The next critical juncture of Giddens’ (1990) work follows on from the hypothesis of symbolic tokens and expert systems and draws upon their impact on modernity. Giddens (1990) identifies that symbolic tokens and expert systems are critical to the understanding of what he terms the ‘risk culture’ in modernity, similar to the ideas of Ulrich Beck (Cottle, 1998). He theorises that there is a trust/risk dynamic established in the conditions of modernity, one which involves carrying the basic trust developed in childhood throughout our lives which transfers into a sense of ontological security created by lives bound up by routine, predictability and cyclical social practices (Giddens, 1990; 1991). It is this trust that he suggests “presupposes awareness of circumstances of risk” (Giddens, 1990:31), which we must then attempt to place in the most of the symbolic tokens and expert systems of the social world which dictate the success of daily living. By making these ‘faceless commitments’ and ‘facework commitments’ (ibid., 1990:80) where human representatives of expert systems are available, thus merging trust into a ‘pragmatic acceptance’ which may be conscious or unconscious (Giddens, 1991:23), there is a re-embedding of disembedding mechanisms to local contexts again.
As previously mentioned Giddens’ work on modernity is more directed to the processes of the wider social world and seldom mentions the contribution of the media to the condition of modernity. John Thompson however, to a larger extent, focuses on the contribution of the media to contemporary social lives. Similar to Giddens, he focuses on the organisation of time and space and draws upon social relationships and personal experience of mediated communication in the characterisation of modernity. Thompson (1995) developed a typology of social interaction which highlights three forms of interaction; face-to-face interaction, mediated interaction and mediated quasi-interaction, which are bound up with questions of time, space and place and personal/social experience of individuals. Thompson (1995) argues that historically most interactions were face-to-face within shared physical locales, but with the effect of disembedding expert systems such as the media - and more specifically mediated communications, that with the development of new media communications the transfer of information between individuals does not necessarily allow for the social relationships to remain intact as they do with face-to-face interaction. What develops with new media communications Thompson (1995:81-82) argues are “new forms of action and interaction and new kinds of social relationships” which occur across time and space where spatial-temporal settings are not shared. The context of face-to-face interactions is one which involves a co-presence and the sharing spatial-temporal settings with little ambiguity where dialogue is a characteristic and physical communication (i.e. facial expression, gestures and optional physical contact) is available (Thompson, 1995). However, mediated interaction Thompson (1995:83) claims “involves the use of a technical medium which enables information or symbolic content to be transmitted to individuals who are remote in space, in time, or in both”. Similar to the concept of disembedding which Giddens (1990) describes, Thompson (1995:83) details that “mediated interaction is stretched across time and space” which “involves a certain narrowing of the range of symbolic cues which are available to participants” that is possible with the use of technologies such as the telephone, pen and paper and computers. In this, communication is orientated towards specific others i.e. receivers of a telephone call, letter or email, and still allows potential for two-way communication, though not on the same terms as face-to-face communication. The final type of interaction Thompson (1995:84) calls mediated quasi-interaction, which by nature is monological and “involves the production of symbolic forms for an indefinite range of potential recipients” with no “degree of reciprocity and inter-personal specificity of other forms of interaction”. Examples of this type of interaction are forms of mass communication directed towards mass recipients such as print media (books, journals, newspapers, and magazines), visual media (television broadcasting, film) and aural media forms (radio, podcasts). This type of interaction again involves the separation of contexts and an extended availability in time and space and creates a “social situation in which individuals are linked together in a process of communication and symbolic exchange (Thompson, 1995:84). Thompson (1995) is quick to mention however that some interactions may not solely fit into one of these distinguished categories and that there may be a crossover into different forms of communication. Such an example he gives is domestic television viewing which involves both the mediated quasi-interaction between the television broadcasters and the viewers and face-to-face interactions which may occur during the broadcast between the viewers in the domestic sphere itself. Added to this list of examples could be radio phone-in discussions which involves mediated interactions and mediated quasi-interactions, internet cafes which in include mediated interactions and face-to-face interactions and studio discussion programmes which have the potential to fall into all three categories. A programme such as the BBC’s Newsnight involves mediated quasi-interaction between the broadcasters and the viewers, face-to-face interactions in the studio discussion and has the potential for mediated interaction if the show was to involve a live television feed in which an individual who was not present in the studio was interviewed by a live link-up. Furthermore, Thompson (1995) like Giddens (1990) envisages that the condition of modernity will perhaps evolve further and that more categories maybe be added to the typology in the future as new communication technologies further develop.
