Back in Chapter 5, we discussed the development and various aspects and theories of

language and language development. We learned for example that language especially
English was a powerful development in human history. We also learned that language use
was a creative and symbolic act. And Author Richard Lederer (1991) reminded us that:The
boundary between human and animal between the most primitive savage and the highest
ape is the languageline. The birth of language is the dawn of humanity; in our beginning was
the word.We have always been endowed with language because before we had words, we
were not human beings. [Words] tell us that we must never take for granted the miracle of
language (p. 3).Kenneth Burke suggested there that most language, regardless of media used,
is dramatic while it is symbolic, and it can be used and, more importantly, it can be misused .
With the advent of each new kind of media or kind of word (i.e., spoken,written, printed,
electronic, or interactive words)language can be misused, and we have seen both the Internet
and SNM misused outrageously in the recent past. As a result, our present study of Media And
Persuasion seems more important now than in previous editions. As we shall also see, more
and more of the meaning of persuasive messages is being conveyed via the peripheral channel
of the ELM.Since the development of spoken language,basically four other major media of
communication have developed and gradually each has superseded its predecessor in
important ways;each of them has made communication and hence persuasion easier (but also
more complex),more prevalent and enduring, and enormously more far-reaching and effective.
Each of these media innovations has changed the scale and pace of human life in breathtaking
ways that we can only vaguely imagine. This has become the case most recently with Internet
and SNM.(pg 55 Larson)
communication. For example, take the case of Wikileaks. The entire concept of private
communication has been dissolved when anyone can steal or hack their way into our
personal information. How can we have a truly private or secret communication life anymore?
And if we examine the number of hours spent using the Interactive Word, including SNM, we
will soon conclude that humans are becoming isolates andalso revealatos, isolated from
our receivers and utterly open to those would see and perhaps useus. It is just a grown-up
version of You show me yours, and I ll show you mine!. We freely and naively give away
important data and other information about ourselves and our affairs public,private, and even
intimate data and information.We would also probably conclude that what used to be called the
art of conversation is slowly dying. What impacts will such changes have on the scale and
pace of human life in the future? Think about that in comparison to the other
communication/media innovations of human history and the impacts they produced on human
activity and values.Imagine, if you can, what it would have been like to try to comprehend the
effects of writing(the Written Word ) when we previously only had speaking with which to
communicate? It must have been breathtaking, and we had centuries to absorb it rather than
just decades, which has been the case with electronic and interactive words.The same must
have been true for those first realizing the potentials of printing or the telegraph,telephones, and
radio (as was just pointed out with reference to tank warfare in the previous chapter). And today
we are being introduced to new and interactive media at what might be called supersonic
speed, although that is too ancient a word to accurately describe the changes we face.Let s set
the stage for the almost unimaginable change that we face in the almost instantaneous future by

a brief examination of the history of five major human communication innovations and the
changes they have had on human persuasion. MEDIA INNOVATIONS Each of the five major
human communication innovations was tied to the development of a new medium or technology,
and all have shaped and changed the world and the way we see it, and how we persuade using
the innovation. These Innovations or technologies are: (1) the spoken word, (2) the written word,
(3) the printed word, (4) the electronic word, and (5) the interactive and digital word. And it is this
fifth and final media innovation that we have most seen,experienced, and probably adopted and
used in the past decade; and we will continue to see new developments in future decades, all
relating to the remarkable changes facing us in the ways in which humans communicate with
others and themselves and how technology affects them.These devices and activities will
change forever the structure of human life as we know it, and we are already beginning to feel
that great shift in human life with devices like iPods; cell phones that text, photograph, link to the
Internet, and function as GPS devices; digital television and radio; and activities like texting,
Hogging, tweeting; and a host of others yet to come. In a way we are expanding our roles as
both sources and receivers of persuasive communication by many,many fold. The Spoken Word
The first communication innovation in human history was the ability to speak and to symbolize.
As Lederer pointed out in Chapter 5, prior to language we were not truly human beings. We
were just grunting, mating, killing, and consuming sorts of creatures. We sense the reverence
for the spoken word in many avenues of human activity. In religion, for instance, the JudeoChristian story of the creation in the book of Genesis indicates that the first and major creative
act was accomplished by God using the spoken word (i.e., And God SAID Let there be light ,
and there was light the first night and the first day ). John 1:1 (pg 153 Larson)
Usually, individuals go beyond the family and workplace and become members of groups with
which they want to affiliate, such as service groups, places of worship,the PTA, bowling leagues,
or golf and health clubs.Generally, we limit the number of groups we join,and we are active
members in only a few. Feig(1997) identified the need for belonging as another of his hot
buttons and noted that Americans are the youngest people in the world. He advises
doubters to examine the number of membership cards in their wallets if they don t think this is
so(p.29).The Flipside Of belonging and affiliation needs is the recent trend toward isolation,
which has been hastened by the personal computer and the Internet where one can be isolated
for hoursatatime evendaysfor true addicts.A number of people and organizations are
concerned about the tendency of people to cocoon or isolate themselves. In his article Bowling
Alone (1995)and his follow-up book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American
Community (2000),Robert Putnam observed that more and more persons join what he calls
checkbook groups such as the Citizen sUtilityBoard,the Sierra Club,north American Association
of Retired Persons. Belonging only requires that you write a check, because the groups rarely if
ever meet.Membership is down in civic and fraternal groups like the Lions, Elks, and Moose
Clubs, and fewer people bowl in leagues, preferring to bowl alone. Like physiological and
security needs, the need to belong often interacts with other needs and continues to reemerge
throughout our lives. Also, what fulfills our belonging needs differs at various points in our lives
and will probably change across time. It maybe important to belong to a fraternity or sorority
when we are in college, but after graduation, these affiliations fade and are replaced by jobrelated associations or other social activities. Later, when we have families, other affiliations

tend to be more important to us, and we join community groups, school organizations like the
PTA, or a group within our religious organization. (pg201 Larson)