The Rhetoric of Speed: The megabytes-per-second IS the Message

Every golfer has heard the saying, "Direction is more important than distance." And, golfers will come to believe the saying after losing a dozen balls that were hit far, but not accurately.

I imagine drivers who have been lost after following incorrect directions could adopt a similar motto, "Direction is more important than speed." In fact, the faster you go in the wrong direction, the "loster" you become. (I just invented that word, "loster.")

So - we are faced with another situation that may be a fecund field for mantras, mottos, and axioms: the speed of communication and information in the 21st century. Consider this quirky commercial for a French communications company that provides high speed fiber connections:

It seems that the brave new world of high-speed communications has birthed a new maxim:

"Speed is more important than... anything." 

We can see this in the use of internet in families like that of Papa Cool in the commercial. They just want to be able to see stuff, play stuff, hear stuff - without delay. They want it right now - no lag time. It seems that speed trumps all other concerns. We also see this principle instantiating itself in "news" - which was formally transmitted via newspapers, and afforded by that medium time to research, vet sources, confirm claims, etc. Even the structure of television news called for critical thinking and verification before the broadcast aired. But the new world of social media like twitter, etc. has re-shaped the practices of communications to meet the demands of an instant, 140-character, hyper-connected, brave new reality. Some would say that in news today:

"It is now better to be first, than to be accurate."

Our 21st-century challenge is to negotiate this new collection of media and critically interrogate the new rhetorics that are shaping our communication. A dozen years ago, Richard Lanham wrote:

"If economics is about the allocation of resources, then what is the most precious resource in our new information economy? Certainly not information, for we are drowning in it. No, what we are short of is the attention to make sense of that information." (Economics of Attention)

And another thing: That Papa Cool (by securing high-speed access) provides for his family, and makes them happy, is obvious. But there is another dynamic: speed makes Papa Cool... cool. He can now "fit in" with the peer groups of any of his family members. He uses his new access to learn and imitate the values, languages, and cultural practices of each group. See Papa Cool earning his coolness:

But what does Papa Cool want for Papa Cool? We have no idea of his own personal desires - other than to be cool, accepted by the various groups of consumers of speed. Papa becomes them by using their technologies, and his own identity fades into that of a member of the group(s). The individual disappears. Papa Cool is reshaped into the image of the desire of his creation.

For more thinking on this issue, read Greg Ulmer's "Flash Reason," which begins with this tought:

Paul Virilio stated the challenge to our information society: every technology includes its own disaster. The technology in question is that of our communications infrastructure, the digital media that function at the speed of light. The disaster Virilio has in mind is not only technical, but cultural and social as well (technics).  The speed of our digital world has created a dimensional pollution, compressing everything into “now.” This condition threatens to render impossible any democratic  public  sphere  since  there  is  no  time  for  deliberative  reason,  the persuasion and argument, needed to achieve the consent of the governed. (Read Ulmer's "Flash Reason" here.)

As an educator, I have the pleasure/task of introducing students to the tools and sites of current real world of communications, which are increasingly digital, connected, social and high-speed. I don't have the luxury to pretend that today's world of communications is the same as it was in the 1960's. My students already know that it is not the same. But my students and I are challenged with negotiating the sometimes seductive/sometimes dictatorial demands of the speed of new media with the need for critical thinking, research, verification, contemplation, reflection, and elegant composition.

And, as new media is continually shifting, I understand this will be a perpetually changing negotiation.Until time travel is invented, that is - then I'll be back at the city desk, using the communication literacies of old media, and hoping for a big scoop!