the computer and where the first computer is now?

1 3.

Visit three or four

businesses and institutions

in

your area and ask:

• For what purposes does each want to use a computer? • • •

What What What

When check

is is is

each business?

in

management's attitude to the computer? labor's attitude to the computer?

you have compiled a

common

for

common

the computer actually used for

points.

list

Do

characteristics and/or

of the replies to these questions,

the users of the computers share

common

attitudes

toward the com-

puter? Outline briefly similarities and differences that appear

answers. jobs

it

Compare

the work the computer

is

now

in

the

doing with the

has replaced.

What additional

made

use can be

14. Scheduled school courses can

of

computers?

be programmed by computers and the

experience they provide directed toward the job market. Does

encourage employers to enter the educational world

the dean

this subject.

If

this

order to

in

personnel work their

you have access to

a business school, ask

influence curriculum? Ask several people

opinion on

in

his opinion.

What use can be made

of the computer's ability to predict the

future? 15.

If

the computer tends to project the present forward into the future,

find out

how

was projected

the future

in

1900 before computers. 1900

(Consult H.G. Wells' The Time Machine; use a page from the projection as an example.)

112 16.

City as Classroom

The computer can

project or predict changes

terns of use

The Club

in

quantity of raw

space and population, based on existing pat-

materials, food, fuel,

and consumption or growth. of Rome is a prominent group engaged

of humanity's future.

members

Its

in

the prediction

foresee shortages of

many

sources. Consider the advantages (ground) of such shortages

those already

ures) for

use that can be

made

in

of

re-

{fig-

control of the available resources, and the

computers

in

predicting shortages. Without

the computer would such predictions be impossible or just different? 17. Arrange to visit a large resource industry, such as an

Check with

their forecasting

arrive at their forecasts.

ing future patterns

exciting

game

department and

The new

oil

find out

practice of predicting

is

they

and project-

by extending current patterns has

of 'futurology'. Futurology

company.

how

led to the

based on the assumption

change means more or less of what we now have. When Henry Ford began the mass production of motor cars, he said, "This will take everybody back to the country." If Ford had been able to use the computer in 1920, would he have foreseen the same future that

all

for the car?

ForFurtherStudy: Fuller,

R.

Buckminster. Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth.

New

York: Simon and Schuster, 1970. Earth came into existence. A spacecraft is programmed human environment. This fact points to

With Sputnik, Spaceship a completely

the need to program our planet.

Hoos, Ida

R.

Systems Analysis

in

Public Policy:

Cal.: University of California Press,

1972.

An account

human

of the destruction of

A

Critique. Berkeley,

values as a result of the

uses of the computer.

Weizenbaum, Joseph. Computer Power and Human Reason. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1976. Written by a respected computer expert at MIT, this stunning book demonstrates that computers can't do the whole job.

Airplanes

1 4.

Looking up at the butterfly, the caterpillar sez, "You'll never

me up

catch

Collect 1.

all

Make

in

one

of those

dang things!"

the data you can about

a complete

list

of

all

types of

all

the kinds of

aircraft.

machines'. Compile a

'flying

scrapbook of photographs, drawings and useful references Interview users of

aircraft.

all

relating to

kinds of aircraft to learn about their

satisfactions.

What support-services have airplanes 2.

'created'?

Arrange to interview some airport staff and try to discover the range and extent of supporting services: the provision of maintenance, radio and radar, gasoline, weather reports, computer booking, parking lots, real estate, food services, and so on. Find out what propor-

and what other

tion of airline traffic consists of passenger travel,

services airlines provide.

How much

mail

and

freight

do they handle?

How much

of the cost of an air ticket actually pays for the ride,

how much

for luxury extras?

Remember

account: the cost of serving coffee but the amount

weight and

it

fuel,

is

and

to take hidden costs into

not just the cost of coffee

adds to the operating costs of the

airline:

itself,

the extra

the heating, any extra equipment needed. Luxuries

elbow room and

will

include carpets, soundproofing,

first

class section,

stewards and stewardesses, luxurious airport wait-

ing rooms, extra

baggage services and attendants. What are the and theaters'?

drinks

in

the

pilots' attitudes to their 'flying restaurants

What kinds about by

of political

air

and economic changes have been brought

travel?

Crowds and Power body is a 'nobody'. As

3. In

Elias

a

Canetti

crowd gets

shows how,

cance or identity of each member gets

And The

is

a crowd, every-

cities

less

important.

and countries

If

to-

the effect similar to the process described by Mr. Canetti?

are the identities of the cities

and countries changed as well?

effective population of the Toronto area

millions.

and

less

high-speed travel squeezes populations of gether,

in

bigger, the 'meaning' or signifi-

According to published

figures,

about two and a

is

Toronto

is

now

half

host to nineteen

City as Classroom

114

and many of them

million visitors annually,

national Airport.

arrive

through Toronto

Toronto has become one of Canada's

largest

Inter-

conven-

and has adapted to being host each year to an impressive

tion centers,

proportion of the figure for Canada's whole population, twenty-two million people. 4.

Is

mammoth

sort of

this

speed

air

travel? Talk to

convention business a product of high-

some

extent of convention-going

know

Would

of.

be

it

fair

business executives and find out the

in

activity of our culture, in the

driving to 5.

work

is

your area and

in

others that they

to describe convention-going as a

same way

new

that watching sports or

a cultural activity?

Try to discover corresponding population figures for other North

American

cities.

Without

air traffic,

would business

commercial enterprises suffer serious

restrictions?

travel

and related

What would be

the effect, for example, on the hotel and restaurant businesses, airplanes disappeared? ing businesses

How has

would be

cheap, swift

Air travel has

How many

seriously affected?

affected tourism?

air travel

opened up

tional traffic. Places

if

and what kinds of other support-

vast areas of the world to

all

forms of interna-

such as Europe, Australia, the Orient, Africa, South

America, Hawaii which might never have

become

a part of the United

been made accessible on a commercial as well as on a tourist basis. Many of these places have become international show-cases by means of airline 'culture tours'. The self-awareness of their residents has been changed by their exposure to the 'outside' States without

air travel,

have

all

world. 6.

To the miles:

drivers of automobiles, if

their society

'six

hours away' means three hundred

suddenly finds

itself 'six

hours away' from the

whole population of Europe or Asia or Mexico or South America, and even closer to New York and San Francisco, Halifax and Vancouver, do you think they might begin to feel just a little crowded? Might people begin to worry about the size of those populations? What happens to your idea of your city, your sense of 'home', when you

know fly

7.

that

it is

just as lengthy a process to drive across

Montreal as to

from there to Texas?

Examine both the change

on

in

people's habits of travel and the effects

and attitudes. For example, students have had the opportunity to go on a school trip to Europe, South America or India, or who have driven across the country on a

that travel has

who

their lives

Properties of the

family holiday,

could Is

there a principle

more broadly based experience than

class a

traveled.

the use of the bicycle that holds the secret

suspended within

it?

Johnson, the famous compiler of the

of English, had

a

in

man who

little

sat

was, "... the

in

it

man

115

bring to a language class or social studies- or

someone who has never

of the airplane Dr.

may

economics

history- or

Media

but scorn for "a

new

first

widely accepted dictionary

invented machine" propelled by

and turned a handle to drive

has his choice whether he

himself and the machine too."

opinion about bicycles,

when

when North American much more impressed

than

it

will

forward. His

move

comment

himself alone, or

He would probably have held the same came into use. On the other hand,

they

Indians

first

when

encountered they

first

bicycles, they

were

encountered the railway

train. 8.

Try to account for the magic of the bicycle as transportation. Check the change

and

for

in

needed for gliding, on the one hand, on the other hand. Since men have sought flight in many periods of the past, what made

structure of wings

powered

flight,

vainly to imitate bird

the actuality of powered flight possible in the twentieth century? The ancients did not have the bicycle to teach them how to isolate the equilibrium function of bird

flight.

Historians

have not yet found

the relation between the structure of the bicycle and the plane.

You

have a chance to do what they have not done.

For Further Study: Canetti,

Elias.

Crowds and Power.

tor Gollancz Ltd.; Toronto:

A unique yet feel

Trans. Carol Stewart.

London: Vic-

Doubleday, 1962.

study of crowd dynamics:

all

crowds want to get

they are getting smaller. Canetti extends

bigger,

this principle to

crowd forms. Hailey, Arthur. Airport. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968. A complex technology shown in dramatic action. Keith, Ronald A. Bush Pilot With a Briefcase. Garden City, airplanes'

N.Y.:

Doubleday, 1972.

The

fascinating biography of a bush pilot

Canadian

who went on

to develop

Pacific Airlines.

Murchie, Guy. Song of the Sky. Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside Press,

1954. Basic for an understanding of flying, pilots, weather, navigation, the

world of

aircraft

and

how

it

grew.

.

15. Satellites

In

1957 the

called

it

went into orbit. The Russians who launched word which means 'little fellow traveler'.

first satellite

'Sputnik', a

Consider some of the social and name. 1

Is

political implications of this

the satellite a kind of 'earth-twin' orbit

in

like

by gravity or by antigravity?

made moon, how

did

it

it

change our

the If

moon? Are

held

satellites

Sputnik was a small, man-

relation to Earth?

How have the astronauts' experiences

in

space affected

humanity's perception of Earth? 2.

When

the first astronauts on the moon looked at the earth, they were fascinated by its appearance. The inner lives of some of these astronauts were profoundly changed by their moon-experience of earth. To what extent did Sputnik and subsequent satellites make a new environment of information for Planet Earth? Is the satellite a new ground for Earth as figure? To an astronaut on the moon, is Earth ground or figure? This new, man-made environment has completely changed some people's notion of the nature and status of Earth. They refer to it as 'Spaceship

Earth'.

Study some of the special conditions created

for or

by spaceship experiments. The spaceship has been called 'the

programmed environment'. When did the word and idea of 'ecology' begin

first

totally 3.

social discussion? Is

it

Fuller's

were,

in

in this

in

phenomenon? Consult Buck-

Operating Manual For Spaceship

The astronauts had

to be prominent

before or after the introduction of satellites?

there a figure/ground relation

minster 4.

Was

Earth.

to take their earthly environment with them, as

order to survive

in

it

space. Did they take gravity as well as

atmosphere and nourishment? When Al Shepherd was asked, "Is there any 'upside down' in outer space?", he replied, "Where your feet are, that is 'down'." If a spaceship must have a complete program of earthly services, does it follow that Spaceship Earth must also be

totally

'programmed'?

For Further Study: Fuller, R.

Buckminster. Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth.

York: Simon and Schuster, 1970. (See note on

p. 112.)

New

1 6.

Money

Money seems always to have held great fascination What is the basis of this fascination? 1.

By interviews

What

the user?

can

it

say,

the root of

Is

users.

its

out what are the satisfactions of wealth

try to find

today. What human benefits does it provide not provide? What changes does this reflect?

"Money, so they

for

all

evil

today" Pink Floyd

2.

Why

does the sound of the cash

"Money"

whether the cash a

bonded

carrier

register has equal

what

his

have such power

register

(on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the

power

Moon)? Try

to

thrill

in

to find out

shop owners. Ask

emotions are as he transports

millions of

dollars a day. 3.

Does the of

Is

all

money

4.

It is

Scripture say that 'money' or 'the love of

money'

is

a "root

evil"?

a necessity for our culture?

now

possible to get a credit card to

vouch

for

your honesty and

when you transact business with money. Perhaps this indicates that money is disappearing from our culture. But you were to wake up tomorrow morning and find that all money had responsibility

if

disappeared, would credit cards soon disappear too?

5.

If

credit cards

were retained by a moneyless society, could you manage to do everything with them that you now do with money? Could our society return to a barter system, exchanging bicycles for baby carriages and live cattle for groceries? Would barter take a great deal of time to arrange? Ask local farmers cash.

Do

they lose

much by

selling their

why

they prefer barter to

products on the

retail

mar-

ket?

For Further Study: Canetti,

Elias.

Crowds and Power. Trans. Carol Stewart. London: Doubleday Canada Ltd., 1962.

tor Gollancz Ltd., Toronto:

note on

p.

115.)

Vic-

(See

118

City as Classroom

Lamott,

The Moneymakers. Toronto: Little, Brown and Co., 1969. people in the Western world — how they made money and what it means to them. K.

Stories of the rich their

Morgan,

E.V.

A good

A

History of Money. Penguin Books,

readable history concerned with

all

1

965.

aspects of

money and

markets and governments. *Pink Floyd.

"Money" on Dark

Side of the

Moon. Hampshire House

Publishing Corporation, 1973. Distributed by Capitol Records.

The power of the sound of the cash register. Adam. The Money Game. New York: Random House, 1968.

Smith,

"Describing the market as a

game

of musical chairs."

3

Media:

Effects of the

a New Culture Introduction

All

the exercises

in

Chapter

Two

are intended to give

you a

firsthand

working knowledge of the media. This means learning about the properties of

some

of the hardware, such as

decks, magazines.

It

also

services, including the

In this

chapter

media to

means

TV cameras and

sets,

audiotape

learning about the range of supporting

audiences or users.

we are going to examine the

significance of the

their users.

'Significance'

is

media, because

a it

concept of the greatest importance to the study of has to

do with changes

in

the user and

in his

or her

and society. Every medium brings about changes, but the changes are hardly ever examined. We are going to study the relation of the media-user to the cultural and social milieu through examining culture

changes

in

that milieu

and

also

changes

in

the user.

And

this

is

entirely a

figure/ground problem.

Making

a study of media-users requires that

effects of

any given medium on

its

you examine the by making a list

users. Begin

of

these effects.

You

need to look first at those groups of people whose lives and dependent on a particular medium, and who 'use' the medium in the sense that they work 'in' and 'for' it. Secondly, you must consider the people who are less directly dependent on a given medium: people who supply and service related equipment, or whose work makes possible in other ways the functioning of a medium. will

livelihood are totally

1

City as Classroom

20

By making a survey of the groups that use a particular medium, you will learn about its penetration of the culture in which it is operating and the dependencies it creates there. If

you

first

structures

make a comprehensive list, you can then look for patterns and among the figures, the particular items on your list. This is the

usual technique for studying any extensive or cultural change.

Jones Index, for example, or the weather forecast ing large fields of quick-changing

is

Dow

The

composed by

study-

and interdependent data.

will have to collect news readings and information from every part of a situation, before you can begin to see reliable patterns emerging.

