REL 185.03  »  Spring 2002
Department of Religion  »  Duke University

Why the Digital Age? Why does digitization matter?  What do people mean when they talk about the Digital Age?  What does Nicholas Negroponte, director of MIT's Media Lab, mean by "being digital"? Digitization simply is the destabilizing technology that is causing all the "trouble."  And much of the excitement.  Because of digitization: We can make true, dependable, exact copies repeatedly.   In the past when objects were either handmade or manufactured, there were individual differences in production and creation, while with digitization every copy is close to identical with very high fidelity even after use.  This is why, for instance, CDs have such good sound.  They're digital recordings.  You can buy a used CD and assume it will be nearly as good as new, which you cannot assume with a second-hand record. But along with much greater standardization, there is no "original" anymore in the sense of the first in a series or an authentic prototype.  A thousandth digital copy is just as good as the first.  The first issuance of Windows 98 won't be any different than the millionth.  There aren't going to be recalls or "lemons."  Digitization is nearly perfect. And anyone can do it.  Anyone can make perfect copies of something digital, provided they have the right, relatively low-cost equipment (such as a PC).  We don't need factories and manufacturing plants and specialized training.  This is an instance of the way in which digitization democratizes, a way in which digital information empowers individuals (see below) We can commingle bits, by which Negroponte means that we can combine all kinds of digital information -- whether it be text, numbers, sound files, audio files, a telephone call, a personnel record, or an image -- and make new forms of media.  One of these forms of media is called multimedia, which means that more than one medium has been combined with some degree of interactivity. Interactivity means that the user has some control over the reception and use of the information.  Without an element of interactivity, multimedia wouldn't be more than, for instance, a slide show or an extension of filmmaking. Hypermedia means that we can interactively choose to follow certain paths or threads set up for us in a hypermedia environment.   Navigation need not be linear.   Any of the elements of multimedia can be hyperlinked, such as text, images, and audio/visual clips. We can customize information to use it whenever and wherever we want.  With a great degree of interactivity, we can go much further than "time-shifting," or watching TV when we choose through home videotaping.   Since digital information can be stored in a small space and can be recombined with other digital information or data, we can search, retrieve, and store information in new ways.  This capability has broad-ranging implications for society and industry, affecting everything from education to the military, art and music to banking.  The "smarter" machines become or perhaps the more emotionally responsive they become, the more they can assist us without a steep learning curve or ineffective manual labor on our, the user's, part. We require less space for more information.  Digital information is lightweight and portable.  A book obviously is heavier than a floppy disk.   Laptops are getting smaller and lighter, easier to travel with.  Wearable computing is being developed, so that it's possible to have an advanced Personal Digital Assistant with you at all times.  Speech recognition may mean that we aren't limited to a keyboard; we can speak to the computer naturally and work "on the fly."  With Virtual Reality, it's possible to have goggles in place while at work on a task, to use VR as you need it (for instance in engineering, surgery, and other applications that are data intensive and specific). We can merge televisions and computers, through which we can share multimedia on the Internet.  This breakdown of the old communication divisions is known as media convergence.  We see this on the high end with High Definition Television, or HDTV, and on the low end with WebTV.  If we can have televisions that receive digital signals, which the FCC has stipulated must happen by 2006, then screens are likely to be developed with such high resolution that reading from television at a close distance is possible.  We will be able to share "television" the way we now share information on the Net.  Teleconferencing will be available to all who can receive and transmit digital signals. But with the convergence of television and computer and the breakdown of the old categories between broadcasting, print, cable, and telephone come sweeping changes that regulation must address.  The FCC was created in 1934 to address conditions of media scarcity.  One of its charter missions was to prevent media monopolies in selected markets so that no one voice could dominate (in other words, to ensure democracy and fair competition).  Today, however, we have media abundance.  Despite the a general trend toward government downsizing, the FCC has to reinvent itself to meet current need.  Because of digitization -- because of digital media's ease of use, portability, facility, and availability -- the old laws based on atoms, as Negroponte says, are becoming obsolete: Or are are they? We have a universal means of transmitting information.  When we speak of digitization, we're speaking of zeroes and ones, on and off signals.   A digit is a bit of information; eight bits is a byte.  Negroponte often contrasts analog and digital, atoms and digits.  By analog, he means transmitted by waves or through exact equivalence: I give you a piece of paper in exchange for another piece of paper, or I send you a soundwave and you receive it as a radio signal.  