Nicholas Johnson, How to Talk Back to Your Television Set (New York: Bantam Books, 1970) Copyright Notice: Copyright 1970 by Bantam Books, Inc.; Copyright 1996 by Nicholas Johnson. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any medium known now or in the future. Provided, however, that permission is hereby granted to distribute this book under the following conditions: (1) that it is distributed in its entirety, including this copyright notice, (2) that no charge is exacted, or revenue received, directly or indirectly, by anyone in connection with the transfer, and (3) as a matter of courtesy and information, that the author be informed, simultaneously with the distribution, of any distribution to more than one person or posting for availability on the Internet, Web, or publicly available directory. Any other use requires the prior permission of the author: Nicholas Johnson, 1035393@mcimail.com, postal: Box 1876, Iowa City IA 52244-1876, U.S.A. # # # # p. 105 # 5 A Concept of Communications: A Systems Approach # p. 106 # [blank] # p. 107 # TO SAY THAT OUR National life and economy are substantially interwoven with our communications system is to state an obvious truth. This system ties us together as a nation, links us with the rest of the world, and allows the day-to-day personal exchanges which are so important in our lives. Together we watch instantaneous election returns, are saddened by national funerals, participate in a walk on the moon, and laugh with Laugh-In. With the impact of McLuhan and other students of this electronic revolution, we are coming to realize the substantial gaps in our understanding of the impact of this system on our lives. In addition to the public part of our communications system -- the mass media and the electronic support of wire services, facsimile transmission, and electronic controls -- there is the private communications system of links between individuals, or those surrogate individuals, computers. Virtually instantaneous connections to national, and now international, voice and data transmission networks at reasonable cost are the outstanding features of this private system. Without telephones, and data transmission, much of our business and professional activities would be unrecognizable. # p. 108 # The distinction between public and private communications systems seems to me a useful one. Sociologists speak of mass communications as "communications multiplied by some technological device to affect many people." There is a network of "technological devices" which create the paths for mass communications over radio, television, and the news wire services. For the most part we can speak of this network as separate from the private--person-to-person -- communications system. We can think about it, analyze it, criticize it, and hopefully adapt it to our ever changing needs. Of course there is overlap between the public and private communications systems. Telephones, telegraph, facsimile and data transmission are used to support mass communications as well as private. A news reporter may phone in a story to make a deadline. Network executives throughout the country may "meet" in a conference telephone call. A business editor may take advantage of innumerable computer subnetworks in reporting on the state of the economy. But the main activity of the private system is to allow for information exchange between persons acting in their private capacities. It may be friends visiting by telephone across town. It may be more complex: the use of radio to coordinate transportation units, to link control devices in a manufacturing process, or to exchange emergency information for public safety. Man, the only talking animal, spends most of his time as an information processor. Much of his life revolves around information -- using his own sensory resources and those he has created to gather, transfer, and process data. He reads thermometers, he listens for bells, buzzers, or words. Not a second goes by without this flow of information. # p. 109 # Each individual has available to him increasing sources and quantities of information -- an explosion of data. My grandfather depended primarily on books; our generation has countless sources. The problem is no longer availability but selection. And what one chooses to use depends greatly on the communications system, especially those parts which separate, categorize, and relate information. Man's efficiency and effectiveness is substantially dependent upon his ability to identify that which is relevant in the torrent of current and stored information. We are forced now to make conscious choice of what not to know. Since we are only becoming aware of the information explosion, we can safely assume our need for these tools will be greatly increased. Much of what I have just described is observable to all of us. Yet I believe we do not spend nearly enough time thinking about what the communications system does, or could do, or will do in the years ahead. It is clear that our communications system will change radically. Most of what we describe as peculiarly "twentieth century" has in fact occurred during the last thirty years. Much of our expectation about the twenty-first century is based on this most recent experience. And so if it is obvious that we all know too little about our communications system already, it is equally obvious that the technology and nature of the system is due for quick and certain change that promises to further transform our lives. But it is one thing to acknowledge that events are vitally affecting each of us as individuals, and that change of even more far reaching consequence is in store, and quite another to consider thoughtfully the implications of our # p. 110 # present and future course. Increasingly our concern is with the quality of our lives: the air we breathe, the work we do, and the richness of experience which so often seems just beyond our grasp. I have suggested we think about the concept of a