Words without Things: The Mode of Information

Abstract

An increasing segment of communications is mediated by electronic devices. People watch television; make phone calls; listen to radio; go to movies; use computers, fax machines, VCRs, and stereos. Such communications occur in every institution and in every social group. Politics, work, consumption, family, military, church, education, leisure activities-in varying degrees all employ electronic mechanisms in their communications. In each instance, symbols are exchanged, messages are sent and received, information is retrieved just as they have been since human beings began using language. And yet something has changed as well. Electronic communications are new language experiences in part by virtue of electrification. But how are they different from ordinary speech and writing? And what is significance of this difference? How is distinction between public and private affected by these innovations? I believe that humanities have an important role to play in making intelligible an emerging new culture. This paper outlines a theoretical perspective, the mode of information, that might be useful for opening new interpretive strategies for critical social theory in relation to these new developments. Some observers argue that introduction of electronic devices makes no substantial difference in nature or consequence of a communication. The politician who speaks in a TV ad campaign still attempts to gain votes according to rules of constitutional democracy. The worker who uses a computer to control an assembly process or type a letter is paid for his or her labor as in past, according to contract of employment. The consumer who merely watches TV gains information about products that might be bought in a store, much like reading a newspaper. The soldier who uses a computer to guide a projectile to its target, like archer who visually aims his arrow, is practicing art of destroying enemy. The electronic device simply increases efficiency of communication in question. From this perspective language appears as a tool for purposes of acting human subjects, clearly subordinate in importance to positional intentions of individuals in determinate institutional frameworks.