Co-Evolution of Technology, Media Collective Action

Howard will survey the big picture/long view of the way technologies, communication media, and collective action has co-evolved. The presentation will span from the time of speech and collective defense and collective food-gathering among primate ancestors on the African savannah; to the emergence of writing on clay tablets as empire-cities began to grow out of agricultural settlements; to the invention of the alphabet and the restriction of alphabetic knowledge to elites chosen by the emperors and popes; until the printing press enabled a rapid and broad expansion of literacy. At each of these stages, people began to do things together in the social, economic, cultural, and political realms that they were not able to do before a significant population of literates existed -- empire, science, democracy. And now, we have questions about the role of literacies and education in the era of participatory media, from Second Life to the blogosphere to YouTube -- and the kinds of collective action we see emerging today, from Wikipedia to smart mobs to open source production. What is the connection between participatory media literacy and the public sphere that is supposed to be fundamental to democracy? Join this special keynote presentation to discuss the answers!