communications system--with private and public functions. In doing so I am reminded of a system that is both analogous and competitive to communications: transportation. Not long ago it was common to consider the problems of ships, planes, trucks and railroads without reference to any overall framework. Due in part to the birth of a new Department of Transportation in Washington, we are able to think in terms of our "transportation system"; we are also more inclined to conceptualize "transportation." Similarly, we too often talk of problems involving telephones, broadcasting, cable communications, or satellites, without considering the problems in their total context of a "communications system." The similarities of communications and transportation are obvious. One can think of information as the "cargo" traveling over the "roads" in a communications network. A newsman may decide to carry a story back to his paper rather than phoning it in. One may decide to send a letter rather than call. (Is that letter "communicated" or "transported"?) Data may be sent by way of a package of tape on an airplane, or over microwave radio circuits. Picture telephones and long-distance facsimile copy facilities will make it even more obvious that the airlines' real competitor is the telephone company. In short, communications systems and transportation systems can become substitutes, as well as complements. The ultimate vision is a home communications center # p. 111 # where a person works, learns, and is entertained, and contributes to his society by way of communications techniques we have not yet imagined--incidentally solving our commuter traffic jams and much of their air pollution problem in the process. But in solving these problems, what will happen to cities whose principal purpose is to provide a communications network--when, in one second, we can as easily "travel" 186,000 miles as across the hall? There can be no doubt that the extraordinary vision of the future of communications is an exciting one. It is also ominous. The change that brings great opportunity for human benefit holds potential harm as well. Whether we realize those benefits depends in great measure on our present capacity to use our full resources of information, analytical capability, and experience. For today, even if no more changes occurred, and no new technology were developed, we would still face far-reaching and fundamental problems in our communications system. New equipment, new ways of conveying and manipulating information, often result in faster exchanges of information at lower cost. As a consequence, new technology often provides substitutes for established ways of doing things. A laser beam may carry many thousands of telephone conversations. A cable can bring twenty, and potentially all, television channels into every home. As computers become less costly and more profitable, they require larger networks for data exchange. Satellites provide unlimited potential for international and national communication, as well as for debilitating interference with established ground circuits. The business uses of land # p. 112 # mobile radio multiply daily: taxis, police cars, diaper services, pizza wagons, garage door openers-- businesses which have added billions of dollars to our GNP. But they are being frustrated through lack of frequencies. In the center of this barrage of new technology we are making only the slightest effort at understanding, anticipating, and controlling the rate of introduction, and the effects of fallout from our new miracles of electronics. We now run a substantial risk not only that our communications system may become severely unbalanced by ill-considered and uncontrolled growth and changes, but that the quality of human life will be severely altered for the worse. As an example, I need no more than cite the problems this nation faces with invasions of personal privacy made possible through electronic miniaturization techniques. By and large we view communications problems as varied, numerous, and almost wholly unrelated. I believe we can no longer afford to think of these problems in isolation, and that we must begin viewing individual issues as but part of an integrated concept of a communications system. In three years over one half of all communications will be computers talking to computers. What of competition? Should we permit the entire universe to be divided up, with Comsat taking the heavens and AT&T taking the earth? It is only through a systems approach that we can begin to weigh the impact of change and improvements, and make intelligent choices between alternative courses of action. The electromagnetic spectrum-radio frequencies is a limited natural resource. To use it most effectively requires rational criteria for allocation, # p. 113 # and creative and careful management. Yet we are today already confronting extreme crowding. People who need radio frequencies, who could contribute more effective and efficient service to our national economy with radio, cannot obtain frequencies or cannot use the crowded frequencies assigned. Our basic allocation pattern was established twenty years ago. We are only beginning to develop the mechanisms to evaluate the present allocation system and to provide for changes responsive to need. New demands for spectrum space threaten to overwhelm us before we are ready. And we pay a price for our failure to stimulate and encourage even greater use. There are two other problem areas--cable television and satellites--both of which have substantial impact on frequency management. CATV, or cable television, is a system of cables for bringing television into the home (thereby providing a choice between wire or radio waves to carry messages). In regulating CATV the FCC seeks to create the kind of mass communications system that will best serve the public interest. But decisions about CATV also affect the amount of spectrum space that must be used by over-the-air television, and