LOG ON!

As I sat on my couch yesterday, watching an old Friends re-run I could not help but remember the endless hours that I studied for Ted’s midterm and the fact that all that information was still lodged in my brain. I had this eerie view of Monica reciting Haberma’s critique of Democracy. With that being said, while watching TV last night I realized that I was watching a unilateral medium, all thanks to Rowland. In his book he has distinguished two different types of communication mediums that distribute information and messages. Unilateral mediums and Bilateral mediums. When I actually put my brain in gear I realized that this could be a potential topic for social networking. What I began pondering about was the differences of television and the internet (focusing on social networking of course) and wondered in the end which medium should take the gold!

Bilateral mediums are a source in which information is distributed in various directions, it does not have limitations or any control for example: the internet. Instead of constructing control, and a hierarchical structure among it’s users as Unilateral mediums do. It actually encourages conversation and interactivity (earlier example of such would be the telephone or telegraph.). Personally, I do not have a lot of time to watch TV. Instead I find myself shoved in the back of the library or slaving away at work. The only source of medium I have to use at these locations are computers, and the good old world wide web. Thanks to browsers and search engines I have had numerous amounts of time to figure out how to get oil stains out of my sweater and keep in track with the weather. But really what advantage is there to using a Bilateral medium compared to a unilateral medium. Well for instance, lets use MSN and Facebook as my prime examples. MSN allows one to instantly message someone and continue an entire conversation on a screen, the basis of time and space are completely eliminated. It also promotes conversations with one another. No one is controlling what you are saying and what you are sending, it is like having a conversation on the phone, It can be used for personal use. Just the same, though Facebook offers more, it does the same thing. The lack of government, regulation, and profit that is incorporated works well into making this system a public sphere. It does not limit its user’s to having multiple conversations, you can talk to five people at a time if you wish, it is not just a one way street. Wheras, Unilateral systems have a source of power behind them disseminating the message. Someone is at one end providing you with the information but there is no conversation in return. You cannot talk back to the news. What the broadcaster says is what he says and that is the end of conversation. Larger corporations and government structures have full control, and society is just the audience. So in that case, Why do we still want to watch TV if we know this is true? We can get all we need from the web! We can actually achieve more from social networks because we can gain insight of different perspective of the news, for example. I for one feel that unilateral systems are not productive anymore. We live in a society where
metamediums are taking over and that requires mediums to promote interactivity. I say skip TV and log onto Facebook!