From this point it is important to take the work of Thompson and Giddens and using their ideas of the condition of modernity, research into how the development of technological communications over the years are bound up with their theories and how their implication has aided the reflexivity of modernity and helped to define the character of modern social life. Thompson (1995) and Giddens (1990) both claim that social interactions in pre-modern settings were highly localised and that interactions with other were performed distinctly within the physical locale which perhaps did not distort or abstract the condition of time, space or place. But with the advent of the printing press, Thompson (1994:34) states that “social interaction and symbolic exchange were increasingly severed from the sharing of a common locale” and that “communication media gave rise to new forms of interaction in which information and symbolic content could be exchanged between individuals who did not share the same spatio-temporal setting”. These early changes are also credited to the advent of letter writing, the telegraph and the telephone whose development helped individuals to communicate effectively across spatio-temporal settings and also assisted distant populations in the reception of information (de Sola Pool, 1981), thus new forms of social interaction were born; mediated interaction and mediated quasi interaction. The early forms of electronic media i.e. the telegraph, Giddens (1991) argues, allowed for individuals to communicate without the physical transmission of a message, unlike newspapers and letters which had a physical form and were required to be physically transported. The telegraph, and more recent communication technologies, allow for the experience of virtual instantaneity (Giddens, 1991) and simultaneity (Thompson, 1995) which then featured, and continue to feature as an element attributed to social interaction in the 21st Century within new communication technologies. To these early forms of communication media, Giddens’ (1990:21) concept of disembedding can be applied as it explains how interactions were ‘lifted out’ of local context and restructured across time and space. Similarly, Giddens’ (1990) ideas of trust and risk can be applied. In applying Giddens’ (1990) definition of expert systems, the printing press for example, would have been one of the first media expert systems in the beginnings of modernity. Here, individuals would place trust in such an expert system by making a faceless commitment to the producers of a given print material as there would be an issue of risk involved that the information printed would not be reliable or credible. This is a concept which would still be applicable with today’s printing press, however, as modern day print material often has an allegiance with a political party and a specific ideology in production, this would possibly cause distrust in certain individuals of any print material whose ideology and political views are not akin to their own.
Subsequent to the development of the printing press as a large media expert system was the introduction and development of television and radio. According to Thompson’s (1995) typology such institutions allow again for mediated interactions, mediated quasi-interactions, to a lesser extent face-to-face interactions within the domestic sphere or a mixture of interactions in the social world. The technology of the television, Silverstone (1994) suggests, has allowed for the distribution of programmes on a global scale. With more recent developments of the internet, the same could be said for radio programmes. Not only are radio stations able to be accessed by those across specific geographical areas who can access the bandwidth of a particular station, but with the use of the internet individuals can now log onto websites and receive live streaming of radio programmes on their personal computers. Similarly, the structure of the radio phone-in segment of a show has been updated alongside the rise of internet technology. The very nature of a phone-in segment suggests that listeners would be able to contact the broadcasting station via the telephone and air their views and opinions on a given subject, yet with the use of the internet or cellular phones, listeners can text or email their comments to a radio station with no specific time limit working against them as they can do this as and when they want to.