With digital data, the information is broken down into digital code, zeros and ones, and transmitted as bits in chunks called "packets" to be reassembled on the other end.  Every bit of information can be so dismantled and recombined, as mentioned above.  A modem, for instance, converts the analog code sent over telephone lines and converts the information into the digital code read by computers. When Negroponte contrasts the world of atoms with that of bits, he is referring to the fact that the digital world seems unreal compared with the "real world." What we do online and in electronic environments is taking place literally in digital code.  It isn't real, in the sense of one piece of paper being handed from one human being to anothe; rather it's coded.   But in fact, we've had coded communication since the telegraph of the mid-19th century.   We know people online that we don't know face-to-face, just as we know some people we talk with frequently on the phone, but never meet.  The term "virtual reality" is intended to evoke this sense of being simultaneously real and unreal.   But Negroponte goes a bit further.  He would like us to free up more of the time and energy that we invest in the real world to perceive and make better use of increasing digitization.  Negroponte is an evangelist of digitization and its possibilities. We can empower the previously disenfranchised.  In order for digitization's potential to have far-reaching impact, much of the world has to be wired.   This is taking place.  Some developmental countries that skipped television, or perhaps even the industrial revolution, may be going straight to digitization without some of our regulatory precedent holding them back.  The impact of digitization on countries in formative stages, such as those in the former Soviet Union or the Third World, is only beginning to be felt and studied.  But here in our own country, through digitization, some formerly underrepresented groups may have the possibility of being heard in a way that was impossible when media production required specialized equipment, specialized training, and expense.  We cannot forget the "information poor" in a world that increasingly is bifurcating into a new info-caste system. We can benefit from the democratizing potential of digitization.  When John Perry Barlow talks about how "information wants to be free," this is what he's getting at beside anthropomorphizing something inanimate and without volition.  Information is accessible in ways that render powerless the people who seek to contain it.   Digitization has upset the balance of power.  Anyone can send a message to the president.  Anyone can set up a printing shop to expound his or her ideas, like the pamphleteers of the past, but likely with more effective results.   The Internet itself grew because people enjoyed communicating with each other.   Although it started as part of ARPANet, the military-industrial-research network of the 1960s, use of the Internet mushroomed in the late 1980s-early 1990s because users simply liked it and popularized its use.  The media conglomerates didn't promote use of the Internet; rather they were and largely still are threatened.  The traditional media has been destabilized.  Much of what regulation is about is trying to put the genie back in the bottle.  Digitization has often been called the most powerful force for democracy since the Declaration of Independence. We have a new imaginative realm.  At times it can be difficult to separate the real from the digital.  Is a cyber romance with deeply felt emotions less real than one that takes place between two people who have feelings for each other?   If you buy and sell digital stocks, are they any less real than money exchanging hands?  How about a forged work of art: Is a fake Mona Lisa any less real than a real one?  How are we defining reality and falsehood?  Digitization brings to sharp focus our discomfort with the intangibles of reality, showing us that the real world may be less solid than we want to think it is.  A dollar bill, after all, is symbolic than we may assume in that it's based on a nonexistent gold standard.  Love can never be exactly proven, but it can be felt whether in the real world (offline) or online. We have new forms of illegal activity.  Despite and because of its potential, digitization carries with it the possibility of fraud, sabotage, theft, and other forms of criminalality that have always relied on sleight of hand and getting around identification detection.  New forms of cops and robbers will appear as the public, lawmakers, and commercial sector seek greater means of verification within the digital world.  We want to impose real-world standards of authenticity on a technology that is notable for its mutability.  For every gain, there is a new method of circumvention, a new opportunity for outwitting the authorities, a new "hack." But the gains are too great to go without.  For example, we need electronic medical information so that it can be called up wherever health care professionals need access: from the ER through surgery, recovery, outpatient procedures, and shared in databases for medical researchers looking for cures and insurance companies looking to contain costs.   The risks of information being falsified or falling into the wrong hands does not outweigh the gains of timely, accurate information on diseases and conditions available as it's needed, recorded once (much less paperwork, which cuts down on errors and expense), and shared throughout the world so that trends can be seen, diagnosed, and acted on. The ability to access and share knowledge so easily creates enormous potential that can be used for good or ill.  It's this potential that Negroponte wants us to see and not to waste. For further information:  I've linked throughout.  For further reading, go to Negroponte's Being Digital and Wired columns.