You

We

live

that

it

is

so completely inside our culture, and nearly impossible for us to study

we

are so

objectively.

it

much a part of it Some things are

almost too close to be noticeable. It

is

man

obvious that a

with three arms

is

really quite a different

person and lives quite a different life from a man with two arms. In the same way, societies made up entirely of one sort of people or the other would differ just as much as the different individuals. Those societies would be different from societies made up entirely of people who could fly,

or

who

could see extremely small things, or hear at great distances.

Similarly, a culture ties differently

made up

of

from a culture

people with cars would arrange

made up

its

activi-

of cave dwellers.

One of the ways to study the effects of a particular product of technology on a culture is to imagine what the same culture would be like without it. When you have own society and you

cal figures, in

considered the probable effects on the ground of your culture of withdrawing suddenly

will

see

your particular milieu.

The

car

itself,

much more

clearly the

all

sorts of technologi-

meaning

of those figures

Let's take the car as an example.

the piece of hardware with a horn and a gas tank,

is

not

so much a medium, as a figure that works on and changes a ground.

Between the figure and the ground of the car is the interval of interplay makes 'car-experience' and holds its meaning. It is for this reason that the study of media involves study of the figure/ground relation.

that

Similarly,

the 'medium' of the airplane

is

not

really to

figure 'airplane', but in the relation of that figure to

and

their environs, radar

nections, and so on.

In

and

the

radio,

weather

its

be found

ground

in

stations, tourism, flight

same way, the 'medium'

the

of airports

of the printed

con-

book

is

Effects of the

Media

121

not the figure 'book', but really consists in the relation of books to writers and publishers, type foundries and designers, the process of paper manufacturing and, most important, the reading public and the schools

which All

it

helped to create.

media study,

should begin and end with considering the

fact,

in

users of those media, since they are the people affected.

matter that

some people may

never watch

When

it."

"TV doesn't

It

doesn't

me. any device invades a society to the point of

creating a ground,

it

particular individual

makes use

say, for instance,

affects everyone's

of

way

of

life,

affect

whether

I

or not a

it.

For Further Study: Carpenter, held.

Edmund and Heyman,

New

Ken. They

Became What They

Be-

York: Ballantine Books, 1970.

Photography and text work together to express what

teels like to

it

World to the Third World in your own city (i.e., from a 'hardware' environment to a 'software' environment). The book evokes a multi-sensory experience. Giedion, Siegfried. Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a transfer

New

from the

Tradition.

First

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press,

1947.

and the ground of

archi-

(Subsequent editions.) Interplay

between the

tecture

our world.

in

figure of painting

Mechanization Takes sity Press,

A

Command. New

York: Oxford Univer-

1948.

study of

human

artifacts

from the barber chair to the meat-

packing plant as figures against the ground of a changing world.

Gombrich,

Ernst H. Art

Pictorial Presentation.

The ing'

and

Illusion:

New

A Study

story of the beginnings of 'realism'

versus 'making'.

in

the Psychology of

York: Pantheon Books,

1960 and 1961.

and the notion

of 'match-

.

1

.

Motor Cars

Let's

assume

that

all

students

live in large cities

would

and that private motor

be trucks and buses and motorcycles and snowmobiles, but suddenly, no cars. None. Cars haven't

cars suddenly disappear. There

still

stopped working: they've been removed completely.

Now

examine the

results.

First,

consider the effect of the disappearance of cars on your

own

life.

1

How would

have to get up

more

earlier to

how

and

How

Would your

other eating habits

often you drive to a restaurant or driveif

you had to carry

your lap or under your arm.

be affected? Would you spend your

life

differently? Think

how much you depend on

driving

Condepend on driving to get to and from parties and to transport equipment such as stereos, guitars and amplifiers. If you had no access to a car, would it affect your privacy? If your access to a car lets you have friends scattered over a wide area, would its sudden disappearance mean that you would have to find your friends among people who live closer to your home? for things like dating,

sider

3.

in

might your social

weekends any

4.

how

your shopping patterns might change,

your groceries around 2.

get to school or catch a bus?

or less likely to eat breakfast?

be affected? Consider in,

Would you Would you be

being without a car affect your use of time?

how

outdoor

sports, going to drive-in movies.

often you

Think about the changes the disappearance of the car would make in your parents' lives and in your family situation and habits. 5.

Many

families with cars live a long

and entertainment centers.

move

closer to jobs, schools

family probably have to if

6.

there

How

were no

their

work and schools

and

make

in

services. jobs,

What changes would your

education and entertainment,

cars?

If

would you and towns?

there were no cars,

the country and to other

8.

way from

there were no cars, they might have to

might the disappearance of cars affect family holidays and

camping? 7.

If

cities

still

want

to travel into

How might habits of shopping for food, clothing, books or records be changed by the disappearance of cars? The effects of being without a car would change many other aspects

Effects of the

and yours. Discuss several kinds have not yet been mentioned and the probable

of

your family's

family's

Would

life

of

Media

123

change that

results

your

in

life.

the disappearance of cars significantly affect health and

safety? 9.

is pretty certain that without cars people would get a great deal more exercise than they get now. Doctors agree that increased exercise would be good for health and reduce heart attacks. What other

It

on health might the disappearance of cars produce? With the disappearance of cars, the number of deaths and injuries from traffic accidents would fall almost to zero. Since more people are killed annually in traffic accidents in Canada and the United States than have been killed in most wars, would the change in traffic effects

10.

deaths significantly affect population figures?

Without

11.

and two-car garages, to what extent might the neighborhoods and the use of land change?

cars

quality of

What would happen

to communities and neighborhoods?

would they tend and work be affected cars,

buildings?

to in

become more high-rise

Would people want

integrated?

How

Without might

life

apartments and skyscraper office

to live

and work

in

such densely

populated areas? 12.

If

people are going to walk or

down

to an occasional truck,

ride bicycles,

how

and motor

traffic

is

cut

necessary would the present

expensive roads and sidewalks be? Might the distances between

suburban buildings have to be changed to

suit

the slower pace?

Aside from the direct effects on people of removing all cars, what effects on the ecology of cities and of the countryside?

would be the

one thing, millions of acres of land would be released for use, most parking lots and garages would disappear. Estimate just how much more land would be available in an average city or suburban block, if none had to be reserved for cars. How would the block look and 'feel'? Would people want to arrange its space differently? Without cars, the need for wide streets would disappear, along with the need for superhighways and expressways designed to handle peak rush hour- and vacation travel.

13. For

since

124

City as Classroom

How would If

the disappearance of cars affect urban areas?

one major

cars disappeared, at least

city, Detroit,

ghost town, as the motor industry shut

down and

would become

a

thousands of engi-

draughtsmen, secretaries, advertisers, assembly-line workers, designers and maintenance people lost their jobs. The supporting industries neers,

would be hard

hit,

too: heavy steel,

chrome and

nickel manufacturers;

producers of electronic equipment and electric devices, paints, locks,

Manufacturers of tape decks and and so would the whole recording industry. stage and theater entertainment would shrink, as their

glass, rubber, materials for upholstery.

radios

would be

The business

became

productions 14.

If

there

of

affected,

were no

different. Find

men

their

is

less

accessible to audiences.

cars,

ways

the

of policing a large city

would be very

out from your police department what proportion of

needed

for duties related to cars.

These men would

suddenly be without jobs. So would millions of mechanics and gas jockeys, parking lot attendants and laborers on road crews.

companies would find

out what proportion of their business they would

How would 15.

When

The

oil

suffer as their service stations disappeared. Try to lose.

businesses and services be affected?

cars disappeared,

all

forms of drive-ins would also disappear:

movies, banks, restaurants, dry cleaners. Hundreds of thousands of other businesses would be closed, as muffler

stations,

agencies, centers. 16.

How What

shops,

motels,

demand ceased

parts

stores,

for service

junkyards,

rental

shopping plazas and different types of entertainment

What

other businesses and services would be affected?

long would the big,

new shopping

centers and plazas survive?

How How would

other sorts of merchandising might appear or reappear?

would these changes

affect

your family's use of time?

they affect your use of time? 17.

As cars disappeared, of course, some other medium would take their place. Use of public transportation systems would soar, and these

would have to be reorganized to some extent. What sort of reorganizing would be necessary? How would the production of trucks be affected, if they had to be used for the many minor moving jobs that people now use their cars for? How would railway and bus services be affected? What changes in their services would airlines be likely to make?

Effects of the

In

what ways might our society compensate

As

new

cars disappeared,

habits

and ways of

adjusted the rest of our patterns of

entertainment and holidays.

Some

living,

ing

and

18.

What

cities;

125

for the loss of cars

life

would appear,

our work, school

?

as

we

activities,

ways of life that existed before more people might move into the

of the

there were any cars might reappear:

center of

Media

there might be a revival of interest

in

recreational walk-

bicycling.

other revivals might occur as a direct result of the

car's disap-

What would hapcanal systems? Would

pearance? Might the horse and buggy reappear?

pen to boat- and steamer

traffic

or the old

church attendance be affected?

There would be think of a

course, cars will

have become a

example of

many

cars. You can them and investigate them for yourselves. Of take with them a number of secondary effects which

number

this

other effects of the disappearance of

of

tightly is

embedded

the assembly-line

part of our culture's patterns.

method

of manufacture

One

which was

Without assembly-line manufacturing, our entire would be radically different. You have already noted that vacation patterns would change. Without the independence and easy access to holiday areas provided by cars, people might be less casual about where they went, and might plan to stay longer once they had arrived. The most significant change might be in home life: people could not leave home for an evening, a weekend or a month, as casually as they do in their cars. With people much less readily able to come and go to and from their homes, family members might draw closer together and share more of their time and lives; they might give more careful attention to the use of family living space and to providing for one another's privacy. Relations with neighbors might become more imporpioneered with the

car.

business establishment

tant, too.

Use research and interviews to work out this project in as much detail your time and resources will let you. When you have put all your findings together, you will have an image of your culture without the car. When you compare that image with our culture as it actually is, you will be more fully aware of the overall effect of the car. It is in the changes that the car has brought about, its effect on the work, the social patterns, the ecology of our society, that you can best identify and understand the meaning of the car. And this is true of the other figures that you examine. When you have established for yourselves the meaning of the car in our culture, you might ask yourselves a final question. as

126

City as Classroom

19. In Africa,

some

of the tribes

who

regions

live in

both service and environment point-out

we

What

die."

are

some

where the jungle

"When

that,

between the

of the differences

African

jungle situation and the North American automotive situation?

automotive service environment disappeared, would might

2.

If

we

'die',

if it

goes on

in its

is

the jungle dies,

we

If

our

'die'?

Or

present form?

Newspapers

suddenly, at midnight tonight, newspapers ceased to be published or

circulated

and

their records

all

and 'morgue'

be the effect on our culture and our

How would

files

vanished,

what would

lives?

the disappearance of newspapers affect personal and

private behavior patterns? 1.

How would ment

the disappearance of newspapers affect your entertain-

patterns?

Would

sports?

Would

it

How would it

affect your

affect

your interest or participation

in

patterns or clothing styles?

concept of morality or your decisions about

Would you

still be able to find a summer- or you go about looking for one? How would your parents' entertainment patterns be changed by the disappearance of newspapers?

your education? Explain. part-time job?

2.

it

affect your eating

How would

How would

the disappearance of newspapers affect public

behavior patterns? 3.

How would families announce births, deaths, weddings and graduaHow would 'society' get on without gossip columnists? What

tions?

4.

would happen to writing styles? What would happen to photographic styles and practices? How would the public behavior of citizens be affected, if they had no newspapers to 'wrap themselves in' on buses and subways in order to create privacy?

What groups would be 5.

How would public?

affected,

if

newspapers were withdrawn?

the disappearance of newspapers affect the reading

Does each newspaper create

its

own

'public'?

Effects of the

6.

What would happen to a city's 'self-image', were published? What would happen to its tity? Investigate

if

Media

127

no more newspapers

sense of

its

own

iden-

the relation of a newspaper to the city where

it

is

published, and to that city's inhabitants.

What effect would

the disappearance of newspapers have on our

sense of 'news'? 7.

How would

this loss affect

What would be

our relation to the

the present and future effect on

world?

rest of the

what we

call 'his-

tory'? 8.

How would

the disappearance of newspapers affect the work of

typesetters,

reporters,

gathering services? milling

(The

editors,

printers,

advertising agents,

news-

What would happen to the paper industry and to operations? What would happen to the ecology?

and logging York Times boasts that

New

it

requires a small forest to produce

each weekend edition!) 9.

If

newspapers disappeared, what would happen to

all

other media?

Would new kinds of magazines be invented? Would old kinds be revived? What kinds? Would people make more or different use of the telephone, movies, cars, books, television? 10.

Without ads or reviews, what would happen to the entertainment

11.

What would happen

industry

in

general: to theaters, drive-ins, restaurants? to business investments?

estate market be affected?

What would

How would

the

real

the effect be on resorts and

the travel business?

What unexpected things did you find through your investigations? What questions did you consider a waste

of time?

Magazines

3.

If,

while you were eating supper tonight, magazines and journals of

kinds began to disappear, so that trace of

them had vanished

How would

when you woke up

forever,

in

what would be the

all

the morning

all

results?

readers be affected by the disappearance of their

favorite magazines? 1.

What would happen

to reading habits

magazines were removed? Would as

much from

other sources?

functions of magazines

in

and

literacy in

their readership

Would they

our culture,

read less?

Is it

one

What would happen of literature

to literature

found only

in

and

magazines?

effect

Are there forms

literary styles?

What would happen

and essay writing? Would these forms and

story-

of the

our culture to support a wobbly literacy?

If magazines were no longer published, what would be the on writing and research?

2.

if

continue to read

to short-

their publics disap-

pear? 3.

Get from several publishers, either 'demographies', that

means

is,

in

person or by writing,

profiles of their readership.

If

some

a magazine

is

a

and of focusing interests, what happens when magazines disappear? Would research, con-

of organizing a public

to these interests

ferences and institutions with an interest

in

a particular field

be

affected by the disappearance of magazines devoted to related subjects? 4.

What would be the

arts,

How would

if

the effect on studies and research

in

sciences and

magazines disappeared?

other media be affected by the disappearance of

magazines? 5.

