Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia: Communication in World Order Transformation, by Ronald J. Deibert

Preface

The main contention of this book is that the landscape of world politics is undergoing rapid and fundamental transformations related to the advent of digital-electronic telecommunications--what I call the hypermedia environment--and that the most useful way to fathom these transformations is through the lens of "medium theory." Admittedly, the picture that emerges through this lens will be discomforting to many: postmodern world order is a place inhabited by de-territorialized communities, fragmented identities, transnational corporations, and cyberspatial flows of finance. It is a world in which brokers, cultists, and khalifs are as much in prominent relief as Canadians, Poles, and Kuwaitis. It is, paradoxically, a world made up of plural worlds, multiple realities and irrealities--digital artifacts stitched together in a web of spectacles, cineplexes, and Segas. Not a single "global village," and even less a system of territorially-distinct nation-states, postmodern world order is, rather, a pastiche of multiple and overlapping authorities--a quasi-feudal, "multicentric" system.

"Medium theory" was first articulated by Harold Innis and then brought to a much wider audience by Marshall McLuhan, both of whom were Canadian scholars who taught at the University of Toronto, where I now have the good fortune to teach. The central proposition of medium theory is that changing modes of communication have effects on the trajectory of social evolution and the values and beliefs of societies. Medium theory traces these effects to the unique properties of different modes of communication--to the way information is stored, transmitted, and distributed through different media at different times in history. It focuses on the material properties of communications environments rather than on the content of the message being conveyed, hence McLuhan's well-worn quip: "the medium is the message."

In the pages that follow, I reformulate medium theory, embedding it in what I call an "ecological holist" framework designed to "get back to the roots" of this approach. At the heart of these modifications are the drawing out of the "media as environments" metaphor alluded to above, and the use of an evolutionary analogy to describe the processes by which social forces and ideas at the margins of society are brought into the center by the unintended consequences of technological change. Contingency figures prominently in my analysis, with the central mechanism of change being a kind of chance "fitness" between social forces and ideas on the one hand, and communications environment on the other. With this revised medium theory as my analytical lens, I retrace previous changes in modes of communication for their effects on world order transformation: the parchment codex and the rise of the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages; the development of the printing press and the medieval-to-modern transformation of political authority; and the emergence of the hypermedia environment and contemporary changes of world order. Hence, while I do believe that we are living in "postmodern" times, not least of which because I believe "postmodernism" as a mentalité will flourish and thrive in the hypermedia environment, the theoretical tools that inform my book are anchored in a historical-materialist perspective. Mumford, Innis, and Braudel, as opposed to Derrida, Foucault, or Lyotard, form the main inspirational backdrop for the analysis that follows.

There were many people who contributed in one way or another to the construction of this study. First, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my friend and personal advisor, Mark Zacher. Mark has helped me along every step of this study. It was Mark who first suggested that I look into doing research in an area that I enjoy as a hobby. After concluding that there were no subfields related to eating pizza, Mark said that I should exploit my penchant for watching TV by researching communications. Since then, Mark has been an unwavering supporter and a diligent critic. His integrity and enthusiasm for the discipline are a constant source of inspiration.

I would also like to thank the many people who have read various versions and pieces of the text through its many different lives, including Darcy Cutler, James Der Derian, Dan Deudney, David Elkins, Paul Heyer, Rod Hall, Kal Holsti, Robert Jackson, Tsuyoshi Kawasaki, Paul Marantz, Richard Matthew, Richard Price, James Rosenau, Hendrick Spruyt, William Stanbury, and Steve Weber. I am very grateful to the Institute of International Relations at the University of British Columbia, and especially its Director, Brian Job, for help in numerous ways. My colleagues at the University of Toronto, particularly Thomas Homer-Dixon, Franklyn Griffiths, Bob Matthews, Lou Pauly, Janice Stein, and David Welch, have made for a very dynamic IR environment--I look forward to many years of continued exchanges with them. Kate Wittenberg, Leslie Bialler, and the rest of the staff at Columbia University Press were very helpful, patient, and humorous--I enjoyed working with them enormously. I would like to thank and acknowledge the financial support for this project provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Department of National Defence/Military and Strategic Studies Program. Special thanks are reserved for my very good friend and colleague Neal Roese, who has read the entire manuscript and provided valuable doses of critical skepticism at crucial junctures. Finally, and most important, I would like to thank my wife and best friend Anna. It is to her, and to my children Emily, Rosalind, and Ethan, that I dedicate this book.

Ronald J. Deibert May 1997

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Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia: Communication in World Order Transformation