How Do the Media Contribute to Changes in Time and Space?

[originally assignment essay submitted for course "Media and Globalisaiton" in LSE, 28/4/2003]

It 2:30 in the morning, lying back in my bed with laptop on my knee, I link to the library site to renew my book and download some journal articles. Meanwhile, I open another window to see the latest new about SARS[1] from a ‘local’ newspaper in Taiwan. Suddenly Pansy sends me a greeting via MSN messenger[2]. She shortly described the tense sense in Beijing and I share my feelings with her. We both feel we are witnessing an important passage of history. Soon after, Vika and Chi-chen also show up (as represented by the little blue head on MSN panel). I know that Vika just arrived her office in Taipei and Chi-chen returned home in Los Angles. I can see them and a dozen of other friends whenever I get online, yet I only talk with some of them occasionally. It just seems so easy to chat anytime that I see little reason to chat at any given time.

This passage of my life, contrasted with the past, illustrates some implications of how a new form of media, the internet, is redefining the temporality and spatiality as I conceive them. In this essay, I will start from these personal experiences; relate them to the existing literature for a critical discussion of how the media in general are re-shaping the way we conceive and experience time and space. Three themes will be explored: (1) the sense of shrinking distance and the dissociation of social relations from physical place, (2) the blurred boundary between public and private and the lost traditional identities of time and space, and (3) the mediated identities of time and space. In general, I found most theorizations are generalized in a level too abstract and can only capture a partial picture of the changing landscape of time and space. The media, while restructuring the old reference frame of time and space in various ways, also provide a complicated set of new frames over-layering on the old ones, with which we may construct our conception and experience of time and space in diverse ways.

Before entering further discussions, some clarification of the key concepts will be helpful. First, media, as discussed here, refers to the means of communication through which we experience the world beyond our immediate reach, which include the television, radio, newspaper, internet, phones and various personal communication devices. While money, language and power had been discussed as “circulating media” by Parson and Luhmann (Giddens, 1990:23), their implications are beyond the scope of this essay. Second, while the word “time” and “space” usually evoke the impression of the abstract, absolute dimensions of the physical world, here, apparently, they are discussed as social constructs, referring to our conceptions and experiences of them. Third, time and space are two distinctive aspects of our life, but they actually share much in common. As Bauman (2000) noted, “‘Far’ and ‘long’, just like ‘near’ and ‘soon’, used to mean nearly the same: just how much, or how little effort would it take for a human being to span a certain distance.” It also makes sense to regard ‘weekend time’ as a kind of ‘private space.’ Hence, for the reason of brevity, I will discuss “time and space” collectively while addressing the implications that are relevant to both.

The Sense of Shrinking Distance in Time and Space
In his fantastic novel Equality, 1897, Edward Bellamy envisioned a world in which the electronic connection had made the physical distance no longer a barrier for experiencing the world with your eyes and ears. He wrote:

“You stay at home and send your eyes and ears abroad for you. Wherever the electric connection is carried … be it the mid-air balloon or mid-ocean float of the weather watchman, or the ice-crushed hut of the polar observer… it is possible in slippers and dressing gown for the dweller to take his choice of the public entertainments given that day in every city of the earth” (347-8, quoted in Marvin, 1988:200)

This paragraph reflects the aspiration we once had, or still have, to conquer the restriction of physical distance through the media technology.

One century later, with the invention of radio, telephone, television, internet, and various forms of electronic devices the vision imagined by Bellamy had mostly come true. The distance we need to travel and the time I need to spend for doing various things were dramatically reduced. Now, I can “send my eyes and ears” to see the latest news in distant countries, I can also talk with friends who is physically remote, renew my books without spending £2 and two hours on the road, and do many things that were previously unachievable without physical presence. Meyrowitz (1985:116) argued that the telegraph, the first widely adopted means of electronic media, eroded the “informational differences between different places” and made the “[p]hysical distance as a social barrier… to be bypassed through the shortening of communication ‘distance.’” This remark is applicable to all the electronic communication means developed in the last century.