If

magazines were no longer published,

how much

could be absorbed by books, newspapers, radio, tirely

changing

their character? Estimate to

fashion and entertainment

of their function

films,

without en-

what extent the worlds

depend on magazines.

of

Effects of the

How would

business and services be affected,

if

Media

129

magazines

disappeared? 6.

Make and

a

list

of the groups directly involved

sale of magazines.

loggers to editors. Estimate the

be jobless, force

if

in

the making, distribution

Include everyone you can think

number

magazines disappeared.

of these people

What percentage

of,

from

who would of the

work

would these people represent?

7.

Are department-store- and mail-order catalogues magazines?

8.

mate the impact of their disappearance. Consider buyers, volume of business, store- and warehousing space, manufacturing, paper needs, artwork and other areas that would be affected. Using the information you have gathered, estimate the effect on business, manufacturing, advertising, consumer habits of removing magazines of all kinds. Which businesses would be most affected? What products would be likely to disappear?

9.

Find out from the post office of

magazines and

bills

how much

for magazines.

Esti-

of the mail handled consists

Without

this load,

would the

mail service improve?

4.

Books

Suppose that suddenly at two o'clock tomorrow morning, books ceased to be published and all the books in bookstores and in public and private libraries disappeared. Suppose that, along with novels, factual books, technical books and service books, such as phone books, encyclopedias and dictionaries also disappeared. What effect would their loss have on our lives and our culture? If

there were no books,

what would happen

to the 'reading

public'? 1.

What would be intellectual

terms

life

mean

the effect on conversation, on in

'civilization',

general? Ask the people about you

to them,

and make

their opinions

and on

what these

and yours the

basis of

your discussion. 2.

How would Make

the disappearance of books affect leisure activities?

number of hours given to recreational bookweek by various groups of people. Which groups spend most time reading? Which groups spend least? Did you conclude a survey of the

reading each

1

30

City as Classroom

from your survey that there was any correspondence between the length of any group's reading time and or culture?

decline

If

If

so,

literacy

in

there were no books, 3.

What would happen would happen

its

level or quality of literacy

would the disappearance and in culture?

what would become to literature as

it

of

books cause a rapid

of the arts?

What

taught or practiced?

is

to poetry? Could the novel survive through

papers or magazines alone? (Charles Dickens' career and

news-

his public

deserve attention here.) Consider works by such authors as

4.

Tolkien or

Mazo de

acceptable

in

How would

Roche

la

handwritten or

or John Galsworthy.

in

J.R.R.

Would they be

newspaper form?

What sorts of writing would have would be increased by the elimination

writing styles change?

to disappear,

and what

sorts

of books?

How would

the disappearance of books affect education and

research? 5.

The

effect of the loss of

books on various types of schools might be

Compare the effects on vocational and technical schools with those on more academically oriented high schools. Estimate the effects on community colleges and universities. What

considerable.

6.

would happen to the teaching of art? What would happen to the whole field of history? To what degree are academic studies made possible, that is, 'created' by books? Without books, could there be any forms of reference works? Would memories improve? If textbooks were removed, how would classroom routines have to be changed? Would students' behavior in class change? Would note-taking habits change? terns

Would

teaching styles or

change? Would the meaning of

change? Would the teacher become the truth or accuracy of statements,

if

there

'study'

homework

and of

final 'authority'

were no books

pat-

'learning'

about the

to refer to?

Try to find out about methods of education in some period of Western culture before there were printed books. If we had no books, would we be likely to revive any earlier educational practices

from preprinting cultures?

made 7.

his

own book

as

In

the days of manuscripts, each student

he studied. Might

this practice

The written examination was introduced teenth century to give teachers a

way

be revived?

into schools

of coping with

in

the nine-

one

effects of the printed book: a class of students could read

of the

hundreds

Effects of the

more books than any one

teacher.

Media

131

The exam made sure that stuIf there were

dents had learned the essential elements of a subject.

no books, would written exams

still

be necessary? Discuss your

opinions. 8.

Without books, how would people become be taught to read

at all?

Would

the

number

Would people

literate?

magazines increase, or

of

would magazines and newspapers eventually disappear? the necessary ground for these forms of literature?

How would

Is

the book

other media be affected by the disappearance of

books? 9.

Consider such equipment as xerox, the computer and the telephone, along with the theater, the movies which often use the novel as

ground, radio and television. 10.

Would

become popular again, as private What would happen to handwriting?

letter-writing

to spread?

How would the disappearance of books affect philosophy and politics? 11.

religion,

Without printed books, what would happen to religion and to liturgy? Would politics be affected? How would new views about ethics and morality be made public?

How would the withdrawal employment? 12.

writing began

Form an estimate involved

books.

in

of the

of

books

number

affect business

of people

in

and

our culture directly

the writing, production, promotion and distribution of

How many

other groups would be drastically affected

if

books were to disappear?

What would happen to authors? Obviously, many writing jobs would disappear, but what adjustments would be made among author and readers and publisher? These questions are intended only to help you get started

in

mapping

the extent of the ground of books. Constantly refer to what you learned in Chapter Two. What large areas of their effects in our you not examined? Either investigate or make educated guesses about the effects on those areas of eliminating books.

about books culture have

Finally,

draw together

without them.

you have learned about books, and write what our present culture would be

all

a general description of

.

5.

Light Bulbs

If it

weren't for Edison, we'd

all

be watching TV

by candlelight...

Imagine the removal of 1

Make an by

this

extensive

event.

all

list

electric lighting.

of functions

How many

and services that would be ended be supplied by another kind

of these could

of lighting?

What would be

the effect on sources of power,

no longer required 2. 3.

What would be What would be lighting

Make a 4. 5.

6. 7.

list

if

electricity

were

for lights?

the effect on resources of electricity? the effect on resources of gas?

When

and why

is

gas

used today? of other areas that

would be

drastically affected.

To what extent would the end of lighting affect TV and movies? What would be the effect on sports, on work habits and routines, on night driving, if there were no electric lighting? What would happen to your family life, without electric lights? How would the lack of electric lights affect architecture and 'interior space'? Ask an architect.

8.

To what extent were the wartime blackouts tion of electric lighting?

ing the blackouts?

How

indicators of the func-

did people's social habits

change dur-

6.

Photographs

Suppose 1.

that

all

photography were suspended

indefinitely.

Make a list of the various kinds of images that would be removed: you might begin with family photographs, home movies and department-store catalogues.

What other media would be

affected by the disappearance of

photographs? 2.

If

were no more photographs, what would be the effect on on magazines and on textbooks? How would science and art

there

radio,

and

art

3.

How would the disappearance How would change police work?

studios be affected?

tography affect fashion?

of

pho-

it

Should television be considered a photographic medium? To what extent does

it

depend on camera and

film?

photography disappeared, what areas of employment would be

If

affected? 4.

What groups

of people

would be unemployed,

if

the photo disap-

peared? Is

photography related to human and

5.

Has everyone the

photographs of other people without

Does the photograph move its subject from the private to the public domain? Find out about the reaction among some tribes to being photographed in E. Carpenter's Oh, What a Blow That Phantom Cave Me. (See p. 32.) What differences would it make if there were no pictures of any politician anywhere? Investigate the place of photography in creating political figures and political propaganda. Does photography encourage political parties to select candidates as if they were casting a play or movie? How would the discontinuance of photography affect political campaigns and the conventional notions associated with them? their permission?

6.

right to take

civil rights?

7.

Films

List

some

of the effects that the disappearance of

have on your personal and 1.

Would

their

your preferences

in

affect your fantasy

How would

if

there

your

dress or food?

Would

it

your topics of conversation or

friends,

How would

the end of the movies

life?

What changes would your family,

movies would

life.

disappearance affect your use of free time?

affect relationships with

2.

social

take place

in

the lives of other

members

of

were no movies?

other media be affected,

if

films

were no longer

available? 3.

What would happen

to

news coverage and

reporting without

movies? 4.

How would

the end of the movies affect reading habits and the

production of books?

Would

all

modern

writing styles be affected by

the disappearance of movies and scenarios?

How would

If

so, in

what ways?

the disappearance of movies affect education and

research? 5.

If

movies disappeared, what would be the effect on values

tion? 6.

7.

How would

in

educa-

classroom content and methods change?

What would be

the effect on science and research, if movies were no longer made? Consider such scientific methods as time-lapse photography for the study of growth and development, and the use made of photographic data in the fields of meteorology, geography and archaeology. What would happen to methods of keeping historical records and to

the study of history?

What changes about? 8.

in

entertainment would the loss of movies bring

What would happen to sports? What would happen to television? Would the theatrical stage regain its former importance? What would happen to the popular notion of a 'star'? Would the function of the car in relation to entertainment change? How? How would travel

be affected?

Effects of the

What

Media

135

businesses and industries would be affected by the

disappearance of movies? 9.

What groups

would be put out

of people

of work,

the movie

if

industry ceased to exist? 1 0.

Would

people's attitudes to the legal profession and to other profes-

sions change,

How would 11.

Would

it

if

movies were to disappear?

the disappearance of movies affect 'consumerism'?

have an effect on

of 'unlimited credit' with

its

inflation?

Would be made?

everything he or she sees? if

12.

If

movies could not

Would

it

change the concept

implication that everyone

advertising

entitled to

is

methods be changed,

movies disappeared, would underdeveloped countries be

af-

Would they be cut off from knowledge of the 'North Amerithey were, would this be to their advantage can way of life', and, fected?

if

or disadvantage? Discuss your answers.

Do you

think there

is

a possibility that movies really might

disappear? 1 3.

Is

the

new

of the disappearance of

8.

in

possibility

Television

How would 1

book form pointing to the the movie as a separate form?

industry of movies

If

the discontinuance of television affect your

there were no television,

Would your

your use of time be affected?

eating habits and entertainment habits change?

you participate more

Would

how would

life?

in

sports or

life?

it

Would

other forms of physical activity?

make a difference Would change your

the loss of television

or to your social

in

to your conversation relationship to your

family? 2.

What differences would the lack of television make in your home? Would your family make any changes in their use of time or space at home, there were no TV sets? Would their consumer preferences if

change?

136

City as Classroom

What effect would 3.

How would

the end of television have on education?

the loss of television affect educational curricula and

educational methods? 4.

How would

How would

reading ability and reading habits be affected?

other media be affected by the disappearance of

television? 5.

What would happen

6.

Investigate the effect television as a 1

to the production of books?

948 to the present time.

the movie to

its

Do you

previous place

ground has had on movies from end of TV would restore

think the

in

Would

the entertainment world?

radio gain popularity?

What effect would the end employment? 7.

How would

television's

of television

have on business and

disappearance affect department stores,

banks, the police, stock brokers, industries and businesses?

would 8.

9.

it

How

affect advertising?

If television were to disappear, how many people in the TV industry would be out of work? What related industries would be affected? How would the end of television affect the sports world?

How would

the end of television affect national and international

politics? 10.

How would

the end of television affect politics and politicians, inter-

national relations, countries' images, the Cold

Would 11.

the end of television also

Could

we

mean

War?

the end of

its

effects?

expect people to return to attitudes that prevailed before

the appearance of TV? Arthur Miller, for example, writing

York Magazine (December 30/January It

Came

Apart." His

theme was

6,

that the audience for

written his plays ceased to exist

in

in

the

which he had TV was

1949, the year network

instituted:

An

era can

be

exhausted, and

said to

my

was among these

end when

its

basic illusions are

oneness with the Broadway audience

then.

What

it

all

New

1975) described "The Year

came down

to,

then,

Effects of the

Media

137

was the assumption on all sides that the audience — indeed, the country — was an unbreakable cultural unity, regardless of

superficial inner conflicts.

its

Miller suggests that an entirely

came

new

public, a nonunified public,

into existence in 1949.

What evidence can you

find in today's television

support or disprove

theory?

9.

this

programs to

Radio

Suppose that at six-thirty tomorrow morning all radio broadcasting ended: AM and FM, shortwave broadcasting, and even citizens' band and walkie-talkie operation.

How would 1

the end of radio affect your

life

and your

interests?

Without radio broadcasting, what would happen to your private and social life?

2.

Would Would

the discontinuance of radio affect the recording industry? it

How would

affect rock

music and rock culture?

the loss of radio affect the radio industry and related

industries? 3.

If

all

radio

were completely withdrawn, what would be the

effect

on

people directly involved: radio announcers, engineers, disk jockeys, record librarians, station managers and programmers?

How would

people indirectly involved be affected: manufacturers, design engi-

and repairmen? How would the recordand pressers and engineers and studios, performers and musicians, manufacturers of electric and musical equipment? neers, wholesalers, retailers ing industry

How would 4.

it

be affected:

printers

affect the radio public,

if

radio

were discontinued?

Obviously, the whole listening public would be affected by the

may be able to find out some particulars about the radio audiences of various types of programs, since both

disappearance of radio. You

138

City as Classroom

broadcasting stations and advertisers keep careful watch over the

composition of

their audiences,

and are often

willing to share

and

discuss that information.

What

5.

present

disappeared?

Here radio

is

a

on

list

phenomena and institutions would Would any former ones reappear?

disappear,

if

radio

which you might use to investigate the influence of

different aspects of our culture.

employment

sleeping habits

home

music

news

routines

school activities

reporting

commercial motor vehicles

entertainment

sports

marine travel

advertising

train travel

warfare

theater

propaganda stock market

medical services

telephone

law enforcement

traffic

control

air travel

ambulance service

satellites

fire

astronomy

business

radar

construction work

sonar

weather reporting

fighting

radio-related hobbies

10.

Telephone

Suppose that, because of some kind of crisis service were to be suspended indefinitely.

What changes would be 1

.

Would

likely to

in

take place

your world,

in

all

your daily

telephone

life?

the loss of the telephone affect your relationships with other

people?

Would

it

affect

your relationship with your family?

If

so, in

what ways? Would contact with relatives decrease? How would it change your relations with your friends? How many of your friends would drop out of your life? Would the end of the telephone bring about much more personal contact? If so, would more personal contact mean more walking or more travel?

Effects of the

How would

Media

139

the loss of phones affect your relations with your

employer? 2.

What changes would and

being without telephones

your use of time? Would

in

it

affect

make

in

your habits

your homework time and

your study habits? Would ceasing to use the telephone have any

on your posture or your language? Would gossip decline or

effect

disappear? 3.

change?

letter-writing habits

parent-teacher relationships change much,

not get

in

How would 4.