The progression in television production has also undergone similar developments. Not only can individuals now access more channels than ever before with the introduction of cable and satellite television and stream certain television broadcasts via the internet, but their consumption and experience of television viewing, and on a larger scale their experience of communication technologies, has radically changed (Morley, 2007), largely with the advent of digital interactive television (Slevin, 2000). Viewers can now record television and view it at a later time or date to when it was initially broadcasted with features such as SKY TV’s Remote Record and through subscriptions, such as Channel 4’s Film Four, they can now receive television programmes on demand. In terms of social interactions, certain discussion programmes now also offer the opportunity to phone, text or email into the show, much like radio broadcasts, the latter of which seemingly offer the opportunity to avoid making the facework commitments to representatives of the expert systems which may ultimately denote distrust in such systems. For the most part individuals are unable to make facework commitments with the producers of television or radio programmes due to the absence of co-presence and face-to-face interaction with the institution and as such it is a faceless commitment that viewers and listeners will make with them, however there are a few examples where it could be suggested that facework commitments are made to create a risk/trust dynamic.
One such example is that of the relationship that an individual has with a television or radio newsreader and Giddens’ (1990) definition of facework commitments could be applied in this instance. News broadcasts often contain a great deal of anxiety making content which consequently cause the lay individual to feel at risk, yet as a reassuring figure acting with an authoritarian demeanour, putting on a specific friendly and personable performance (Scannell, 1991; Horton and Wohl, 1956) which enables the content to be believable and appearing on consecutive days/evenings at consecutive times highlights that they will return and a degree of trust can be attached to this. The same notion can be applied to television doctors or experts who frequently appear on daytime television programmes such as ITV’s This Morning or Channel 4’s Richard and Judy, though such individuals are not co-present they are reassuring and recognisable figures that may enable a facework commitment to the broadcast. To be critical of this though, there may be hypocrisy with some of the content which is broadcast and ideology may be behind the content particularly in the news broadcasts. However, the actual presentation of the news itself is produced in a particular way and the experience of news viewing is perhaps one which almost always the viewer develops a sense of trust in the expert system and is highlighted in the research of Scannell (1991).
The most recent development of communication methods in what Giddens (1990) terms late modernity, has been that of network communications and specifically the internet which has situated itself as a modern day mass medium of communication (Morris and Ogan, 1996), has contributed to the development of a global community (Riley and Monge, 1998) and has transformed the communicative environment of late-modernity (Jacquemet, 2005). Slevin (2000:12) suggests that:
“the invention of electronic media has provided the means to radically increase the scope for nation-states, commercial enterprises and other forms of social organization to monitor their production and reproduction in time-space.”
The internet is one of the most recent developments in electronic media and as such has opened up new ways for individuals to access information, communicate with others and to participate in decision making, but with this invention come new kinds of risk as a consequence of connecting the local to the global by using a modern communication technology (Slevin, 2000). To begin with, the diverse uses of the internet feature in the different parts of Thompson’s (1995) interaction typology and some fall into a mixture of interaction types. Morley (2007) identifies that some interactive features of the internet include: websites, chat rooms, bulletin boards, webcams, blogs and email, but added to this list could be Skype – a service which permits telephone interaction through the use of the internet, along with the modern websites built for the purposes of communication between friends such as MySpace, Facebook and Friends Reunited. Such communication methods could be placed into Thompson’s (1995) typology of interaction. Email and chat rooms and websites designed for the purpose of communication between friends allow for mediated interaction and websites, bulletin boards, webcams and blogs for the most part allow for both mediated quasi-interaction, but also at times allow for mediated interaction when individuals are conversing with or replying to specific others. Services such as Skype and other broadband internet telephone services allow for mediated interaction generally between individuals who are familiar with each other and though it is not specifically an internet service, a network communication provision such as video conferencing similarly allows for mediated interaction. As previously discussed, the advent of internet cafes has allowed for the possibility of a mixture of all three interaction types. An individual may be having face-to-face interaction with members of staff in the café itself, whilst simultaneously looking through websites and writing emails and blogs.
