I'll probably post stuff here that I write for my classes. Below is my first post to a web board for my internet class. I'm pretty disappointed with this internet class. A large part of it is reading this discussion board and interacting. Honestly, I don't care much what my virtual classmates think about things and don't really feel like I'm learning from their mere opinions.
bah.


" The following is a quick reaction to one sentence and a bit of its context in the essay “Information, Not Books.”Mostly, this is just a post to get myself out there and using the web board. I apologize if it’s a bit long.
“Limiting access to information because of its format is nothing less than a covert form of censorship.”
This judgement seems a bit rash to me. Can we speak of “Information” without speaking of concrete forms (formats), any more than we can speak of “Love” or “Logic”? Certainly, “Information” cannot be communicated to anyone without media. One such eminent medium is that of “Book.”
For example, if I wish to communicate information about the life of Stonewall Jackson, I could offer someone the biography written of him by his chaplain and Chief of Staff Robert Lewis Dabney. Or I can hand someone a copy of the recent film Gods and Generals. Now as much as I enjoyed the film, I don’t believe that it gave me or anyone the same information that Dabney’s bio does.
Limiting access to information because of its format is absolutely necessary. I may be able to discover the same “facts” about Jackson through a film, but is that the same “information”?Dabney’s biography is a written, printed biography. To offer it any other way is limiting access to information in another way. Even if the History Channel could do an outstanding job transferring the work to an hour long video documentary, the content (the information) would be radically altered. The person who can’t read (or at least read at the level that Dabney requires), but can watch a documentary may be receiving the same facts, but is certainly receiving different information. The information is tied to a specific medium.The information would be changed. I could spend 10,000 words describing to you Rodin’s sculpture The Gates of Hell.Would my extremely accurate description convey the same information as the sculpture itself? Format discriminates of a necessity. The blind man cannot appreciate Rodin in the same way that the sighted can, precisely because of the format. Rodin’s work could be broken down into information in other formats, but the blind man still does not receive the same information.
Limiting access to information because of its format is nothing less than an overt form of reality.
"