Would

Would

Would

teachers could

the lack of telephones affect businesses and services?

business offices, as

phones? Arrange to

some

if

touch with parents by phone?

visit

we know

a

them, be possible without

wide range

of the uses of the telephone

of business offices

action.

in

tele-

and note

Ask appropriate 'con-

sultants':

•

How would

•

What would happen

•

How would

work change without telephones? computer without the telephone? maintain contact with a business, if there were

secretaries'

clients

to the

no telephones? • What would happen to the stock market without the telephone? • How would jobs be affected if all personal orders or requests required a written 5.

If

memo?

people had no telephone access to medical, police and

fire ser-

would it affect their choice of a place to live? Could such community services be maintained and used effectively without the vices,

telephone? 6.

If there were no phones, would travel and vacation patterns be changed? What effects would be felt by the entertainment industry? What effects would be felt by resort hotels, restaurants and advertis-

ing? 7.

What percentage

the work force

do you estimate depends, on the telephone and telephone-related services? Estimate the effect their loss would have on

wholly or

in

of

part, for their livelihood

other businesses such as the manufacture of copper wire, radios, plastics, paper,

and the production and operation

telegraphic equipment.

What

gathering and reporting by sion?

effects

means

of

of radios, satellites,

would there be on news-

newspapers, radio and

televi-

.

140

City as Classroom

What changes would

the loss of telephones bring to civic and

political institutions? 8.

How would the loss of telephones affect the organization and management of the city? Would the incidence of crime be affected? How would the disappearance of the telephone affect the suicide Ask a policeman

rate? 9.

What

disappeared? 1 0.

Make

for his opinion.

would experience

cultural institutions

a

list

Would

it

least

be churches, schools or

of the present

phenomena

that

change,

if

phones

libraries?

would disappear with the

disappearance of telephones.

Make

a

list

of

any former phenomena that would be

reappear. Are there any areas of

life

likely

to

where new patterns would have

to be invented?

11. Clocks

sometime between sundown and sunrise tomorrow morning, all clocks, watches, chronometers and mechanical timepieces of every sort disappeared completely and forever. Immediately, of course, a number of expressions in every Western language would become senseless and useless. What other effects would there be? Suppose

that,

How would

the disappearance of clocks affect your routine

activities? 1

What would happen

to school routines?

to a student or to a class? Could

What would

'on time'

computers be used

in

mean

schools as

clock-substitutes? 2.

Would routines in and around your home be changed? Would your study habits be in any way affected?

Would 3.

If

so,

how?

the loss of clocks affect social and recreational practices?

social conventions or procedures that would be affected and what changes would take place, if clocks disappeared. How would the disappearance of clocks affect entertainment? What would happen to the organization of television and radio programs? List

any

specify 4.

Would programs continue need

to'?

On what

basis

'as

'as

long as they

advertisers be charged?

How would

long as they should' or

would

Effects of the

be affected? Could TV Guide stay as

disk jockeys

it

Media is?

141

Would

movie-editing and the spacing of ads be affected? 5.

were no timepieces? What would What would constitute an

Would

sports

happen

to our notion of sports records?

athletic

achievement?

How would

change

if

there

transportation and travel be affected by the removal

of clocks? 6.

How

might motor

traffic

kilometres per hour? 7.

How

be regulated without the hour to measure

Would speeding

could the railways or the

would they have to make,

Would

the arts be affected,

if

if

become obsolete? And what changes

tickets

airlines

function?

they were to go on serving the public?

clocks

were not

available to

measure time? 8.

After you have interviewed a variety of people, try to assess the

extent to which the arts of painting, music, sculpture, poetry, architecture

12.

would be

affected.

Computers "In

accordance with your instructions,

twins

in

I

have given

birth to

the enclosed envelope." (Reply to computerized form

If

computers disappeared tomorrow, how would your choice of subjects in school; your schedule of classes; the format of tests and exams; the

way your work

is

assessed;

your attendance record; the arrangement of the school day;

the use of credit cards; the banking system;

the insurance industry;

consumerism; the space program;

letter.)

this affect:

City as Classroom

142

Ralph Nader and

his statistics;

the Club of Rome; research and development; city planning;

futurology; high-rise buildings;

bureaucracy; political

campaigns;

professional sports;

investment practices; statisticians; polls;

the sciences; traffic;

operations;

airline

mail;

mail-order business;

goods

inventories;

books? 2.

Would we have would cancel

to cancel the future for lack of a computer, as

a hunting expedition for lack of

we

ammunition?

13. Airplanes

It

is

often said that, because of the airplane, ours

culture.

Suppose that

at dinnertime tonight

all

aircraft

is

a highly mobile

were permanently

grounded.

What aspects 1.

of our culture

Would the pace of everyday life be any slower or less frantic, air travel came to an end? Would our sense of time be affected? Would commercial food supplies change? What kinds of perishable foods if

do you get from 2.

would change?

great distances?

At the cultural and social

levels of effect,

what would become

world of symphony orchestras and opera and if

there

were no planes?

the disappearance of ing

How

air travel?

and to disaster relief? Is it true that the airplane has made one another?

into suburbs of

of the

and rock music, would various media be affected by What would happen to news reportballet

cities

Effects of the

Would 3.

there be any political or

Without great masses airplanes,

how

of

hampered?

How would

What would happen

How would

ceased?

143

effects?

people moving freely back and forth on

might the relations between

change? Would government 4.

economic

Media

activities

cities and countries and international relations be

military organization

be affected?

investment patterns,

to foreign

if

air

travel

and domestic diplomacy be

international

af-

fected by the disappearance of airplanes? 5.

How would

road and

rail

and ocean

travel

be affected by the discon-

tinuance of flight? 6.

What would happen

to business,

when

it

had to

rely

on slower forms

goods and mail and executives? Would management some big businessmen. Ask the Chamber of Commerce, too, for any information they can supply about the benefits of air traffic or the effects of dependence on it. of transport for

structures be affected? Ask

14. Satellites

Make a

list

satellites 1.

of the present services that

would be suspended,

if

all

were abandoned.

Find out

how

closely telegraph

and wire services are

now

related to

satellites. 2.

Do

the major networks of radio and television use

satellites regularly

or occasionally? 3.

Investigate the world of sports for satellite relationships.

4.

Do

satellites

entire planet

transform the globe is

itself

into a theater

simultaneously 'on stage'?

in

which the

15.

Money

How would your private and social disappearance of money? 1.

If

life

be affected by the

money were to disappear, what would happen to your sense What would happen to your eating habits? What sort

of

values?

'allowance'

How would

family

life

be affected,

2.

How would accommodation

3.

Is

money

if

money disappeared

be paid

for,

without money?

Without money, would Western society remain form, or would it return to primitive communalism?

If

money ceased 4.

?

necessary to maintain our present patterns of family

employment

of

would you expect to get from your parents?

to exist,

how would

in

life?

recognizable

our society's economic and

patterns be affected?

How would

and wages appropriate to work performed be

set

people distinguish between psychic and monetary

in-

salaries

without money? 5.

How would come

6.

If

7.

9.

relation to

work?

people did not receive

much 8.

in

How

money

for their services,

work regularly on behalf would rewards and debts be assessed? less willing to

would people be

of others?

Would 'economic growth' become a meaningless term, there were no money? Many of our institutions are based on prices and on evaluation of specialized services. Would specialization disappear, money disapif

if

peared?

How would 10.

11.

travel,

business and advertising be affected?

Without money, how could one buy a bus ticket or a plane ticket? Would walking be the most common way of getting about? Would large and small businesses be affected differently by the disappearance of money? What would happen to banks and banking? Would vending machines disappear? What would happen to advertising?

Effects of the

What effects would

Media

145

money have on

the disappearance of

entertainment? 12.

How would

entertainment and professional sports change?

Would

gambling be possible without money?

16.

Media

Now

that

Trials

you have studied the properties of the various media in their effects on our culture in Chapter Three, a position to put on trial the inventors or developers of specific

Chapter Two, and some of

you are

in

media, as symbolically responsible for the particular social effects of

products they invented or promoted.

To

set

up

a

trial,

you

will

need an

impartial judge, a court clerk, a

prosecuting attorney, a defense attorney, witnesses for the prosecution

and

for the defense, a jury and, of course, the defendant.

team should

try

A

separate

the inventor or promoter of each medium. Again

take the car as an example, and demonstrate

how

to

conduct a

trial

let's

of

its

inventor.

To

Henry Ford, you will first need to formulate a charge. Using the you have already collected, review your suppositions about what our culture would be like without cars, your information about how try

material

people got along before there were

cars,

and what phenomena the car

has pushed out of existence. Henry Ford can be charged with the destruction of insidiously

that the car destroyed or replaced,

all

changed the

quality of our society's

life.

and with having

Specifically,

he can

be charged with air pollution, noise pollution, increasing cardiac disturbances and general lack of fitness, and the destruction of a slower way of life,

communities and the counpromoting human dependence on mech-

closely-knit neighborhoods, self-sufficient

tryside.

He can be accused

of

anization, creating the assembly line,

and dividing

families through the

increased mobility of their members.

You can add

to these charges by

reviewing your

lists

of the effects of the car

in

our culture.

Once you have made your case against Ford, you can arrange The usual format of a trial by jury is as follows: (DThe clerk of the court reads the charge. (2)The lawyer for the prosecution presents

be

called,

each of

whom may

lawyer for the defense.

his case;

be cross-examined

a

trial.

witnesses

may

in

turn by the

146

City as Classroom

(3)The lawyer for the defense presents his case; again, witnesses

may be

called,

each of

whom may

be cross-examined by the

lawyer for the prosecution. (4)The lawyer for the defense presents

his

summation to the his summation

(5)The lawyer for the prosecution presents

jury.

to the

jury.

(6)The judge instructs the jury about the points of law involved. (7)The jury decides whether the defendant (8)lf

the defendant

found

is

guilty,

is

guilty, or

not guilty.

the judge pronounces a sentence.

For the trial of Henry Ford, you will need to appoint a judge, a court clerk and the defendant. Except for those who are ineligible because of a conflict of interests, the others in your class can act as jury. A team of

students can research and present both the case for the prosecution and the case for the defense, and arrange to invite witnesses to the

trial.

When you date for

have established the charges, selected the actors and set a the trial, the team handling the case for prosecution and for

defense should begin to plan the court presentations. This chiefly

in-

volves the organization of evidence and the selection of witnesses to

Henry Ford.

testify for or against It

would add

to the authenticity of the prosecution's case,

tatives of the car-manufacturing industry could is

impossible for

them

if

represen-

appear as witnesses.

to be physically present at your

trial,

If

it

you could

perhaps arrange to have a team interview them, and then ask a student to represent

them on the

stand. Sometimes, too, evidence can be given

by deposition and sworn statement. People tive

assembly

Labor union

lines

might have a

officials

who work

might give additional information about the griev-

ances of assembly-line workers. People engaged

opment could

on the automo-

say about their dissatisfactions.

lot to

the percentage cost of

testify to

in

research and devel-

new

design features,

changing models, or the percentage cost of keeping up with competitors'

products.

Sales

and public

relations

people could provide estimates of the per-

centage of the cost of the car that

age of the cost of the car

is

is

spent on advertising.

percentage is for promotion of a 'big ground? What importance or dignity does motorized pedestrian?

What

What

percent-

hardware {the figure), and what wheel' image which is the car's

for the actual

traffic

leave to the

implications for the prosecution's case have the an-

swers to these questions?

The

service enterprises

which depend on the car might provide wit-

nesses: spare-parts dealers, used-car dealers, garage owners, gas-station

operators therefore,

depend on the car and contribute to its ground. They if Ford is condemned, be guilty by association.

could,

Media

Effects of the

Your

local police

could provide

all

147

kinds of evidence for prosecution:

the effect of the car on young people, on old people, on vacationers, on

on ego-trippers: the car's relation to theft rings, accidents and deaths, the backlog of cases in these problems would demonstrate that the car can

drunk or drugged crime

parking

in

the courts.

drivers,

lots, traffic

All of

magnify enormously humanity's potential Doctors could

testify to

chiatrists or social

the

effects

and

evil.

on health. Psy-

workers could provide evidence that the car can help

to divide families by providing extensive

Town

for violence

car's destructive effects

and casual

mobility.

planners and ecologists could point out the car's unpleasant

on

crisis in its

cities

and countryside, and

its

intensification of the energy

constant rapacity for oil-based products. The Department of

Highways could tell you how much it costs each taxpayer each day to build and maintain roads. The Department of Transport could tell you about the logjam of work in their organization because of the great

number of cars. The defense lawyer relations

will find a

case almost ready-made, as

departments of the big automobile companies and

all

all

public

advertise-

ments continually stress the positive contributions of cars to our society. The defense can also, of course, call users of the car to the witness stand to point out all the good things the car does: it allows family visits to relatives, makes shopping and errands easier, provides transportation to and from school and work; it makes weekend vacations possible; it provides a wider choice of residence; it gives privacy; it provides emergency protection and services. Witnesses from the car-manufacturing industry can also point out the number of jobs created by the auto industry and its contribution to the Cross National Product.

The basic argument for the defense of the car, as for all other media you may put on trial, is that the car is neither good nor bad in itself: it is only people's use of the car that can be called 'good' or 'bad'.

4

The City as Classroom 1

What you

.

already

know about your

society

Today's societies encompass an immense amount of information. Most of this information has to be acquired by

all

the inhabitants of a particular

society so that they can survive there.

Your society exists in a man-made environment, a huge warehouse of information, a vast resource to be mined free

of

charge. If you take time to think about your society's man-made environment, you will probably find that you already know a great deal about it, not because you have studied it in school, but just because you have lived in it.

What have you services 1

.

Here

already learned from your society about

its

and symbols? is

a

list

every day.

of

some

of the things that

What do you

already

you encounter

know about

in

your society

the language'

of:

• communication networks of radio and television; (How do you distinguish nical

between programs and commercials?

How many

tech-

broadcasting terms do you know?)

