The Wires: War and Peace in the Global Village

This reading I found interesting because it flashed back to a point in time where journalism was going through changes with this new communication technology. With the world as connected as it is now, its hard to believe reading the passage in the reading that discussed how news was transmitted through letters and could talk up to a week even to receive, let alone report. Its incredible how far technology has come and what even the communication through telegraphs created for the world. Especially during a time of war, it does not surprise anyone that the new technology was utilized. What caught my eye in this chapter was the author discussing the errors that came with the telegraph and using it as a new tool of communication.

There were messages misheard, and a stronger dependency on it that maybe should have been at the time. Comparing this with the attitude journalists had with the telegraph, its is understandable how in both situations there was an immediate rush to best make use of the telegraph and communicate important information to it. Especially after how slowly information traveled prior to this, news could be communicated and reported much faster than ever before. But with anything, its hard to say that the errors and miscommunication within the use of the telegraph wouldn't have happened. It was new, innovative and exciting so its understandable that there would be some trial errors as the fascination of the communication over wires grew. The interesting piece to this as well is that ever since then, there have been plenty of those moments with many new technologies throughout history.

Chapter 1: New Forms of Personal Communication

The beginning chapter of Personal Connections in the Digital Age already has me hooked, both in the different ideas it discusses and then also the topic of personal communication in the digital age itself. Its interesting to read about and analyze in relation to your own life. The topic of technology, the digital age in relation to personal interaction has been an underlining topic in a majority of Media Studies courses. This particular chapter goes over what in fact the digital age and technology has on relationships and connections. Granted technology is always updating and changing, and so does the dynamics of how we communicate.

One of the first points the chapter made was on how mediums and methods of communication have been traded for others, such as mailing letters has been traded for email. Almost a need for quicker access and quicker response, communication and connection is now right at our finger tips. The chapter hits the positive and negative side of this idea, but one perspective stood out to me the most. There was a paragraph towards the beginning of the chapter that talked about how being connected and being constantly online can take someone away from the present, physical environment. There are many examples of this from people on their phones at restaurants to a bad first date where the other person is constantly checking their phone. Can being on our phone take away from the now? Are we actually somewhere else rather than where you physically are? Does it manipulate our interactions and how meaningful they are?

Its a toss and definitely a debatable topic. Constantly being online and without face-to-face interaction does take away from the interactions someone can have in the now, but on the other side of the coin there are many opportunities that have come out of the digital age and being connected. This is another topic this chapter discusses which I am excited to read more about. There has been so much opportunity created from the digital age and being connected, and I am interested to read and learn more from this class about the balance of good and bad in relation to how personal communication has changed with the digital age.