The “bypassing of the physical distance” has two implications. First, it creates a sense of shrinking distance and a speeding-up of life pace. The media provide an alternative, easier path for accessing a huge amount of information and options that were previously remote, as noted by McLuhan (1967) in his description of the “global village.” And this effect, combined with the rationale of capitalism, the logic of competition, leads to a sense of speeding-up of life pace. The two effects led Harvey (1989) to coined the phrase “time-space compression,” because, he wrote, “a strong case can be made that the history of capitalism has been characterized by speed-up in the pace of life, while so overcoming spatial barriers that the world sometimes seems to collapse inwards upon us (240).”

Second, the bypassing of the physical distance enables us to manage our social relations in a less geographically bounded way. It’s argued to have caused the “disembedding… the ‘lifting out’ of social relations from local contexts of interaction” (Giddens, 1990:21) and “the dissociation of physical place and the social ‘place’ ” (Meyrowitz 1985:115). These notions capture some aspects of the changing experience of time and space. In my case, for instance, part of my social relation with school library (renewing books and copying some articles) is “lifted out” from the conventional context of going to the library, and now managed in a “social place” that is dissociated from any physical place, i.e., the library website. Besides, I also keep contact with most of my friends in such “dissociated social place,” which relies in “the notional environment within which electronic communication occurs,[3]” namely the cyberspace. Whenever I get online and see the little blue heads on my MSN panel (knowing that they can see me as well if they are by the screen), I do have a feeling of showing up in a public “space.” If I log into a local BBS, I can even get a more intimate, cozy feeling, which is well-captured by Rheingold’s (1993) notion of “virtual community.”

However, while the notions of “disembedding,” “time-space compression,” or “global village” capture some aspect of my experience, the impression of a uniformly shrinking world is just misleading. First, my experience as a highly connected is far from an experience shared by all. Just take the internet access as example: in 2000, there were 252.5 internet hosts per one thousand population in United States, while in India the same statistic was only 0.02[4]. As Silverstone (1999) pointed out, “[t]hose who talk of space-time distanciation, or space-time compression, as the common denominator of the global…offer too great an abstraction. The disembedding…is by no means, even now, a uniform global experience. (p.109)”

Second, for those who are “highly connected”, the different parts of the world are neither equally represented on the media network. The whole discussion around “media imperialism” (e.g., see Boyd-Barrett, 1977) should reminds us that different countries are unequally presented in the “mediascape,” in Appadurai’s (1990) term. And the “global city” discussed by Sassen (1991) are also expected to be more accessible on the media than the backwater little towns in nearby area.

Finally, the sense of distance between an individual and one place may be plural. Take my relation with the library as an example, while I can renew my books online, I still go to the real library to borrow and return books. What I feel is actually the coexistence of “two path,” one is more distant but allows a full interaction with the library, the other permit only a partial interaction but is just a mouse click away. Hence the shortened sense of distance does not replace the old one completely, but just, in Ferguson’s (1993) expression, “overlay” on it.

Lost Traditional Identities of Time and Space
“2:30 in the morning, laying back in my bed,” I am supposed to be spending my most private time at my most private space, to be at home. Home, described by Silverstone (1999:89), is “a place of shelter, a facilitating as well as an oppressive place. It always set against the public, the impersonal, the outside, the unfamiliar…” However, I am still engaged in the public discourse as I read the news and talk with friends through the screen, the new form of “door” that “allow us to see and to reach beyond the limits of the physical space of the house” (Silverstone, 1999: 91). Scannel (1988:17), studying the temporality of radio broadcasting, noted that “[b]roadcasts unobtrusively stitched together the private and the public spheres in a whole new range of contexts.” Here, I witness the same effect to a greater extend. The role of my bedroom as private space and the nighttime as private time are both eroded. The use of media blurred the boundary between the public and the private time and space.

