COMM620/Listening In Outline

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Contents 1 I. Intro 2 II. User/Listeners 2.1 A. Hobbyist 2.2 B. Audiences 2.3 C. Entrepreneurs 3 III. Two Moments of Transition 3.1 Variables in a moment of transition 3.1.1 User/Listeners 3.1.2 Technology 3.1.3 Industry 3.1.4 Policy 3.2 A. Becoming Amateur 3.3 B. Shifting from hardware to software 4 IV. Conclusion 5 References

I. Intro

"Because hobbies are pursued during leisure hours, often in private, and seem nonproductive in terms of the larger economy, they often get short shrift in historical accounts of America's technological revolution. This is a mistake. By ignoring hobbies - from men tinkering with their Model T's to women working on their sewing machines - we miss the critical history of the rise and fall of technical literacy in the United States." (Douglas 328-329)

Radio to computing to BBSing to Internet

• (51) "[Hams] were the hackers of the early twentieth century ... "
• (55) "As with the spread of home computing in the late 1980s and 1990s, ... "

Mystery

• Ether
• How does it work?
• Magic
• Discourse reflect this fascination with unknown, pleasure
  • Unwilling, uninterested to learn
• Computer "wizards",

Douglas presents an listener-centered history of radio

• Cultural shifts accompanying and interrelating with radio
  • Language
  • Ethnic identity
  • Negotiating race, racism
  • Shifting notions of masculinity
  • Changing role of music
  • New ways of structuring time in response to scheduling
• Lamenting the difficulty of this project because of lack of archives, challenges to archiving radio, especially listener experiences

Makes explicit connections among radio listeners and personal computer users

• To what extent is the user-centered history of computing not being recorded?
• What do we learn from the history of radio that informs our interpretation of present and future events in personal computing?
• What actions could be taken today to preserve the users' history of personal computing?

II. User/Listeners

A. Hobbyist

• Military experience, training, equipment
• Young people
  • Especially boys
• Unaffiliated with large corps, univ, mil, govt
• Non-professional
• Exploratory listening
• As engaged with the platform as its uses

Hackers, tinkerers, hobbyists

• Using extant materials in new ways
• They aren't usually designing chips
• They are putting chips into practice
• Solutions, innovations as often social, cultural as they are technical

What is Douglas' definition?

Radio examples:

• boiled owls, hams up all night getting bags under their eyes (80)
• Ham operators
• DXers, distance freaks
• Hi-fi
• Early adopters of FM (Classical, rock fans)
• College radio jocks, programmers
• Pirate, unlicensed operators

Computing examples:

• Hackers, up all night getting bags under their eyes (where the wizards stay up late)
• Hobbyist computing club members
• Kit builders (Heath, Apple, MITS, etc.)
• BBS operators
• Early web developers, web rings
• Forum admins
• Bloggers
• YouTube posters
• Hardcore gamers
  • Casemods, game mods
• Flash game makers
• Free software hackers

B. Audiences

• Adopting technologies from the marketplace
• Incorporating media/comm/info tech into their lives
• Often overlaps with Hobbyists
  • Become, live with, dabble in hobbyist activities
• Use technologies in ways that neither industry nor hobbyist nor policymaker could foresee
  • Many cannot see while or after it happens either
• Practice active listening
  • Develop new styles of listening, participating
  • Much of this participation is indistinguishable from hobbyist practices

Radio examples:

• Music appreciating radio listeners
• Dedicated fans to radio dramas
• Sports fans
• Talk show listeners, callers
• People who tape record and archive radio broadcasts

Computing examples:

• Early adopters of programmable calculators, personal computers
• Gamers
• BBS callers
• Netheads, web surfers
• Forum posters
• Blog commenters
• IRC, MUD users
• Mobile phone addicts

C. Entrepreneurs

• Making their diversion into a business
• Various models
  • For other hobbyists (Heathkits, parts)
  • For an imagined new audience (Commercial stations)

Radio examples:

• Kit makers
• Support services
• Retail outlets
• Magazines
• Early, local commercial stations
• Promoters
• DJs, on-air personalities

Computing examples:

• Kit makers
• Support services
• Retailers
• Magazines
• Start up companies
• Software, shareware
• ISPs
• Web design companies
• SEO
• Game developers, Flash game makers
• Professional bloggers

III. Two Moments of Transition

Variables in a moment of transition

User/Listeners

As discussed above

• Diverse needs, expectations
• Seeking relevance
  • Exploration
  • Familiarity
  • Utility
  • Social connections
  • Etc.
• Will accept, reject based on relevance

