ABSTRACT
British colonial personnel first recorded the history of the state of Gonja in northern Ghana at the turn of the twentieth century. At that time, the Gonja explained the origin of the seven divisional chiefdoms of their territory by recounting how their founding father, Ndewura Jakpa, had traveled down from the Niger Bend in search of gold, becoming chief of the state after conquering its indigenous peoples, and placing his seven sons as rulers of seven territorial divisions. Yet, when the history of Gonja was recorded again sixty years later, following some territorial shifts, the story of origin had changed. Jakpa’s family, as told at that time by the Gonja, had shrunk to only five sons, conveniently matching the then current five territorial divisions. As anthropologist Jack Goody and literary historian Ian Watt (1963) claim, such “automatic adjustments” of history to existing social relations were accomplished relatively easily by the Gonja because they functioned within an oral rather than a written tradition. Once the talk and memories of seven Jakpa sons faded, there were no written artifacts to contradict the new narrative of five sons. The spread of writing in a culture, argue Goody and Watt, has “consequences” that cannot be reduced to the content of what is written. We human beings often distinguish ourselves from animals by pointing to the complex
manner in which we communicate. Yet, most scholars have been hesitant to explore the intricate ways in which changes in the forms of communication-such as the addition of writing to oral societies, the addition of printing to scribal societies, the addition of radio to print cultures, and the subsequent wide use of television, the internet, and other electronic media-may encourage new forms of social organization and undermine old ones. Even in the field of media studies itself, the primary focus has been on the safer and simpler view of media as relatively passive conduits that deliver “messages.” Most media research has focused on topics such as how audiences perceive and respond to media content or how political and economic forces shape dominant media messages. Contentfocused research has led to many significant findings, but it has ignored larger questions about the ways in which changes in media, apart from messages, may alter the textures and forms of social life. At the same time, individual scholars from a variety of fieldsincluding history, anthropology, literary studies, the classics, political economy, and legal studies-have tackled these larger questions. I have called their approach “medium
theory” (Meyrowitz 1985: 16; 2009). I use the singular “medium” to highlight their focus on the distinct characteristics of each medium (or each type of media) and how those characteristics may encourage or constrain forms of interaction and social organization. Medium theory can be divided into microlevel and macrolevel questions. Microlevel
medium theory explores the consequences of the choice of one medium over another in a particular situation, such as initiating or ending a personal relationship, applying for a job, commanding troops, or interacting with one’s children. Macrolevel medium theory explores larger questions about the ways in which changes in media have influenced modes of thinking, patterns of social organization, status differences, value systems, collective memory, and even the physical layout of the built environment. In this chapter, I provide a brief overview of the work of medium theorists. Then I outline four major communication/cultural phases as conceived of by macrolevel medium theory. And, finally, I describe a few key limits of the medium-theory perspective.