• street signs and

traffic signs

and

signals;

• transportation systems, their routes, fares; technical terms relating to cars, trains, subways, buses, trucks, airplanes;

• functions of buildings? (How do you distinguish, without printed signs, a hospital, a school, a college,

church, a bank, a post office?)

an office building, a factory, a

150

City as Classroom

Make notes about how you acquired may be able to help you recall early which you learned many of these things.

ents

List

this information.

activities

what you already know about the language

and

Your

visits

of gesture

par-

through

and

dress. 2. List

the groups of people

appearance.

What

is it

that

whose work you can identify by their you about the work of each group?

tells

"You can be lots of different things when you grow up. you have to do is change your hat." (A small

3.

How

you able to separate

are

people?

Would

friendly

to a visitor's question.)

from

less friendly sorts of

man

you, for instance, ask street directions of a

rushing out of a bank with a gun

How would

boy replying

All

in his

hand?

you select people from

whom

to ask city directions

during the daytime and at night?

How do in

4.

you know

whom

to ask for help

when you

are shopping

a store?

What would be a good way to find out where to buy a bike? Would you consult friends or shopkeepers or the Consumer's Report? What other kinds of information do you need to know in order to survive a day?

5.

Select three color advertisements from different magazines.

sure that each ad includes a picture of

one or more persons. Write a

biographical sketch of three of the people tells

you about each person's

Make

role in life?

in

the ads.

What

is it

that

Updating your knowledge outside the classroom: continuing education 2.

To many young people updating means keeping 1 0',

or the ratings of movies, records

Top

'made'? Look up the history of a rock star or a

1.

Are

movie

star.

2.

What

kinds of moral instruction

stars 'born' or

track of the

and tapes.

do you

receive from listening to

popular music?

Read the last section of Plato's Republic in which he says that a change in musical rhythms can cause a revolution. Can you make a case for Plato's argument? Does 'rock education' educate the 'whole person' of its listeners, or does it educate only special aspects for special purposes?

To some extent the public updates

itself

by means of magazines

and newspapers. 3.

newspaper to find the 'Top 10' stories covered every day for a month or two. How would you expect to discover the 'Top 10' among maga-

Check your

local

zines? 4.

5.

Read the story about Patti Hearst in Rolling Stone (October 25, 1975). It shows on a big scale a form of brainwashing which is widespread on a much smaller scale. As we saw in Chapter Two, you can cover up the last frame of a 'funny' cartoon strip and discover the grievance that forms the ground for the punchlines {figure). Using this method, go through the comics in today's paper and list the social grievances you find.

Popular entertainment usually reflects the interests of large groups of people and is a good resource for keeping in touch with popular concerns. 6.

What do you

about your society from action

learn

pictures,

from

soap operas and from situation comedies? 7.

Investigate horror movies as creative responses to the sick society

which

we

live.

these movies

What

make

features of the hidden

visible?

ground of our

society

in

do

City as Classroom

152

8.

Are the young more discriminating than adults? their

ETV

own

Do

when watching TV programs

the young constantly test what they watch against

experience?

as educational?

Do

List

do

adults

Do

this?

adults consider only

the kinds of programs different groups of

people consider educational.

Examine the way the entertainment business has made the public aware of all sorts of consumer preferences and activities. 9.

Advertising agencies handle promotion for the entertainment busi-

an agency and

ness. Arrange to visit

prepare the public for

some

10. Try to get

new

hits in

out what

try to find

entertainment

information about audience research as a

How would

determining the market potential of the public.

done

to

means

of

is

fields.

a record-

company go about arranging for a song that nobody had ever become a 'smash hit'? What is the function of the lie detector in discovering audience ing

heard before to 11.

responses to

Top

10' recordings?

12. Try to discover parallels

between the 'Top

10'

in

music, novels,

movies and clothing fashions.

You

remember

will

that the movie, "The Great Gatsby,"

a revival of the fashions of the 1920s. Find

promoted

two more examples

of

such influence. 13.

Review some

two

years

in

of the

changes

comics, sports,

in

your

TV and

own

preferences over the past

Have other members

music.

your class experienced the same changes should

this tell

One of the that

is

preferences?

of

What

you?

best ways to investigate the 'information warehouse'

your

business at 14.

in

city or its

To get an

town

is

to study a particular institution or

point of service.

some aspect of the law and how it works in your Manpower office or go to traffic-court heara case through: observe what the law means to

idea of

area, arrange to visit a

ings

and follow

people

who

use

it.

same method of investigation is useful money. If a company provides a valuable time, an investment in it will succeed. To

This

highly successful

on a continuing

for deciding

where

to Invest

service to the society of find a

to find a

basis

is

your

city or

company company

likely

its

to be

providing a

unique service.

some businesses company would offer the

15. Evaluate

in

town and decide which

best return for investment. Evaluate each

The City

as

Classroom

153

company on the basis of its real service to the community, its likelihood of continuing, and its relationship with its employees. Ask managers and employees about company relations.

A

way

similar

of investigating businesses

your information about business are

you

in?"

discover that is

more 16.

in

his

your area and of updating

in

to ask businessmen:

"What

replies that he's in the business of

go and see how people are using

bottles,

he

man

a

If

is

his glass bottles,

business extends into storage.

business

making

A man who

and

glass you'll

thinks that

the Venetian blind business, actually has a business that, viewed

broadly, extends into light control.

many businessmen in your area as possible the question we How many of them operate businesses that extend the fields they name? Did your survey turn up any gaps or beyond

Ask

as

have suggested.

missing areas of service

in

your community? Could you use

this

information to start a successful business?

Planned obsolescence is one commercial method of updating education in a consumer society. 17.

If

there

is

a

new

building nearing completion

architects, the contractors, the

company is

that holds the

designed to

lete.

last,

how

workmen,

in

your area, ask the

future tenants, and the

mortgage to estimate how long the building long it will stand and when it will be obso-

Does any group know for certain the answers to your quesCompare the projected age of this new building with the age

tions?

some well-known old buildings in your city. Ask the same questions about the hardware (machinery) and the

of

18.

software (information) of a computer system. Ask the manufacturer, the systems analyst, the programmers and the company-user of the

system. 19.

Compare

their answers.

find out how concerned What advantages does planned obsoWhat disadvantages does impose on the

Ask car-owners the same questions. Try to users are with obsolescence.

lescence offer the user?

it

user? 20.

What

can you learn about persons or institutions from what they throw away? Investigate the garbage cans in your school for a few

some garbagemen who have been on the force for a is it that in some countries there is no garbage? Ask an archaeologist the value of garbage-study as a way of learning days. Interview

long time.

Why

about a society.

.

154

City as Classroom

Another way to continue updating your education 'consumer-reporting' method. Keep a continuing

21

the

name

of

list

of

all

each service,

Begin by writing

down

the services jot

down

by the

is

your environment. Beside

in

the disservices

brings with

it

it.

the services and disservices provided by each

of the following:

insurance

banks,

clothing stores,

companies, habitable

mining companies, grocery

stores,

schools, cars,

buses,

buildings,

planes,

roads, airports, garbage collection, the legal system, fuels, pliances, television,

home

ap-

phones, records, radio, telegraph, magazines,

books, newspapers, professional entertainment, professional sports,

Muzak, postal

services, advertising, the

armed

forces, international

trade.

The jet plane has created a new pattern

of 'learning-by-

conference'.

Conferences bring together the representatives of businesses and professions from every part of the world.

come from

The members

of the conferences

educate one another

in the problems and the progress of their fields of interest. 22. Consider the new world of business conferences and conventions as a program for educating personnel about the changes taking place in

their various regions to

What kinds of public conferences are held in your What areas of education might you experience by

their operations.

town

or city?

attending these conferences?

A study as

958 showed that

946 businesses were employees the public was then spending on schools and colleges. published

spending about

in 1

five times as

in 1

much money

to educate

some figures for current ratios in educational spending. You might choose to investigate the educational programs of IBM,

23. Try to find

General Motors, a large

life

insurance

company

or any other large

company.

What

sort of training

do these companies provide

as an

everyday

part of their procedure?

heads of programs for in-service training in industrial management about their priorities in their own programs. How well prepared do they consider the graduates of our present systems of education? Ask members of a graduating class of two to five years ago about their satisfactions and dissatisfactions with what they learned in

24. Talk to

25.

The City

how

school. Find out

lum to

their

new

would they

its

Do

they think that education has any

application to jobs and careers?

to see

like

made

in

sit in

on a few

What changes

education?

26. Arrange to talk with directors of teacher-training

you may

155

they are able to relate their school curricu-

far

occupations.

value apart from

Classroom

as

programs and ask

if

Compare these programs with one

classes.

described at Antioch Law School, Washington, D.C., where law stulive in the homes of inner-city families for a weeks before attending regular classes. This apthe law students is intended to help them acquire a

dents are required to period of several prenticeship for

firsthand acquaintance with the

problems of

what their clients know about the each community. learn

their clients,

27. Using an 'ideal' teacher as an example, ask yourself

and characteristics

fit

him or her

acquired at Teachers' College?

and to

existing legal structure

for teaching.

Draw up

a

Were

what

in

qualities

these learned or

program

for an

ideal

Teachers' College that would produce such ideal instructors.

Have students

3.

a part

in

producing

ideal teachers?

know your culture

Getting to

through maps and exhibits

Making maps and exhibits is another interesting way to study your own culture. Through your own creative work you can discover whole new areas in your city or town. 1. Start

by making an ordinary geographical

the topography,

if

map

of your

town; include

you wish.

Murray Schafer, the Canadian composer, constantly studies 'soundscapes' as a way of understanding the dynamics of particular cities. He sees 'acoustic engineering' as one of the important studies of the future. You can learn a great deal about using sound to study environments from Schafer's books, The New Soundscape. (See p. 29.) R.

2.

Using tape recorders, tape the usual sounds of each distinct area

in

city or town and then make a 'sound map' of your town. Ask each team to volunteer to make one or more of these maps vour city or town:

of

your 3.

a mineral

map;

156

City as Classroom

an animal map;

map;

a population density a

map showing

current crime rates

in

each area of your town or

city;

map showing all factories and office buildings; map showing major shopping areas; map to show recreational facilities; political map indicating the parties represented in Federal

an industrial a a a

each

Provincial Parliament in

a

map

of

or

riding;

the religious buildings;

all

a linguistic map. Finally,

when you have made

spread them

all

out

in

front of

a

number

you and see

if

of the

maps suggested,

any interesting patterns

emerge.

''Museum method'

another interesting approach to the study of

offers

your culture. Everyone has been to a

museum and

seen an Innuit or an

Indian or a pioneer exhibit.

Could you make a museum exhibit

town

or city? Try

Make two museum-style

4.

another of the Grade

What A

criteria did

time capsule

is

a

way of life

in

your

own

1

2

exhibits,

way

you use

of

in

one

of the

Grade 9 way

life,

and

choosing pieces for each exhibit?

box containing enough evidence and

some

of

life.

artifacts

from a

one thousand years in the future, could from examining the contents of the capsule what that civilization was

civilization so that tell

for the

it.

stranger,

like.

5.

Make up

a time capsule of our present North American

way

of

life,

so that someone, one thousand years from now, could infer what

our culture must have been

more than ten items

in

like.

There are only two

rules:

do not put

the capsule; do not include any written or

you have trouble deciding what to include you are shipwrecked alone on a desert and write down the ten things you would miss most. printed material.

If

capsule, pretend that

in

the

island

4.

Exploring your culture through

its

advertising

"...

propaganda forms culture and

in

a certain sense

is

culture."

Jacques

Ellul

Propaganda

Advertising

is

one

of the

most obvious features

constantly surrounded by so

much

of

it,

at breakfast to the fade-out of the last final

TV show

of the evening, that

But if we examine advertising as about our culture. 1.

we

from the

of our culture. label

we

commercial, as

take

its

figure,

it

tell

are

turn off the

bombardment

can

We

on the cereal box for granted.

us a great deal

Make as complete a list as are commonly advertised.

Next, describe the picture of our culture

that these ads present.

your description an accurate picture of

possible of

Is

all

the different products that

North American culture? 2.

Look up 'cargo

an encyclopedia.

cults' in

What

is

the relation of

cargo cults to advertising? 3.

What is the Compare the

total

annual expenditure for advertising

figure with

some other

figures: the

in

Canada?

government's ex-

penditure for housing, for defence, for welfare or for scientific search.

If

you can

place of advertising dollars

One of the common intended to 4.

sell

in

the national economy.

assumptions about ads

is

that they are

products.

This assumption

is

up a sample copy

easily tested. Pick

couple of large-circulation magazines

like

which

is

(1)

each of a

first fifty

ads (includ-

designed to promote newsstand sales and

therefore functions as an ad) and sort

approach:

of

Maclean's or Chatelaine or

Cosmopolitan. Tear out of each magazine the ing the cover

their

re-

an economist, ask him or her to discuss the

find

them

into piles according to

a pile for those ads that actually

particular product; (2) a pile for those ads that

the reader about the availability of a product;

tell

seem (3)

you to buy a

just to

another

inform pile for

those that seem to be promoting a service rather than a product

("We

service

pile for

what we

sell."

ads that promote a

"Let your fingers

way

of

life

do the

walking");

(4)

a

or kind of society ("You've

158

City as Classroom

come and

a long way, baby!" "Today's

(5)

Do you need

Camera"). the

to

make any other

pile of overt, clear directions to

does

woman knows what she wants"); ("Anatomy

a pile for those ads that educate or teach

contain?

this pile

In

actually SELL products?

If

BUY.

of a

Now, reexamine

piles?

What percentage

of the ads

other words, what percentage of the ads

you examine magazines from the

forties,

before the television age, you might find a very different sort of pattern and set of percentages.

One of the other common appeal

A

is

assumptions about ads

is

that their

directed at everybody.

conversation with a staff-member of a large advertising agency

teach you that every ad

is

aimed

at a specific audience.

You might

very interesting to look at an agency's demographic data. things, an advertiser

is

concerned about the effect an ad

will

will

find

it

Above

all

have on

its

'audience'! Therefore the advertiser spends a great deal of time discovering the characteristics of the ad's audience, before doing anything else.

For this reason, the

first

question to ask

the audience being addressed 5.

To answer in

in this

question, start by

this

front of you.

colors soft

analyzing an ad

is,

"Who

listing

is

the characteristics of the ad

the ad simple, complex, romantic, logical?

Is

designed for snob-appeal, for a its

when

ad?"

