In the first lecture of the semester, we were introduced to communication and technology. A textbook definition of communication would sound something like this: “Communication is a process that transfers, transmits or makes information known to other people”.
This is explained further by Aristotle, in his book “Rhetoric” which is about 2500 years old. To explain the term technology, some students described it as “a tool to get a job done” or “improvement”, which leads us to the actual definition: “Technology is the scientific study of mechanical arts and their application to the world”.
So, what is communication technology? This can be as simple as a smile or as complex as a philosophical discussion. In any case, communication will always be essential between humans (and dolphins..) Our course convenor then went on to talk about what links this process of sending information, onto our old and new forms of technology. First we need to distinguish the main difference between old and new.
Examples of old communication technology can be cave drawings, storytelling, Morse code, letters/books, radio and television.
Mobile phones, computers, the Internet, e-mail and blogging are all examples of some of our new communication technology. Taking this technology one step further, he mentioned an important concept which is called convergence. This is drawing several aspects of new technology into one access point. Take for example the smart-phones. This is mobile phones fully equipped with all sorts of handy applications, and you can use them to access practically everything. Other examples are businesses that create integration and producers of different media that is uniting their technology into multimedia; such as telephone, radio and television all in one product.
TuteSpark
How do we distinguish between old and new communication technologies? Under what circumstances will new communication technologies become old communication technologies?
During our tute, some answers provided were that a good way of looking at old vs new is that all analog technology is considered old, and the digital is new. Whenever new technology gets replaced with something more recent and fresh, the new communication technology in use seems to become old communication technology.