This blurred boundary between the public and the private highlights a more general concern over the lost identities of time and space. Meyrowitz (1985:125), observing that the “[t]elevision, radio, and telephone turn once private places into more public ones … [and] car stereos, wristwatch televisions, and personal sound systems such as the Sony ‘Walkman’ make public spaces private,” concluded that the media destroy the specialness of place and time. He further remarked, “[t]hrough such media, what is happening almost anywhere can be happening wherever we are. Yet when we are everywhere, we are also no place in particular.”

Relph’s (1976) discussions of “placelessness” and Augé’s (1995) “non-place” thesis reflect similar concerns, though from different perspectives. Relph (1976:92), focusing on how media affect place construction, argued that the mass media were causing a “growing uniformity of landscape” and “a lessening of places” by transmitting a standardized taste and fashion. Augé’s (1995: 77) took “identity, history and relations” as key criteria for “place” and concluded that the look-alike landscape, e.g., fast-food stores, coffee shops, supermarkets, or airport, are “non-place.” These views in fact reflect the other side of the “disembedding” process discussed previously. While social situations are being dissociated from physical places, and social relations are being “lifted out” from local contexts, the importance of a given geographical location is hence decreased.

Regarding time, the ambiguity of contemporary temporarily is well captured by Castell’s (1996: 494) notion of “timeless time.” He proposed this idea to reflect the various “systemic perturbations in the sequential order of phenomenon” induced by the “informa- tional paradigm and network society.” This perturbation, according to him, may take the form of “compressing the occurrence of phenomena, aiming at instaneity, or else by introducing random discontinuity in the sequence.” He used the examples of split-second capital transaction, flex-time enterprise, the blurring of the life cycle and so on to give this argument a strong support. Although Castell’s analysis relates to a broad range of issues, the role of media in this analysis cannot be more central. While the aspects of “compression and instaneity” can be understood following our previous discussion about the “speeding up,” the “random discontinuity,” or in the more appealing term, “flexibility”, in many ways, is also enabled through the development of media.

Yet, does time and space really lose its specialness? Not really. As we will elaborate next, media are in effect “create” some forms of specialness or identities of time and space.

Mediated Identities of Time and Space
I believe that I will always remember this turbulent April, which is “highlighted” by the war on Iraq and SARS. I feel emotionally touched and I talk with my friends sharing my feelings. Yet, all the exposures I have with the war and SARS are mediated, as far as I don’t get infected. In a way, it is through media that I feel the “intensity of meaning” of this specific period time. Similar examples are just abundant, to name few: celebrating the new millennium’s eve, World Cup, 9-11, the death ceremony of Diana and so on. Dayan and Katz (1992:196-7) noted how certain public ceremonies, nowadays, are broadcasted and shared by many: “[a] consequence of the new model of public ceremony is that the whole of a population is allowed – and expected – to attend…. All those within reach of a television set are simultaneously and equally exposed, and they share the knowledge that everybody else is too… ” Such a “media event” is broadcasted to many who do not have face-to-face contact with each other in their real life, marking a specific period of time with intense meaning.

If we take a broader scope, some forms of electronic media that used to dominate, such as radio, or still dominate, such as television, have all been demonstrated to be influential in “disciplining” our temporality. Scannel (1988:17, italic added) noted that in 1920-30s, “BBC became perhaps the central agent of the national culture as the calendrical role of broadcas- ting; this cyclical reproduction, year in year out, of an orderly and regular progression of festivities, rituals and celebrations…that marked the unfolding of the broadcast year.” Also, Mellencamp (1990: 240) described US network television as “disciplinary time machine” because “[t]he hours, days, and television seasons are seriated, scheduled, and traded in ten-second increments modeled on the modern work day – day time, prime time, late night, or weekend.” It is these media events, and the shared temporality and meaning they create, that help create the kind of “imagined community” argued by Anderson (1991).

Similarly, while the media destroy the traditional identities of many places through promoting “uniformity of landscape,” they also play the crucial roles in how certain places are represented, perceived, and imagined, and in effect help creating or affirming the identities of these places. Harvey (1993) used the example of New York Time Square to illustrate how the representation (as 'symbolic place') and imagination of one place can actually create a sense of place identity and have significant material consequence. In my personal experience, I consume media to construct my imagination of London before coming here; now, I use the internet to nourish my emotional attachment with my hometown.