'hard-sell' or 'soft-sell'

Was

it

approach? Are

and subdued or loud and bright? Is its tone quiet and and blatant? Has the ad a lot of text to be read or Is it meant to appeal to the audience's emotions or its

insinuating or brash

only a

little?

intellect?

Does

try to create fear, pride, sex-interest,

it

Ask yourself any other suitable questions. Now, with the ad and your list in front of you, ask

competitive

feelings? 6.

the target of

this ad,

supposed to be elite or

what kind

of reader

I

literate or illiterate; alert or

common;

yourself, "If

am supposed

to be?

I

am

Am

I

asleep at the switch

serious or frivolous; up-to-date or old-fashioned

sophisticated or naive; adventurous or cautious; male or female old or young; rich, comfortably off, or poor; aggressive or passive

amoral, moral, or immoral; a leader or a follower; an individual or a

member is

of a group?

the ad appealing?

me

to myself?

Is it

critical faculties?

purpose?"

To what Is

aims, needs, desires, or values of

the ad meant to

intended to make

Is

the ad ruined,

if

sell

me

me pamper myself, or to am alert and aware of I

mine

something, or to stir its

sell

my real

The City 7.

What

aspects of the ad or the situation

What

notice as figure?

ground? For help with

aspects

am

presents

it

Classroom

1

59

am supposed

to

as

I

not supposed to notice as

I

question, consult W.B. Key's Media Sex-

this

ploitation. (See p. 29.)

Add your own will

have a

doing, that

To

is,

when you have answered them

perception of the audience for

You should

intended.

8.

questions, and

realistic

also

the effect

it is

all,

you

the ad

was

be able to determine what the ad producing on

its

really

is

'audience'.

more general understanding

arrive at a

whom

how

of

ads work and the

kinds of audiences at which ads are aimed, have several teams of

students select an ad from each of the piles you sorted out

Exer-

in

you have access to videotape equipment, and arrange permissions, you can also analyze TV ads. As you discovered through your analysis of magazine ads, the advertiser knows that he must correctly identify the audience to whom the ad is speaking, if it is to be fully effective. It is also very important for the cise 4.

Analyze these ads.

advertiser to

make

sure that the 'speaker' of the ad establishes rap-

port with the audience.

may

or

may

Who •

Is

To discover the

not be pictured

the speaker

is

If

in this

in

identity of the 'speaker'

who

the ad, ask yourselves:

ad?

the speaker old or young, attractive or unattractive, 'working'

or just 'relating'?

• Does the speaker present himself or

someone •

Is

the speaker's face beautiful or

script, earnest,

•

Is

•

Is

•

Is

herself, or

impersonate

else?

handsome?

Is

it

ugly,

nonde-

approving, pained, excited, thoughtful?

the speaker standing up or sitting

down?

he or she wearing ordinary clothes or a special costume? the speaker's voice high-pitched and squeaky, or low and

sexy?

Is it

confidential or exuberant or raspy?

• Does the speaker shout or whisper? • Has the speaker an accent? •

How

What

kind?

does the speaker handle rhythms? Are the words evenly

spaced?

Is

their

tempo plodding?

• Does the speaker speak quickly or slowly? Are the words ing,

jumpy

What does •

Is

or excited?

this

Is

the tone

lilting,

in

halt-

melodic, hypnotic?

speaker think or pretend that he or she

the speaker whispering persuasively

talking across a

•

Is

your ear?

is

Is

doing?

he or she

counter or walking beside you?

the speaker patting you on the back or on the head?

speaker trying to soothe you or to rouse you?

Is

the

City as Classroom

160

•

Is

the speaker shaking your hand or picking your pocket?

What

feelings

does the speaker show about the product or items

the ad?

in

• Does the speaker seem deceitful, enthusiastic, bored, brash,

detached, involved, humorous, angry, seductive?

What

attitude does the speaker

show toward

the audience?

• Does the speaker use a tone which suggests that you are wise, intelligent, alert, passive, thoughtful, critical,

educated, unedu-

cated, stupid or mindless?

• Does the speaker's tone suggest that he or she thinks himself or herself superior, inferior or equal to you?

• Does the speaker's tone suggest that he or she thinks you are docile or easily led? If

you put together

all

the answers to these questions,

what

very easy for you to determine

effect an ad has

should be

it

on

its

'audi-

ence'.

TV ads you can become aware of stereotypes, such image of the North American homemaker, in most

By analysing as the

advertising. 9.

A

quick

tape

all

way

to discover this image

is

by getting permission to video-

the ads from an afternoon soap opera. Next, get permission

to tape an episode from a prime-time police or detective series. Splice the soap opera ads into the ad slots

show with

gram. Play back the prime-time

ads clash with the show? Are the sillier

women

by contrast with the 'tough guys'

in

in

the in

the prime-time pro-

new

The clue

becomes an it

found

in

Do

the

of the particular

Andy Warhol's famous mosaic

where, by mere The old adage, "You

use well-known brands," as

is

use of numbers, the

tins

artform.

it.

moves toward archetypal imagery.

to archetype

Campbell's soup

in

the detective series? Al-

most all TV ads are aimed at a stereotyped audience shows with which they appear. Ideally, advertising

ads

the commercials even

is

another

way

feel better satisfied

soup

of tin

when you

of saying that by repetition and,

were, by incantation, the user feels a huge access of power and

The user of an object that exists in great numbers puts on the power and energy of that object, whether it is a motor car, a pair of jeans, or a tin of Coke. The mere repetitive advertising of the McDonald's hamburger transforms it into an 'archetype', just as the cowboy costume worn by children and hippies transforms them into mythical people.

energy.

The City 10.

161

other examples can you find of much-repeated images formed new 'archetypes' for our world? Make a list of all

the examples that you can think

If

Classroom

How many that have

11.

as

of.

When

you wear your jeans, are you a walking advertisement? What other things do you advertise without realizing it?

you compare North American ads with ads for the same in foreign magazines, you will very quickly begin to note

product

cultural differences. 1 2.

Collect

some magazines published on other

continents and compare

ads for several kinds of products with ads for similar products

North American magazines.

you

What

in

clues to cultural differences can

find?

By comparing a contemporary ad with an ad for the same product used twenty years ago or fifty years ago, you will discover a great deal about changes in our culture and corresponding changes in its people.

Number ago. What

13. Try an experiment similar to

12,

if

you can

find ads

pub-

twenty or fifty years clues to cultural changes can you find by comparing these ads with contemporary ads for the lished

same

5.

or similar products?

Learning about your

own

culture through others

Practices

in

other cultures can reveal

some

basic facts about your

own. In

Japan, for instance, furniture

ing to

its

furniture

function and the is

is

placed

mood

in

the middle of a

constantly being rearranged, as the Japanese change their

household environment

for

every occasion and mood.

North Americans, on the other hand, are ture around the outside of a

middle

room accord-

of the householder. Thus, Japanese

for people;

likely

to place

all

their furni-

room and leave an empty space

and they change

their furniture

in

the

arrangements compar-

162

City as Classroom

atively rarely. North Americans,

it

seems, understand space as a box

which people are contained, rather than as a

plastic

in

element which

people make.

Language space.

says,

we

In English,

find our

way home;

"The house

speaking person

in

am

lost,"

we

if

are out

in

the wilds and can't

a similar situation, an Innuit (Inland Eskimo) hunter

An

lost."

lost,

Innuit can never himself

be

lost:

he

is

the Japanese, he 'makes' space. But an English-

like

is

"I

inside the container of space.

you can about your own culture by comparing other cultures under these headings:

Find out five

say,

is

always the center;

1.

North American concept of

peculiarities also point to this

all

it

with

cooking;

Christmas celebrations and customs; family structures;

male-female relationships; clothing; furniture;

architecture; sports, pastimes; arts;

language of gesture; idioms. Consider, for example:

English:

("I know it like my fingers and palm.) "Znam to jak sve stare boty." CI know it like my old boots.") "I know it like the back of my hand."

French:

"Je le sais

German:

"Ich

Chinese:

Czechoslovakian:

>a ^9

au fond."

,^»

kenne es wie meine eigene Hosentasche."

"3"

Other languages can give fascinating insights into other cultures, and provide a wealth of material to help you learn more about your own culture. 2.

Make say

a

make

a

you can say in another language that you can't Ask students who speak another language fluently to

of things

list

in English.

of English expressions

list

which have no equivalent

language, so that the class can compare notes.

an

equivalent

English

'simpatico'? in

the

of

the idea of

French

'soul', in

in

that

there, for instance,

'sympathique',

or

Spanish

the term 'soul-music', expressible

other languages? E.T. Hall

in

Is

Is

has written

two

fascinating books,

which should help you

exploring these questions: The Silent Language and The Hidden

Dimension. (See

p. 28.)

The City

own

Another way to discover your

culture

as

Classroom

163

to contrast sound

is

patterns. 3.

Study a painting from three different periods of your Write

down

the sounds for which you see evidence

Divide these into three categories:

sounds;

(2)

dominance

human sounds; one kind

of

express your findings

Do

same

this

in

of

(3)

sounds

(1)

in

in

culture.

nature and animal

in

technological sounds.

sound

own

each painting.

Is

there a pre-

each period of painting? Try to

percentages.

exercise using a

exercise using paintings of the

poem from each

same

period. Try the

period, but from five different

cultures.

What can you

about your

learn

own environment

Tourism provides continuing education 4.

List

the ways

for

many

in this

way?

people.

which the tourist industry has influenced your ideas and cultures. many foreign-language newspapers are circulated in your city? in

of other countries 5.

How How many

countries can you

live in

without leaving your

own

city?

Try making up guidebooks to introduce people to the various ethnic

own

experiences available to them within their restaurants, clubs, churches, schools, stores,

city.

Include

all

the

where the language and

customs of each culture are practiced.

For Further Study: Clatzer, Robert.

New

The

Advertising:

Twenty-One Successful Cam-

paigns from Schweppes to the Sierra Club. Press,

The

New

York: The Citadel

1970.

satisfactions

in

the

new

ads are found

in

the ads, not

in

the

products. "Love Thy Label as Thyself." Jacobs, Jane. Death

and

Life of

Creat American

New

Cities.

York:

Vintage Books, 1961.

A

study of the structure of

found

in

human community which

is

now

to be

the slum.

Key, Wilson

B.

Subliminal Seduction:

Ad

Media's Manipulation of a

Not So Innocent America. Englewood

Cliffs,

N.J.:

Prentice-Hall,

1973. (Note:

use hardback edition only, as 'imbeds' cannot be seen

clearly in the softcover edition.)

A

study of the role of the hidden ground

in

persuasive sales.

164

City as Classroom

Schafer, Murray.

Milburn

&

Co.

The Book of Noise. Wellington, Ltd.,

New

Zealand:

1970. Distributed by Berandol Music

Ltd.,

Price,

11

St.

Joseph Street, Toronto, Ontario.

A

study of sound pollution

in

the

modern

city

and

how we

might

defend ourselves.

Schumacher,

E.F.

Small

Is

Beautiful:

[A

Study

of]

Economics As

If

People Mattered. London: Abacus, 1974; Harper & Row, 1975.

The speed-up

in

the electronic world

desire for smallness

and human

scale.

is

paradoxically restoring the

5

How to Relate to Your 1

.

The

Own Time

How to remain aware title

of the previous chapter,

"The City as Classroom," can be

in-

verted to read "The Classroom as City." Since the advent of electronic

media such available

in

as computers,

the classroom.

enormous amounts

We

of information are

have already noted that

in

an age

now when

answers are being discovered outside the classroom, questions belong inside the classroom; similarly,

when

ring outside the classroom, the

'pattern recognition' can All

through

tures of our

this

go on

an 'information explosion'

inside the classroom.

contemporary

culture. Patterns

helplessness and frustration that

—

I

want

occur-

book, you have been studying the patterns and struc-

and structures 'make sense'

of things. Understanding structures enables us

world

is

study of structures of information or

makes

us

all

to avoid that feeling of

want to

shout, "Stop the

to get off!"

Now that you have come to the last chapter in this book, we are going to mention a few ways of maintaining your awareness of the changing patterns in your society. The

strategies

notice

new

which

patterns

we in

are going to point out should also help

your society very quickly.

you to

2.

Slang

One strategy for around you All

is

remaining aware of the changing patterns in current speech.

to notice the slang used

language, verbal or nonverbal,

is

a

way

tween people and people, people and

of creating relationships be-

things, or things

and

things.

may be considered

a man-made technology. A of an Englishman, Canadian might say for example, "I like the way he nods. He really communicates agreement!" But how would the same

Therefore language

who jerks his head back to indicate assent? By we will learn something about its users, about the users of any other technology we

Canadian react to an Arab

studying language technology

we would

just as

learn

studied.

There seems, indeed, to be a figure/ground 'Law of the Situation'

human artifacts and human language: (DMan devises a new artifact or new word, in order some action or to expand awareness. (2)Every new word or artifact that is invented removes

governing

to

enhance

older forms

from general use. (3)Every

new

invention retrieves forms that were pushed out

much

earlier.

(4)Every innovation,

tends to

'flip'

when pushed

to the limit of

its

acceptance,

or convert into an opposite form.

These four characteristics of human

artifacts

and language are not con-

nected or sequential, but simultaneous and coexistent. By using slang as examples, you can easily study the shaping of situain changing situations. The once had the meaning of 'flashy clothing'. A 'slangingmatch' is slang for a rapid exchange of strong expressions. Slang can be considered a sort of 'no-man's land' between situations. Slang sometimes seems to be 'where it's at', or 'where the action is'. Slang develops in areas of experience that are changing rapidly, and

tions

by words, and the invention of words

word

'slang' itself

can therefore seem very dramatic and highly charged with tension. Per-

haps

this

is

the reason that slang

arrived immigrants.

George

is

the

first

language learned by newly

Steiner, in his essay, "Silence

notes that just before Hitler achieved absolute power

German language was breaking down into a transformation of the whole language into tainty

and violence that marked the

social

slang.

in

and the Poet," Germany, the

He suggests

that the

slang reflected the uncer-

and

political situation.

How

to Relate to Your

Own Time

167

Slang can be a device for exploring areas of uncertainty where people

new

are experiencing

why some

slang

is

perceptions and

so transient.

If

new

language

awareness. Ask yourselves

is

an attempt to relate unfa-

miliar situations to familiar ones, the situations slang treats

to be 1.

in

would seem

a process of change.