is therefore not available for other uses. The establishment of a satellite communication system -- international and domestic -- means, of course, that we are concerned about cost and efficiency. But there is also an impact upon presently established systems. One important variable is the effect of widespread use of microwave frequencies by satellites. Potential interference with ground circuits now appears to be a major constraint. What is the answer? Take TV off the air and onto # p. 114 # cables? Fewer satellites? Have the alternatives been spelled out? Of course, a systems approach to communications requires a look at problems other than those related to the engineering of frequency management. Consider, for example, protection from invasion of privacy. The martini olive microphone, the business suit sewn with electronic bugs, and an electric wall plug device which can be monitored by any other wall plug in the same building are all examples of technology gone berserk. Legislative remedies have been proposed, but there is substantial question that violations of privacy can be prevented by any realistic control measures. Another major problem concerns public utility regulation of communications industries. There is substantial question whether nineteenth-century concepts of utility regulation are adequate to serve the public's -- and the investor's -- needs in a dynamic growth industry. We have only begun to analyze the coming establishment of computer utilities. Much of the new technology has resulted in competitive services being offered in markets formerly thought of as monopolies. For example, the FCC's Carterfone and MCI decisions have opened up the markets for telephone equipment and microwave circuits. We find the competitive structure of what has been called the "knowledge industry"--educational materials and equipment, computers, electronics, books, and mass media--changing rapidly. Corporate giants have been formed with substantial interests in several forms of mass media (radio-television-newspapers-magazines), textbooks, paperbacks, computers, programmed learning, and other parts of the new educational technology. # p. 115 # Often these "knowledge conglomerates" are part of even larger industrial concerns. We have so little useful information and analysis about the ownership of any one of these component industries that we have not begun to analyze the trends now taking place, much less consider the implications for a democratic society. President Johnson wisely chose to establish the Public Broadcasting Corporation rather than risk the total frustration of the idea while its proponents--and opponents -- argued about the most appropriate quantity and source of funding. But developing a means of adequate financing remains as a matter uppermost on our national agenda. There are substantial public policy questions still to be resolved. Who pays for the system? Who controls it? The governmental institutions developed to deal with communications have evolved over a forty-year period. Many different federal agencies deal with communications problems at one level or another and from different perspectives. As an example, frequency management is shared by the FCC and the Director of Telecommunications Management in the Office of Emergency Planning (who also serves as the President's Special Assistant for Telecommunications). In February 1970, President Nixon announced his intention to reorganize this office, giving it additional policy responsibilities and staff. The Department of Commerce has the government's major research facility on radio wave propagation and atmospheric conditions. The Federal Aviation Agency has major responsibility for commercial and private aircraft radio; the Coast Guard is responsible for ships. The Defense Department, in communi- # p. 116 # cations as in so many other areas of national consequence, has by all odds the lion's share of the government's personnel and resources--including frequencies -- for managing its own communications system. It may be that the present structure as it has evolved is best suited to meet present and future demands. But it is rather more likely that our present governmental structure should be thoroughly examined in an effort to devise means for encouraging more rational analysis in the formulation of public policy in communications. The problems I have just talked about are illustrative and in no sense exhaust the subject. They do, however, it seems to me, provide adequate support for these observations: (1) In a free society (and shrinking world) the performance of the communications system is extraordinarily important. (2) A useful way of approaching communications problems is to consider them in the context of a total communications system. When talking about one problem, we are really talking about the whole problem. The range of choices is illustrated by frequency allocations, which are still today being "solved" on an ad hoc basis. (3) These problems cry out for a great deal more informed, resourceful, and imaginative research and analysis than our nation has provided. (4) Virtually all academic disciplines have something to contribute to the total conceptualization and resolution of communications problems. Many individuals can take a hand at turning our foundations and academic and research institutions to this task. These problems clearly require an interdisciplinary approach. (5) Finally, I believe a single, national clearing- # p. 117 # house of communications research should be established promptly to keep interested parties informed -- to communicate about our current and proposed communications research, policies, and problems. Such a clearinghouse seems to me indispensable to coordinate our efforts, to prevent wasteful duplication, to promote dialogue among people with similar interests, to insure availability of raw data and published analysis -- and to assist struggling FCC Commissioners of good will. # p. 118 # [blank] # # #