In terms of risk, Slevin (2000:15) suggests that “while symbolic tokens, expert systems and generalized forms of communication are meant to relieve uncertainty…they also unintendedly contribute to the creation of new forms of uncertainty and risk”. Giddens (1990) highlights that expert systems depend on active trust and that attitudes of trust are influenced by communication and as a consequence Slevin (2000:16) suggests that new communication technologies, such as the internet, “place burdens on individuals, organisations and representatives of expert systems to display their integrity and so maintain and develop trust” and despite the trust/risk dynamic contributing to the routine nature of modern social life, Slevin (2000:16) comments that such a technology can “produce outcomes which may be experienced as arbitrary and unacceptable” resulting in “marginalization and disappointment in all sectors of social life”. As with the previously discussed technologies, such as television and radio, Slevin (2000) claims that the power of the individual is more or less removed as the technologies tend not to allow for face-to-face interaction and there is little room for reflexivity or reciprocity, there are instances in internet communication in which communication is monological (i.e. website production and some forms of internet shopping), which ultimately draws the individual into ‘crowd silence’ (Sennett, 1978 in Slevin, 2000:17). This may place the individual in the precarious position of placing trust in an institution in which they may feel their security is not guaranteed or placing trust in symbolic content they receive which that may have neither been unfiltered or governed by censors. Silverstone (1999) uses the example here of internet shopping on Amazon.com, claiming that by making purchases on the website that he is putting his trust in an abstract system that his money will not disappear and that his identity will be protected. The same conclusion can be drawn about news content on the internet. Whereas previously discussed, it was identified that newsreaders on television and radio may act as a reassuring and trustworthy figure to make facework commitments with their viewers enabling them to feel less at risk, all that stands between an internet user and a news website is a computer screen and it is the responsibility of the individual to make a faceless commitment and to place trust in the expert system which is delivering the symbolic content. The reverse side of the argument however, is that individuals could seek information from websites to avoid making facework commitments. In using blogs to seek news or information, individuals are participating in mediated interactions and/or mediated quasi-interactions with other readers and their right to reply enables them to avoid making a facework commitment to an expert system and similarly avoids the politics of such systems. When applied to Giddens’ (1990) concept of disembedding it is clear to see how by using the internet as a form of communication, for whatever purpose, that ensures the ‘lifting out’ of social relations as individuals are able to communicate globally through the use of a computer, and more recently through cellular phones. In support of both Giddens’ (1990) and Thompson’s (1995) claims, such processes illustrate how interactions are abstracted from the local context and placed into a global context and how interactions with others can occur when the same spatio-temporal settings are not shared.
By using the social theory of modernity and applying it to the media it provides a refreshing account of how the media has penetrated social life (McLuhan, 1960) and contributes to the distinctive character of modern life. It is an account not purely based of the outcomes of effects models, but a more personal outlook at individual and societal experience, which authors such as Garnham (2000), Thompson (1995), Silverstone (1999) and Barbrook (19995) have initiated the call for. The distinctions between Giddens’ (1990) concept of disembedding and re-embedding by faceless and facework commitments to expert systems and symbolic tokens alongside Thompson’s (1995) typology of interactions, provides the useful starting blocks to map out the progress and development of technological communications in terms of how social interactions have been lifted out of local contexts, have been abstracted from shared spatio-temporal contexts and have been restructured across time and space resulting in the advent of globalization (Tomlinson, 1999; Giddens, 1999; Shome and Hegde, 2002). From the invention of the telegraph in the 19th Century, such accounts recognise the development of virtual instantaneity and simultaneity within the use of electronic technological communication, consequently illustrating the marked effect that such developments have had upon modern life by the usage of technologies such as the telephone, radio and television and network communications such as the internet (Riley and Monge, 1998; Jacquemet, 2005; Slevin, 2000).
