Deep Thunder- Poster

“For the new technologies install the ‘interface’, the face between the faces; the face that insists that we remember that we have ‘faces’, that we have sides that are present at the moment of utterance, that we are not present in any simple or immediate way.” – Poster

The concept of communication through an interface concerns me. The model of communication by Aristotle shows communication as a sequence of signals involving a sender, receiver, and a medium, or filter. The message can possibly be corrupted by any of these parts of the model. I see the internet interface as as much of a filter as an interface. This filter can screen messages for content, or distort or corrupt that message. I don’t want to sound off any conspiracy theory alarms here, but the Internet is a system of communication established by the Federal Government. As a medium, the internet is unmatched in its ability to quickly analyze and disseminate the information passing through it. Whether you are trying to send a love letter to your spouse, or share theories with a fellow student, or whatever, your message is passing through a filter, a mechanical filter, with no real understanding of human communication, and with an explicit mission of protecting National Security.
Although the internet is touted as being a decentralized network, we are allowing it to become the center of communication (i.e. these blogs and my anonymity). So what the Internet manages to accomplish as a technology it essentially negates as a communication medium. Even when viewed as a medium, the Internet is dangerous to communication as a centralizer (never mind its negative consequences to language itself; it is being boiled down to form of lazy shorthand). Humankind must continue to stress the importance of personal communication. There must be sects and cults and theories and revolutions, as these eventually evolve into rational and applicable thought that can contribute to progress, and they should not be filtered or published until they are evolved and/or polished enough to do so.