Check

this

by asking yourselves whether the 'Top 10' represent a which relates a variety of changing situations to

kind of musical slang familiar ones.

ways

Ask yourselves whether changes

of relating the 'self with

whom

you are

in

clothing styles are

familiar to

new

atti-

tudes, feelings and situations.

Another way in which whole groups of attitudes are managed verbally is by means of what has been called 'the word of the year'. 2.

Collect expressions from different languages which

something completely: 3.

for

example,

"I

know

it

mean knowing What can

inside out."

you find out about these cultures from these expressions? Look for evidence of dramatic shock and intensity in the phrasing and sounds of popular slang and idiom. Start with a word like 'pizzazz'.

4.

Make

a

list

of the brand

names which have become commonplace

words, such as 'Kleenex' and 'Scotch tape'. Have they any strong poetic or dramatic force? 5.

6.

Review popular phrases, old and new, for well-placed contrasts of sound in vowels and consonants. Why is 'funky' still in, and 'groovy' out? Note the position of the strong beat or stress in these phrases. Does it come at the beginning of the phrase or later? Make a list of popular phrases in current use. Do they tend to have

some touch

of exaggeration

about them?

If

so, discuss

the effect of

each expression. 7.

Consider the overworked remark, here." Suggest

8. Let's

see

how

some

"It's

an honor and a privilege to be

possible variations of this expression.

the 'Law of the Situation' (stated on

elucidate a current question

like,

p.

166) might

"What's going down?" Ask your-

selves:

•

What does

this

new

expression enhance, increase, or accelerate?

is an enhanced The reference goes beyond the obvious association with food, to dress and entertain-

In

the question, "What's going down?", there

awareness of what ment.

is

passively accepted.

.

168

City as Classroom

•

What

older expression does this question remove? removes the question, "What's coming off?" and the radical situation implied in that phrase. Note that the question, "What's coming off?" which was current in the sixties is not passive, but It

"What are we doing?" What does the new phrase retrieve? Do you think that retrieves the consumerism

asks,

•

it

was

'establishment' which

• By the time you see

rejected

this in print,

in

of the

fifties'

the sixties?

has the 'passive' tone of "What's

going down?" already converted to

its

opposite, active tone?

Have you noticed how key expressions can be used to manipulate the outlook and attitude of a large group of people? 9.

How do

the disk jockey and the recording industry use slang to

manipulate an audience? Does

this

question set up a 'chicken-and-

egg' problem? 10.

How do

words not only describe styles, but also manipulate large and so illustrate the power of language? Examine the current words 'foxy' and 'funky', for example, to see how they serve as ways of directing your choice of clothing. Examine the new meanings a word like 'eh' acquires in every context or every use. Does this apply to all expressions? Can you explain how a word like 'waste', after long use in its literal sense, can suddenly leap into slang use and change its meaning to 'kill'? Is "Let's waste him" the successor to "Let's rub him out"? The thirties' expression, "Tough beans!" might surface again at any

numbers

1 1

12.

of people,

time through revivals of old movies. described by

Do you 1 3.

In

this

consider that slang

the

sixties,

What

sort of experience

is

an expression

of "What's going on?"

In

sophisticated language? like,

"What's coming off?" took the place

the seventies, the equivalent expression

"What's going down?" Try to outline the subtle

and attitude apparent 14.

is

phrase?

in

shifts of

is,

experience

such changes.

Compare American and Canadian

slang,

slang to discover different attitudes latent

and Canadian and in

British

the figures of the actual

words. 15. Taking various

examples of the 'word of the

year'

from your

own

group, discuss the hidden ground or situation that provides a context for

each of these words or phrases.

How Note how changes

in

to Relate to Your

Own

Time

1

69

the hidden ground bring about the quick

disappearance of these words or phrases. 16. Find

examples of the persistence of words and phrases because

situation or ground.

ten

What

while the

years,

has kept the

word

'decent'

of a

word 'cool' in use for the was a favorite for only

last

six

months? 1 7.

18.

What are some of the best literary sources for current slang? In what ways has Rolling Stone become an authority on current slang? Make

a

of traditional popular sayings with their equivalents

list

current slang. Start with

equivalent

The study

"A

current slang,

in

rolling

stone gathers no moss" and

"Go with

the flow."

of recent slang can be used as a strategy for

new

discovering

situations

and problems

in

your world.

19. Examine expressions like 'hanging loose' or 'hanging

words

new

in its

like

'centered' or 'together' for indications of

feelings,

new

postures,

new ways

of

in

new

there', or

attitudes,

meeting the world and

its

people. 20. Collect slang associated with the car over the past thirty years. sider the car as figure in a

changing ground of

21. Trace the recent history of slang used

gangsters and crime sports

money movies ethnic groups

music the recording industry

comic

strips

novels television

shows

radio disk jockeys

current song

lyrics

in

Con-

social conversation.

relation to:

3.

Popular Culture

Another way of updating your awareness changes in popular culture.

is

to pay attention to

new 'hit' records or books in figure/ground terms, new and changing social situations {ground), before become obvious as figures.

By studying

it is

discover uations

Until recently

sit-

a function of the high arts of painting, music

make people more aware

poetry to

More

was

it

easy to

these

and

recently, students

critics

of the changing world

and around them.

have turned to the popular

sources of the same opportunity for growth as the serious

arts.

arts as

These

had functioned to update the public's attitudes and perceptions by shaking

them

free of traditional

concepts and by directing

new models and new

patterns. For example,

was

called 'multilocational

duced. At

first,

single point

it

from which

it

was intended

their attention to

1900 Cubism was introart', because there was no in

to be viewed. Picasso's painting,

example of the multiloca'The Woman in the Mirror," Picasso presented simultaneously the overt and the subliminal life of his subject. As with "Demoiselles d'Avignon," the viewer sees the way people would "Demoiselles d'Avignon" (1908), tional style.

A

little

later,

like to appear, as well as

is

a familiar

in

the

way

they actually do appear.

At the same time that these painters were beginning to show the outer and the inner

lives of their subjects in a single

image,

Max

Planck

presented quantum physics (1900). His theory replaced the concept of

connected matter with the concept of matter areas of energy.

In

the

tation oi Dreams. His

as a cluster of 'quanta', or

same year Sigmund Freud published The Interprepurpose was to bring our subconscious life to the

mind's surface

in

order to explain our conscious outlook and attitudes.

The ground

of

all

these innovations

was the new

electric service of the

telegraph which, by instant transmission of messages, closed the gaps

between

past, present

in a single

and future and presented

image, or under a single dateline

in

all

these phases of time

the newspapers.

Since the invention of radio and television, the simultaneous occur-

rence of events and their reporting has

We

become normal

experience.

be known and Tokyo at the same time. In this kind of world, have the serious arts any more to tell us than the popular arts of 'comics' and entertainment? take for granted that an event occurring

and 'experienced'

in

New

York and

Berlin

in

Beirut will

How

to Relate to Your

Own Time

171

The experience of "Jaws" and "The Towering Inferno" and "The Other Side of the Mountain" and "Love Story" seems to be updating our emotional lives in order to relate them to the changing situation in which we live. We are all threatened by hidden forces which seem likely to swallow us up. New governments in the world pose dangers, like hidden sharks in deep water. Representative government, operating on the surface, has been superseded in many places by hidden governments working through the secret service. The situation portrayed in "Jaws" matches very well the dependence on electronic information and secrecy of the new forms of government that have evolved. Some people may think that the experiences portrayed in "The Exorcist" or

"Jaws" or

range of

human

in

vampire movies are experiences outside the ordinary

events.

already been through entire lives.

radio

and

In

many

fact,

Our own nervous systems

television,

we have media have invaded our

they are reflections of what

times, as electronic

and they return

as

are

made over

to the service of

vampires to plague

us.

arises whether these experiences induce a new awareness or a catharsis which brings relief from old experience.

The question

This

is

a question

which faces boards of censors every day: should they

or should they not permit pornography

in its

most

fantastic forms, as a

possible relief from horrors already experienced? 1.

Study the patterns of selection their

ent grounds, or

Compare

is

there a shared

the 'Top 10' movies,

Are there shared grounds 2.

in

themes, rhythm and tempo.

among

the 'Top 10' records.

Do

the 'Top 10'

all

Compare

relate to differ-

ground 7 .

TV shows, books and news

stories.

these?

Try to discover the 'Top 10' jokes, and look for the hidden grievance or

ground which supports their popularity. The ground if you simply remove the figure of the punchline.

is

easy to

discover

4.

What good

is it

to be

aware

at Three" illustrates the new information available to children on TV and elsewhere. Whether by means of advertisements or pictures, many children know more about the world at the age of three than

"Grey

Methuselah did

at three

hundred, or even nine hundred, years of age.

.

City as Classroom

172

Modern medicine may suddenly discover the means

of arresting

the aging process.

what decisions you would make about education and careers, if your doctor could suddenly guarantee that you would remain approximately twenty-one years of age for fifty or one hundred years. How would this change your ideas about your education Try to imagine

1

and your career? Would you find it natural and desirable to plan a whole range of diverse activities and training programs for yourself? Would you plan to

become

a doctor, or an explorer, or a scientist, or an architect, or a

and to spend ten or twenty years in each of these professions? How would such an addition to your life span affect your ideas of marriage and family? Would you entertain the idea of many marriages and many children? What particular problems would an linguist,

increased

life

span pose?

At present, world events move,

in

a single year, through changes

that used to take decades.

change now takes place around the world in ten years than in any previous century. In the world where information transmitted by electric impulses which move at the speed of light,

More

social

ever took place is

individual

life is

also greatly accelerated so that,

in fact,

we

live several

few years. The world is full of people who have had many careers. If it were possible for you to have twenty different careers, would you feel the same as if you were confronted by a choice of thirty different kinds of ice cream? lifetimes in a relatively

The

field of electronics,

with

its

instant information,

seems

already to have created the possibility of pursuing several different careers in

one

The wide acceptance learning has 2.

become

a

lifetime.

of continuing education

way

of

Investigate the business world to see

change

seems to

indicate that

life.

how

often executives

now

their jobs.

Job mobility goes along with residential mobility. Early retirement permits

new

careers.

We

might return to the idea of the Renaissance

independent means

whom

man

of

wide spectrum of activities and careers was the ideal. The encyclopedic man, the all-round man of that period, might combine the careers of soldier, diplomat, scholar and scientist. for

a

How Note the new

to Relate to Your

on the job instead

interest in training

Own

Knowledge

4.

5.

first,

and edu-

way

of

life.

be needed in schools, when the entire world beknowing and learning? Imagine yourself in charge of an espionage team with the task of learning all about your own country, so that you can take over its government. What kinds of knowledge would you have to acquire? What evidence can you find that existing TV programs are commercial efforts to update the community about what's going on, and what its current problems are? Is our country big enough for everybody to find a rural hideaway and subsist by his or her own efforts? Could every one of us become a

What changes comes 3.

73

later.

our

is

1

of training for the

job: to create a successful careerist, get the right person

cate him or her

Time

a

will

ground

for

Robinson Crusoe? That's

one approach

to the 'future shock' problem. There's also the

approach which the Sherlock Holmes

book suggest. The famous detective was generally bored, except when he was engaged in stories

and

this

solving problems of crime. For this reason, he kept himself as active as

possible 6.

in

the work he had chosen.

Compare

the satisfactions that are to be found

cesses of learning with those to be found

in

in

the actual pro-

the state of acquired

knowledge. Ask yourselves: •

Is

it

more enjoyable

stance, than to

to

make

macrame

plant holder, for

in

patching your

own

jeans than

Is

it

repair

•

it

to

buy

bicycle-

shop?

Would you take

in

new ones?

more fun to make your own Christmas gifts than them? • Would you rather repair your bicycle than take it to a •

in-

buy one?

• Are there more satisfactions

buying

a

prefer to maintain your

own

motorcycle rather than to

to a garage for servicing?

Have the answers to these questions any connection with the revolt against consumerism? In his

book, The Canadian Establishment, Peter

situation of

wealthy people

who

Newman

describes the

get most of the satisfaction wealth

provides from making money, and not from having money.

City as Classroom

174

The people who have had the most satisfying careers in the age of have generally been quite ordinary. What happens to the wealthy and the great when they realize that their work and their wealth give them less satisfaction than they expected? electricity

The user gives meaning 7.

to the content of

Discuss the contention that those

any

who

situation.

are unprepared for wealth

can make only an impoverished response

to their possession of

it.

8. Discuss the learning situation as a preparation for satisfactions that

can never be obtained by the unprepared. 9.

Interview people who make a hobby or a career homes, antique furniture, or boats.

10. Interview friends

who make

their

own

of renovating old

clothes, or their

own

motor-

cycles.

You

will,

"Life

is

of course,

like

have to reach your

a trumpet

...

if

don't get anything out of

own

conclusions. But remember:

you don't put anythinig it."

into

it,

you

General Bibliography

General Bibliography Artscanada "The Issue of Video Art/' October 1973. 129 Adelaide Street West, Suite 400, Toronto, Ontario,

An

Canada

M5H

1R6.

magazine given over to then-current video

entire issue of the

art.

Atwood, Margaret. Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. Toronto: House of Anansi, 1972. Margaret Atwood shows the student how to discover a cultural ground through an examination of literature. Beckwith, John. "Gas!" Unpublished score for twenty speaking voices. (Copies can be ordered from Canadian Music Centre, 1263 Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario,

A

Canada.)

musical portrait of an automobile

trip

through a

modem

city.

The

vocal score can be performed even by a class of nonsingers.

New

York: Walker and

TV shows by

the author of The

The TV-Guided American.

Berger, Arthur A. Co., 1976.

A

guide and analysis for the top

Comic-Stripped American. Berton, Pierre. Hollywood's Canada: The Americanization of the National Image. Toronto: McClelland

The

title

says

One

it all.

and Stewart, 1975.

of the effects of film.

Samuel Johnson. Volume 1. (p. 396.) ToDent & Sons, Ltd., 1926. The Fifteenth Century Book: the Scribes, the Printers, the

Boswell, James. The Life of ronto: J.M. Buhler, Curt.

Decorators. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1960. Early in the

them

age of

print,

buyers of printed books frequently took

to the scriptorium to have

printed

book was

Capra, Frank. The

felt

them copied and

to be inferior

Name Above

The

illustrated.

