Changing Comunication Modes Change Societies

This chapter briefly explains and illustrates the theory of social change that has driven much of my scholarship throughout my career, especially as presented in the book Mutative Media: Communication technologies and power relations in the past, present, and futures (Dator, Jim, John Sweeney, and Aubrey Yee, Mutative media: Communication technologies and power relations in the past, present and futures. Springer, 2015). It summarizes evidence that shows how the evolution of aural/oral communication technologies helped shape early hunting and gathering minds and communities; how the subsequent slow evolution of scribal handwriting and reading provoked the dominanat institutions and lifestyles of the civilizations of agricultural societies; and how the printing press in Europe quickly molded the thoughts and organizations of industrial societies. After reviewing the features of information societies in the next chapter, Five, we will use insights learned from each of these human, social, and environmental transformations to try to understand the emergence and futures of a dream society.