From: foy@aero.org (Richard Foy)
Subject: Re: _A Constitutional History of the United States_
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 18:26:42 GMT

In article <1992Jul30.151701.20803@ncar.ucar.edu> chucks@uars2.acd.ucar.edu (Chuck Smythe) writes:
#
#I'm afraid I can't agree.  I get frustrated when I watch television or
#vidio, because 
#
#- The bandwidth is low: I can read several times as rapidly as anyone can talk.

That is true for the spoken word. To transmit information by spoken word is
certainly not as good as transmitting it by written word. 

#  Granted, a picture is occasionally worth a thousand words, but in general
#  ideas and information dribble in painfully slowly.  

You are right but that is not the fault of the medium. That is a result of
what the people using the medium are doing with it.

It can be different. I get Scientific American. Most of the articles I don't 
read. A very few I scan. Most I simply read look at the graphs and read the
captions. I find that I learn much more data per hour doing this than by
reading the articles. Now most of the information in many of the articles
could be much more readily grasped, by me and by people with less knowleddge 
and background than I have if the same information were displayed with things
like animated graphs etc.

# 
#- It is difficult to present a complex, sustained argument or a dense array
#  of facts, if only because the viewer can't quickly and easily go back to
#  review something said earlier.  And in any case, this sort of thing is
#  rarely attempted in video media.
#

No and yes. It depends on the dense array of facts. Imaging trying to convey
the correlation of brain activity with phsiological or physical actions etc.
by the use of words. When subject a walks the neurons in the "jkfsaldjflk"
are activated, the neurons in the "HGJJ" are are activated to a lower degree, 
etc. Compare this to a video created by the use of brain scans showing the 
degree of activation by false color. (I use garbage in quotes because the 
real words are too unfamiliar to me to try to use them or even to look them
up.)

With CD Roms and or video disks one can overcome the problem of easily going
back to review.

You are right this sort of thing is rarely attempted in the commercial
video media.  However, it is coming. Some of my friends are beginning to create
things like this using an Amiga computer.

#- On the other hand, it is difficult to skim uninteresting material and
#  hasten on to the meat of the matter.  I'm stuck sitting through ads, "human
#  interest" bits, trivial banter, and all.  Incredibly time consuming.
#

This is absolutely true with commercial TV. However, I have found the best
way for me to keep up with what is going on in the world, of things that I am
interested in is as follows. Tape a TV news progam. Fast forward through most
of it. Stop long enough on some segments to find out a superficial view of
what is happening. Foolup up on what I am really interested either on this
net, or by reading a newspaper, or a news magazine.

#- Finally (and this difficulty is not inherent in the medium, merely a        
#  consequence of the way it is commonly used today) _everything_  is for
#  beginners.  There is no television show, no video tape on any subject that
#  assumes any prior background.  Even a decent general education is rarely
#  taken for granted.  The basic, 101 level material is covered over and
#  over and the next step is never taken.

This is true. But there are many people working in the medium who will 
in time change it.

#
#All this applies, of course, to "non-fiction".  Entirely different problems
#arise in comparing video fiction to printed fiction.  But for communicating  
#ideas and information, video is terribly unsatisfactory.  For this reason,
#I fear that a generation that will not read is a generation condemned to
#ignorance, and that this great change in the world is very much a change for
#the worse.
#
#			Chuck Smythe

You are probably right in most of this at the current time. However, I don't 
view the change as a change for the worse. It has made both postive and 
negative changes.

I think video has been a contributing factor to the end of the cold war.
The average soviet citizen learned more about the economies of the west from
video they or their friends saw from Finland, West Germany etc. They
didn't *know* that they had a poor living standard compared to the west
until they could see in non-propaganda media what the west had.


Thanks for yor comments.

Richard Foy           Standard Disclaimer

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