Authors such as Slevin (2000) and Silverstone (1999) are correct to identify that as a consequence of the development of new communication technologies there are new risks thrust upon the individual, but through facework and faceless commitments to such systems, the work of Giddens (1990; 1991) is able to identify how such individuals develop trust in expert systems to maintain the trust/risk dynamic that runs through modern society. There is also evidence that society is now experiencing the condition of what Giddens (1990) termed an accelerated late-modernity as in the last 50-60 years we have seen many new communication technologies introduced and vastly develop within this time and with such improvements the character of modern social life has witnessed distinct changes and characterisation.
The shortfall of the work from Giddens is that the overview of modernity and social experiences he details tend not to account for differences within society e.g. differences in power relations, inequalities in access to communication technologies and similarly with multiple experiences i.e. class, gender, geographical location are rarely addressed. The hypotheses in both The Consequences of Modernity (1990) and Modernity and Self-Identity (1991) tend to illustrate modernity as a shared experience based on the assumption that all of society is at the same place in modernity and therefore it is important to consider these elements when providing a critique to Giddens’ work.
Barbrook, R. (1995) Media Freedom: The Contradictions of Communications in the Age of Modernity. London: Pluto Press.
Cottle, S. (1998) Ulrich Beck, ‘Risk Society’ and the Media: A Catastrophic View? European Journal of Communication. 13(1), pp.5-32.
De Sola Pool, I. (1981) Social Impact of the Telephone. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Garnham, N. (2000) Emancipation, the Media and Modernity: Arguments about the Media and Social Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Giddens, A. (1999) Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping our Lives. London: Profile Books Ltd.
Hall, S. (1973) Encoding and Decoding In The Television Discourse. Birmingham: Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies.
Horton, D and Wohl, R. (1956) Mass Communication and Para-social Interaction: Observations on Intimacy at a Distance. Psychiatry. 19, pp.215-329.
Jacquemet, M. (2005) Transidiomatic practices: Language and power in the age of globalization. Language & Communication. 25, pp.257-277.
Jo, E and Berkowitz, L. (1994) A Priming Effect Analysis Of Media Influences: An Update. In: Bryant, J and Zillmann, D. (eds) Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research. Hillsdale, NJ: Laurence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers, pp.43-61.
Katz, E., Blumler, J.G and Gurevitch, M. (1974) Utilization of Mass Communications by the Individual. In: Blumler, J.G and Katz, E. (eds) The Uses of Mass Communications: Current Perspectives of Gratifications Research. London: SAGE Publications, pp.19-35.
McCombs, M. (1994) News Influence On Our Pictures Of The World. In: Bryant, J and Zillmann, D. (eds) Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research. Hillsdale, NJ: Laurence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers, pp.1-17.
McLuhan, M. (1960) Effects of the Improvements of Communication Media. The Journal of Economic History. 20(4), pp.566-575.
Matheson, D. (2005) Media Discourses: Analysing Media Texts. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Morley, D. (2007) Media, Modernity and Technology: The Geography of the New. Abingdon: Routledge.
Morris, M and Ogan, C. (1996) The Internet as Mass Medium. Journal of Communication. 46(1), pp.39-50.
Riley, P and Monge, P.R. (1998) Introduction: communication in the Global Community. Communication Research. 25(4), pp.355-358.
Scannel, P. (1991) Introduction: the relevance of talk. In: Scannell, P. (ed) Broadcasting Talk. London: SAGE Publications, pp.1-14.
Shone, R and Hegde, R.S. (2002) Culture, Communication, and the Challenge of Globalization. Critical Studies in Media Communication. 19(2), pp.172-189.
Silverstone, R. (1994) Television and Everyday Life. London: Routledge.
Silverstone, R. (1999) Why Study the Media? London: SAGE.
Slevin, J. (2000) The Internet and Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Thompson, J.B. (1994) Social Theory and the Media. In: Crowley, D and Mitchell, D. (eds) Communication Theory Today. Cambridge: Polity Press, pp.27-50.
Thompson, J.B. (1995) The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Tomlinson, J. (1999) Globalization and Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Whannel, G. (1998) Reading the Sports Media Audience. In: Wenner, L.A. (ed) MediaSport. London: Routledge, pp.221-233.