Technology

Despite its centrality to most histories, technology itself has no agency, no ability to effect changes

• Must be operationalized and set into a context
• Brought to market
• Tech sometimes called "disruptive"
  • Technologies do not disrupt, their deployment disrupts
  • Practices, expectations disrupt

Rarely are technologies new when they are brought to market

• Hobbyists, researchers innovate
• Restriction, rejection
• Industry, policy restricts
• User/Listeners reject if it does not resonate (Fiske)

Industry

• Appropriating popular uses
• Following hobbyist lead
  • Not only in the deployment of new tech
  • But in its ENJOYment
• Locating profit
  • Advertising support

How does industry differ from entrepreneurial listeners?

• Overlap
• Scale
• Relationship to other listeners, industries, policy/tech-makers

Policy

A. Becoming Amateur

Hams pioneer listening and broadcasting

• Technical innovation
• Cultural innovation
  • Demonstrating HOW one might listen to radio
  • Not just useful for transmitting messages regarding biz, mil
  • Playing music on the air
  • Community bulletin-boards
  • Preachers, informational shows
  • On-air advertising

Radio Act of 1912 (chp 3)

• • Requires license
  • Restricts power
  • Restricts frequency

Hams banned from air during WWI

Hams reform their image

• ARRL and lobbying effort
• Outreach to young men
• Public service, disaster preparedness

Hams discover advantages of shortwave

• Ground-wave dispersal
• Reflective ionosphere
• Working with available technology
• Responding creatively to the constraints introduced by policy, industry
• These innovations later siezed upon by mil, govt

Compare this to personal computing in the 1970s

• Woz's Apple I prototype rejected by HP
• Hobbyist groups
• Looking, sounding much like Hams
  • Membership overlap, speculation
• Establishing an industry for MITS, Apple, and others
• With the first round of kits, they imagine uses, applications for personal computers
  • Establishing the technical and cultural foundation for personal computing as an industry

B. Shifting from hardware to software

• FRC/FCC Radio Act of 1927 (Chp 3)
  • In an effort to impose order, reliability, clarity for listeners
  • Assign frequencies
  • Priority goes to large corps, owners of expensive rigs
  • Forces smaller, local, and educational stations off the air
  • Largely kills DXing, fewer stations broadcasting, not as many independents
  • Makes way for more sophisticated programming on the larger stations (leading to radio drama, comedy, etc.)
  • Policy against "indecency" veil over racism, exclusion of black musicians (sec 26)
  • Black voices largely banned from the air

As the technical standards for broadcasting begin to harden through policy and industry standardization, it is less likely that radical innovation will happen at the level of technology

• For example, FM, superior in many ways takes nearly 30 years to fully enter the marketplace
  • FCC moves FM band to 88-108mHz to make room for TV
    • Effectively makes all pre-1945 FM equipment obsolete, major setback
    • FCC permits stereo broadcasting of FM, 1961

• The site for hacker innovation is now in the "software" of radio: the format and programming
  • On-air personalities, auter DJs, anti-racism in playlists if not personnel
  • Top 40, free-form, talk formats
  • Temporal segmentation "drive time", "traffic time", "late night"

Similarly, as personal computing becomes big business, the hardware hacker hobbyist is marginalized but standardization opens up space for the software hacker to engage and innovate

• BBS
• Shareware
• PC gaming, Door games, MUDs/MOOs
• Free software, Open source
• Demoscene
• Malware
• Listserv, USENET, Fidonet
• Textfiles, e-zines

When the tools to write code are subject to restriction (no programming tools included on Windows or Mac platform), innovation goes one step further up the chain to the web:

• View source
• Homepages, Webrings, Blogs
• Web forum
• Web services, APIs

IV. Conclusion

Douglas describes a century of radio history

• Technologies
• Tinkerers
• Kinds of listening
• Culture
• Industries (rising, falling)
• Policy (protecting those industries, protecting those listerns and tinkerers)

Douglas makes many connections among radio and computing

• Some explicit (quotes)
• Some implicit
• Assuming that the many moments of change in radio represent patterns that may repeat, how or where is computing in this lifecycle?
• Are the histories of computing and radio really one history arbitrarily divided for ease of study?

And despite all of this richness, the text frequently turns to a sad note regarding the materials available for study.

• Douglas could not speak with authority on some of her observations because of lack of archives, material evidence
• What could have been learned?
• What mistakes are being made today?
• What can be done to prevent this?

References

Douglas, Susan. (1999) Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination New York: Random House.