The

many ways. An Autobiography. New

in

Title:

York: Macmillan, 1971.

A book about

the pioneer phase of film-making by one of the great

directors. Every

page loaded with

insights

and anecdotes that

re-

veal the patterns of the film's heyday. Carroll, Lewis. Alice's

Adventures

in

Wonderland and Through the

Looking-Glass. London: Macmillan;

1958; Pocket Papermacs, 1966.

New

York:

St.

Martin's Press,

178

City as Classroom

Consumer

monthly by Consumers Union of 256 Washington Street, Mount Vernon, N.Y.

Published

Reports.

United States

Inc.,

10050.

A magazine

that provides informed access to

some

of the tools of

our environment. Dantzig, Tobias. millan,

Number: The Language

New

of Science.

York:

Mac-

1959. Revised Edition, 1962.

Includes the amazing history of zero, which could not be invented in

the ground of the Western world.

Diamant, Lincoln. The

Anatomy

of

A

Television Commercial.

New

York: Hastings House, 1970.

A

unique account of the elaborate stages in the process of creating one short commercial for a Kodak camera. Television's Classic Commercials: The Colden Years

1948-1958. New As well

York: Hastings House, 1971.

as being an analysis of sixty-nine classic commercials, the

book includes a general history of American television advertising, and production techniques. Informative and fascinating. Doxiadis, Constantinos A. Architecture in Transition. London: Hutch-

inson and Co., 1963.

the art of

Ekistics,

human

settlements, studies the changing pattern

of transport as an effect on city scale. 'Eliot, T.S.

"Fragment of an Agon," read by

Eliot

on Harvard Vocarium

Records. P-1207. H.F.S. 3124. As recorded by

Room, Harvard College found

& Ellul,

in T.S. Eliot,

Library,

Eliot for

1947. The text of the

the Poetry

poem

can be

Collected Poems: 1909—1962. London: Faber

Faber, 1963.

Jacques. Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes.

New

York: A.A. Knopf, 1965 and Vintage Books, 1973.

Describes and deplores our technological society. culture Frazer, Sir

in

An

analysis of a

action.

James C. The Colden Bough. Toronto: Macmillan, 1960. B. Because Loved Him: The Life and Loves of Lillie

Cerson, Noel Langtry.

I

New

Cillett, Charlie.

York: William

Morrow &

The Sound of The

City:

Co., Inc., 1971.

The Rise of Rock

'N' Roll.

New

York: Dell Publishing Co., 1970; Laurel Edition, 1972.

An

exploration of the figure/ground relationship

and rock Hall,

'n' roll.

A

history of our language

Ross H. Food For Nought: The Decline

between the

and our

city

culture.

in Nutrition.

Hagerstown,

Maryland: Harper and Row, 1974.

A

study of the effects of modern food technology. Arguments

General Bibliography

179

against the food additive rackets are convincingly illustrated by

advertisements reproduced Haskell, Molly.

the book.

in

From Reverence

to Rape:

Women

The Treatment of

in

the Movies. Penguin Books, 1973.

How

movies have portrayed and betrayed women.

Joyce, James. Ulysses.

First

published

in Paris,

1922; reprinted

Pen-

in

guin Books, 1968.

The- Certy MacDowell passage edition.

The chapter

in

which

it is

is

on page 348 of the Penguin

included

is

a running

metaphor

of

clothing cliches used to present the idea of clothing as weaponry.

A

Kesterton, Wilfred H.

History of journalism

in

Canada. Toronto:

McClelland and Stewart, 1967.

The

story of the press's role

Knight, Arthur.

The

in

Liveliest Art.

establishing popular government.

New

York: Macmillan, 1957.

"Sound gave the banks and the investment houses their first real hold upon the motion picture industry" — typical of the fascinating information

in this

book.

and Thompson, Denys. Culture and Environment. London: Chattoand Windus, 1937.

Leavis, F.R.

The

training of critical awareness.

Austen, rior

Leavis,

in

The book assumes,

as did Jane

writing of her society, that stable rural values are supe-

to those of the suburban and metropolitan world.

Q.D. Fiction and The Reading Public. London: Chatto and

Windus, 1932.

A unique

study of the audience of

Leavitt, Hart

Day. The Writer's Eye.

fiction.

New

York and Toronto: Bantam

Pathfinder Edition, 1968.

Learning to write by playing with unusual figure/ground relationships. Excellent illustrations.

Day and Sohn, David A. Stop, Look, and Write. and Toronto: Bantam Pathfinder Edition, 1964. Same approach as The Writer's Eye but for a more junior

Leavitt, Hart

Lewis, Sinclair. Babbitt.

A

satire of

Madsen, millan,

R.P.

American

New

York: Harcourt, Brace

life in

the 'big

New

York

class.

& World, 1950.

city'.

The Impact of Films: The Living Image.

New

York:

Mac-

1973.

"The older the target audience, the more specialized becomes their interests and abilities" — filled with such interesting discoveries and anecdotes about the whole world of film. Mailer, Norman. Armies of the Night. New York: New American Library, 1968 and 1971. A personal account of a protest march and its relation to the media.

180

City as Classroom

McKowen, Mel

A

Clark and Sparke, William.

Englewood

Byars.

Cliffs, N.J.:

It's

Only

a Movie.

Prentice-Hall

Designed by

J 971.

'pop' approach to the study of the movies. Format of the

makes it fun to use "McLaren, Norman:

Any

of

in

book

a senior class.

Norman McLaren's

by the National Film

films distributed

Board of Canada.

An An

Interview With

Norman McLaren. 30

min.

B&W,

NFB.

interview with McLaren by Clyde Gilmour, the movie

critic.

McLaren discusses the various techniques he uses in making films and examples from his hand-painted films are used in the interview.

McLuhan, Marshall. "Inside on the Outside, or the Spaced-Out American." Reprinted from Journal of Communication Autumn, 1976,

Volume

26:4.

McLuhan, Marshall and as

Nevitt, Barrington.

Take Today: The Executive

Dropout. Toronto: Longman, Canada,

Ltd.,

1972.

McLuhan, Marshall and Watson, Wilfred. Cliche to Archetype.

New

York: Viking Press, 1970.

A

study of cliches

{figures)

into archetypes (grounds) **Miller, Allan. "Bolero."

Tele-Film.

26 min.

when pushed

which,

and vice

to extremes,

flip

versa.

1972. Released

in

Canada by

International

sd. col.

Zubin Mehta conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra a performance of Ravel's "Bolero."

The

rehearsal

in

and conversations

about music with Mehta and the musicians are cut into the film. Zane L. The Urbanization of Modern America: A Brief History.

Miller,

New

York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich,

Inc.,

1973.

American way of life, graphically presented. Murry, John Middleton. Problem of Style. London: Oxford paperback, No. 11,1960. "Style is a way of seeing and knowing the world." Newman, Peter. The Canadian Establishment. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975.

The evolution

An account •nicol, b.p.

of the

of the

absence of

Canadada. Toronto:

satisfactions in being wealthy.

Griffin

House, 1972.

IPS

1004.

Niven, David. The Moon's a Balloon. London: Coronet Books, 1971; Dell,

1973.

Hollywood seen through the eyes of an actor, who is irrepressibly entertaining and very conscious of the media. Packard, Vance. The Hidden Persuaders. New York: D. McKay Co., 1957.

General Bibliography

Many people

are enraged to discover that they have

nipulated by hidden factors

181

been ma-

the advertising situation. Packard

in

studies this kind of manipulation.

Peterson, Elmer. Tristan Tzara:

Dada &

Surrational Theorist.

New

York:

Rutgers University Press, 1971.

A

history of the founder of the

Dada and

its

Dada movement. An

attempt to make poetry a way of

people's awareness. Clears up a

lot of

exploration of life,

to update

misunderstandings about

Dada. Piaget, Jean. Structuralism.

The best study

London: Routledge, Kegan

Paul,

1971.

of figure/ground 'gestalt' analysis. Piaget covers

all

fields.

Max. The World of Silence. Trans. Stanley Godman. Chicago:

Picard,

H. Regnery, 1952.

Here silence

is

studied as the

ground

Pope, Alexander. "Essay on Criticism."

New

St.,

Pound,

for

all

British

sounds.

Book Center, 153E 78th

York: 1974.

Ezra.

ABC

of Reading.

New

New

York:

Directions Paperbook,

1960.

The

navigation

art of

in

literature written

by an "antenna of the

race."

Reed, Henry. "Naming of Parts," than Cape

One

Ltd.,

in

A Map

of Verona. London: Jona-

1946.

of the clearest

examples of the way a poet can make use of

shifting figure/ground relationships to

sharpen an audience's ex-

perience.

Reston, James. The Artillery of the Press.

New

York: Harper and Row,

1967.

The

role of the press in foreign policy ("a

known

government

vessel that leaks from the top"). Offers a

new

is

the only

slant

on

"fit

to print."

Richards, Ivor A. Practical Criticism.

New

York: Harcourt, Brace, 1952;

paperback edition, 1956.

The first exploration and the discovery of Sidran, Ben. Black Talk:

of the reading habits of highly literate people their

almost complete incompetence.

How

the Music of Black America Created a

Radical Alternative to the Values of Western Literary Tradition.

New A

York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,

1

971

study of the figure/ground relationship between black music and

American language and Skornia, Harry

J.

culture.

A

real resource.

Televsion and Society:

An

Inquest

& Agenda

for

Improvement. Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 1965.

A

discussion of the ethics of broadcasting, from the role of big

City as Classroom

182

business to broadcasting and international relations, and a proposal for

change.

Why. London: Constable, 1953. W. Classical Myth and Legend

Smith, C.W. The Reason

DeWitt

Starnes, in

and

T.

Talbert, Ernest

Renaissance Dictionaries. Chapel

lina Press,

The

first

Hill:

University of North Caro-

Greenwood Press Inc., 1973. were human interest encyclopedias until

1955, and Westport:

dictionaries

the

merely alphabetic dictionaries took over. The old dictionaries are

somewhat

like

the latest encyclopedic dictionaries of our

own

time. in Language and SiAtheneum, 1967; paperback edition, 1970. The essay notes the prevalence of slang in Germany on the eve of Hitler and the corresponding uncertainty of situations. "Thomas, Mario and Hart, Carole. "Free to be... You and Me." Free To Be Foundation, 1974. Released in Canada by McGraw-Hill Films. 44 min. sd. col. Made for television, this film combines animation and photography, mythology and documentary in a series of brilliant metaphors. Thompson, Denys. Reading and Discrimination. London: Chatto and

George. "Silence and the Poet" (1966)

Steiner,

lence.

New

York:

Windus, 1949; revised

edition, 1962.

Begins with Blake's observation,

"No man can embrace True

he has explored and cast out False

until

world around us

is

Art."

It

worth careful study and that

Art

assumes that the

we

should pay as

close attention to the structures of cities and buildings as to the structures of poetry

and painting.

We

must study both

figure

and

ground. Wells, H.G. The 1

971

.

Time Machine: An Invention. London: Heinemann,

(Obtainable through The Book Society of Canada, Agincourt,

Ontario.) Jr. Mediaeval Technology and Social Change. London: Oxford University Press, 1962. The amazing tale of the stirrup's effect in creating chivalry and the feudal system, the discovery of the horse collar and horsepower

White, Lynn,

and the creation

Whole

of the city.

Earth Catalogue.

Access to the tools of the planet as a resource.

Whorf, Benjamin Lee. Language, Thought and Reality: Selected Writings. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1956; paperback edition, 1964.

The

effect of language

in

shaping our awareness of our world.

General Reference

Yanes, Samuel and Holdorf, Cia. Big

183

Rock Candy Mountain. New

A Delta Special, published by Dell Pub. A whole earth catalogue of "resources ... for

York:

Co.

Inc., 1

971

our education."

*Yevtushenko, Yevgeni. The Voices of Yevtushenko and Voznesensky.

Monitor Records,

1

56

Fifth

Avenue,

New

York

1

0, N.Y.

MR

No.

113.

denotes recording denotes films

General Reference and encyclopedias of

Dictionaries

all

kinds will provide the student with

invaluable information about a culture's ideas of

human

Bartlett's Familiar

Quotations can be used to discover

tudes toward particular media, such as

ences to

by reviewing

bias.

cultural attiall

the refer-

light.

Another useful book E.

light,

and

artifacts

environments through the ages, as well as a culture's perceptual

Brussell.

Englewood

is

Dictionary of Quotable Definitions. Ed. Eugene

Cliffs, N.J.:

Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970.

Dictionaries of the social sciences

and

histories of

technology and

inventions are invaluable to the student of media.

Barnouw,

Erik.

Mass Communication.

New

York: Holt, Rinehart and

Winston, 1956.

Covers a wide range of media including the world of government and sponsors. Contains the story of Sukarno of Indonesia congratulating the Hollywood tycoons for creating revolutionary social fer-

ment and

in

cars,

Asia: "...by

[American

showing ordinary people with refrigerators had helped to build up a sense of depri-

films]

vation of man's birthright."

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964; Mentor, 1973 (paperback). Useful for all the media covered in this text. A study of the effects of the media themselves, independent of any program content. Mumford, Lewis. Technics and Civilization. New York: 1934. Paperback, 1963.

A

study of the relationship between

effects

on the course

of civilization.

human

Complete

artifacts

and

bibliographies.

their

184

City as Classroom

The Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc. Making Contact Series, with volumes on different kinds of media: A Time to Speak by Howard Stein, 1974 Electric Media by Les Brown and Sema Marks, 1974 Movies: Conversations with Peter Bogdanovich by Paul McCluskey, 1974 Nonverbal Communication by Louis Forsdale, 1974 Print Media by Robert Trager, 1974 Visual Persuasion by Stuart Bay and William Thorn, 1974.

An

excellent series

filled

with resources.

six

Patterns and structures 'make sense'

of things. Understanding structures

enables us

all

to avoid that feeling of

helplessness and frustration that

makes us want to shout, "Stop the - want to get off!"

world

I

When we concentrate on the structure we can assess problems

of a situation,

more

realistically

and change the

situation or our response to

One of the ways to

it.

study the effects of

a technology on a culture is to imagine what the same culture would be like without it .Would we have to cancel . .

the future for lack of a computer, as

would cancel a hunting expedition lack of ammunition?

we

for

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