Moreover, while Relph and Augé criticized the look-alike landscape as “placeless” or “non-place,” we must not forget the very reason for such look-alike places to emerge – to provide those who migrate often a sense of familiarity in an unfamiliar land[5] – still implies a sense of “place identity,” though in a more symbolic, less geographically-bounded way. Crang (1998:103) clarified the meaning of place as it “provide an anchor of shared experiences between people and community over time.” In a traditional society, such a place is surely a geographically bounded one, which is “relational, historical and concerned with identity,” in Augé’s criteria. Yet in contemporary society, while the communities in the traditional sense are replaced by the “community without propinquity” (Webber, 1963) or “ personal community” of “individual’s social network” (Wellman and Gulia, 1999), such an “anchor of shared experience” is no longer necessarily a definite geographical locale, but could be some common elements in the life of the people involved in the new forms of community, for instance, Starbucks, Tesco, and some of the “non-places” Augé claimed. As Massey (1991) pointed out, “places should no longer be seen internally homogenous, bounded area, but as ‘spaces of interaction.’”

Contrasting the arguments presented above, either the “placelesness” or “mediated place construction,” “timeless time” or “disciplinary time machine,” only captures one facet of the complicated picture of how media reshape our conception and experiences of time and space. While the media blur the boundary between the private and the public, cause the “uniformity in landscape” which erode traditional place identities, and tumble the old sense of time, they are also “supplying new definitions of, and imperatives for, time and space (Ferguson, 1993:170).” In sum, the media provide a diverse set of new frames of time and space, over-layering on the old ones, with which we may construct our conception and experience of time and space in diverse ways.


Reference
Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised Edition ed. London: Verso.
Appadurai, A. (1990) 'Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy’, pp. 1-23 in Public Culture, Vol. 2, No 2.
Bauman, Z. (2000) ‘Time and Space Reunited’, pp. 171–185 in Time and Society 9(2/3) London: Sage
Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell
Crang, M. (1998) Cultural Geograph. London : Routledge.
Dayan, D. and Katz E. (1992) Media Events; The Live Broadcasting of History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Ferguson, M. (1993) 'Electronic Media and Redefining of Time and Space’, pp. 152-172 in M. Ferguson (ed) Public Communication. The New Imperatives. London: Sage.
Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Harvey, D. (1989) 'From Space to Place and Back Again: Reflections on the Condition of Postmodernity’, pp. 3-29 in J. Bird et al (eds.) Mapping the Futures. Local Culture, Global Change. London: Routledge.
Harvey, D (1990) The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell.
Marvin, C. (1988) When Old Technologies Were New. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mellencamp, P. (1990) ‘TV Time and Catastrophe, or Beyond the Pleasure Principle of Television,’ in Mellencamp, P. (ed.) Logics of Television. London: British Film Institute.
Meyrowitz, J. (1985) No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Relph, E. (1976). Place and placelessness. London: Pion Ltd
Sassen, S. (1991) The Global City. London: Princeton University Press
Scannel, P. (1988) ‘Radio Times: the Temporal Arrangements of Broadcasting in the Modern World,’ in Drummond, P. and Paterson, R. (eds.) Television and Its Audience: International Perspectives. London: British Film Institute.
Silverstone, R. (1999) Why Study the Media. London: Sage.
Webber, M. M. (1963) “Order in Diversity: Community without Propinquity,” in L. Wirigo (ed.) Cities and Space. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Wellman, B. and Gulia, M. (1999) ‘Net Surfers Don’t Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities’, pp. 331-366 in Barry Wellman (eds.) Network in the Global Village. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Endnotes
[1] Serious Acute Respiratory Syndrome, a sickness now plagued Asia.
[2] A popular instant messenger software
[3] Oxford English Dictionary, entry “cyberspace.”
[4] Internet Software Consortium, 2000
[5] This purpose is evident in discussions about CIS (company identification system ) in the business literatures.