Group Three.

I have spent much of my academic and professional careers studying how ideas are spread and received around the world, from propaganda during WWII to how certain countries are portrayed by the media across the globe. The amazing thing is, I had never actually stopped to consider how those ideas/words were actually transmitted before these various readings on the "information revolution". I have always thought it was important to remember that all information on CNN and the BBC comes from somewhere and someone, and that real, live people decide what is included in the news and what is left out. I just never put it together with the fact that governments and private entities alike have been struggling for control of information since printing press.

From a linguistic prospective, the fact that the printing press forced publishers and writers to choose one particular dialect over others, which would naturally then weed out the others as the written form became the "norm" in the region is fascinating. More importantly, however, is the fact that this led inevitably to the greater division of peoples; if suddenly all of the people in a certain region speak this language, and therefore can read the same information, but the people in the next town have a different language and set of information at their disposal, it creates division but also a greater sense of identity within each group. Hanson states that this led to the rise of nationalism, although it probably took a few centuries for that to happen.

I am not very good at memorizing specific dates and the names of the people who invented certain radios or television parts, but I do see the benefit in understanding when (relatively) and how these tools helped people (and governments) communicate both domestically and internationally. It is interesting to ponder how different the dynamic of the American "melting pot" might be if our immigrant ancestors from the 1800's to  the early 1900's had been able to call their families in the "old countries" on a weekly basis. I think that people my age have a tendency to take for granted that we can keep in touch instantly with people on the other side of the world, without understanding what it took for that to happen.