Clay Shirky, the author of Here Comes Everybody, writes,
"When we change the way we communicate, we change society."
This is the legend on the map. The cypher.
As I'm sitting in a library, I see form influenced by function. Book shelves are lined so that people may pass between them, scanning titles and call numbers. Each shelf has a long, rectangular space in which many books can be placed. Each book is a rectangle folded around flat, rectangular pages. The form or shape of each of these structured objects is a direct result of its function. Things are shaped the way they are because of the task they preform. Chairs must have a surface that keeps our butts off the ground, and their shape falls victim to that aspect of their function.
This opposite true of communication. The form of our communication shapes the function. For instance: a book is a medium of communication. The form of it, the pages and spine, lead to its function as shelf matter. (That's not the only function of a book, obviously, but it's the physical function most apparent to me at the moment.)
McLuhan's mantra endures: the medium is the message. Shirky is saying that switching from face-to-face communication to phone communication, and from that to internet communication, inevitably changes the way our social systems function. And he's right.
"When we change the way we communicate, we change society."
This is the legend on the map. The cypher.
As I'm sitting in a library, I see form influenced by function. Book shelves are lined so that people may pass between them, scanning titles and call numbers. Each shelf has a long, rectangular space in which many books can be placed. Each book is a rectangle folded around flat, rectangular pages. The form or shape of each of these structured objects is a direct result of its function. Things are shaped the way they are because of the task they preform. Chairs must have a surface that keeps our butts off the ground, and their shape falls victim to that aspect of their function.
This opposite true of communication. The form of our communication shapes the function. For instance: a book is a medium of communication. The form of it, the pages and spine, lead to its function as shelf matter. (That's not the only function of a book, obviously, but it's the physical function most apparent to me at the moment.)
McLuhan's mantra endures: the medium is the message. Shirky is saying that switching from face-to-face communication to phone communication, and from that to internet communication, inevitably changes the way our social systems function. And he's right.
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