Frances Forde Plude

INTRODUCTION: TRAILS LEADING ME TO THESE WRITINGS

My mother was a teacher. Her mother, my grandmother, was also a teacher. So, it was probably natural I would also want to teach. After college and work on a master’s degree I found myself, instead, in educational administration and, later, working in the field of educational television production.

So, it emerged that the focus of my professional life was to be communication – especially the tools of communication – their impact on learning and culture. A growing awareness developed – the importance of networks. And I began to see most communication buttressed by network infrastructure: friendship links; telephone conversations; family and business links. An important early link involved two colleagues, one from Brooklyn and one from San Francisco. Each of us was administering a system of ITFS closed-circuit television programs for schools in our area.

However, when we met with our colleagues from other cities the three of us went apart to brainstorm our excitement about the potential of technology for individualized instruction. We called the concept individualized learning systems.

Our own interactions were exciting, and I searched for a way to institutionalize the ideas we spawned. The personal computer was not widespread at that time, but I wondered about the possibility of getting access to a computer so the three of us could continue our conversations – each at our own location and at our convenience. My thought was that I would try later (through some sort of word search) to organize our conversational concepts into an initial theoretical model, tracing themes of our thinking together.

Then my ideas took a new turn. I remember the conversation with my husband. I told him I saw many new communication technologies emerging. Although the main ones at the time were communication satellites and fax machines (and not many had heard of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs yet), I knew communication systems would grow as these technologies advanced.

I said earnestly, “People will make billions of dollars from these technological tools. But who will advocate for poor people? How will we ensure that women’s voices will be heard?” I added perhaps I should enroll in doctoral studies so I could track this communication future and be a voice for these groups. I had no desire to be entrepreneurial. I didn’t know the term at the time, but what I wanted was to research and monitor telecommunication public policies as they developed.

I began to publish articles, and this opened the door to Professor Ed Parker at Stanford University, a key thinker on communication issues. On a visit to his office I asked Parker if Harvard or Stanford would give me the ‘clout’ to participate in policy matters. Strangely, Parker discouraged me from taking the time out for doctoral work. He said, “You are already publishing good ideas without the prestige of a doctoral degree.”

However, a female friend reminded me that for a woman to be taken seriously in this high- powered arena she would be helped by the Harvard connection. Fortunately Harvard University accepted me as a ‘special program’ doctoral student allowing me to design a unique road map of studies taking courses in the Law School, the Business School, the Kennedy School of Government, and even MIT – whatever would aid me in sharpening my knowledge and skills in the communication/technology/public policy areas.

I should add that I am more grateful than I can express to my husband who, after realizing I was serious and the task was important, took a second job so I could take three years off for these full-time Harvard studies. He built a bookcase-lined study in our home, managed the many details of our lives, offered constant support (even typing my dissertation), and was a true partner in all this work. Thankfully he lived long enough to witness my graduation and enjoy the fruits of this labor. We had planned to move to Washington for a policy post, but he urged me to enter the academic/consulting world instead. He provided vital support in my life and, thus, even after his death, my work in the years that followed was his special gift.

My essential telecommunication passions emerged as these technologies developed. I understood early that the telephone was the key tool because it allowed interactivity or feedback – two-way communication. I did not know then that the phone would morph into a computer leading to the wonders of today’s cell phone technology. But I had worked with the MIT scholar Ithiel de Sola Pool, who wrote about the social implications of the telephone. I did not know that the Internet was on the horizon, but I remember saying to my students: “If we design better ways for people to connect with one another, even globally, this will be the most important communication tool”.

Empowerment became another important passion – linking back to my earlier desire to have communication technology aid poor people globally. Who knew then that cell phone technology would allow poor women to become entrepreneurs in their small villages, or that this would empower an Arab Spring, allowing people of many nations to fight for human dignity?

Another major emphasis in my work became the intersection between interactive technology and religious institutions. In the West churches were seeing attendance at religious services decline, especially among young people. If the world around them was permeated by interactivity, my question was: how can churches allow more dialogue, more feedback, especially in strict hierarchical structures like the Catholic Church? I had done graduate work in theology and I wondered: how can communications theory and practice be integrated into theology (as feminist theology integrated feminist studies and liberation theology absorbed liberation theory)?

My church/communication writings and Communication Theology work will appear in Volumes II, III and IV of my collected writings.

As I worked on my Harvard dissertation, I became aware that, in the academy, one should do research and write about existing scholarship in your unique area of study. However, this is only a prologue to one’s own task: to create and summarize ideas of your own that would move the subject further, to contribute to an expansion of knowledge in your field. This is a challenge for almost all academics facing the empty page or the blank computer screen.

Like many others, I found it easy to read widely and summarize the contents of many books and scholars. I often sensed links between these ideas and began to formulate ideas, connections, and concepts of my own. Thus, I became aware the field of communication studies had giant thinkers and innovators. As the new emphasis of communication and cultural studies emerged, I even met some of these major thinkers; some I got to know personally. I knew that several key areas of study converged in my own work (dialogue and collaboration theory, church and communication, interactive technologies).

The challenge is to contribute oneself – with truly new scholarship. I think I have done some of this, but I am aware that my own work does not rank with the top-level scholarship in the field. However, my contribution was to have two unique “angles” in these communication studies.

First, I was bridging several areas: communication and technology; communication studies and institutions, especially churches; and communication and theology. Secondly, because I had been a communication professional in the field and had unique practical experience, I had all this as a foundation for my later theoretical doctoral studies. And, of course, I was conceptualizing just as enormous technological change transformed the communication field.

Very early my work developed a global dimension. One gifted doctoral student, now a professor in Bangkok, assisted with a research project where we interviewed European telecom ministers just as they were privatizing government telecom systems. During these interviews we brought our research to the conversation as we thought together with the ministers about the value of collaborative strategic planning.

As an invited member of the small International Study Commission on Media, Religion and Culture, I attended our annual meetings on various continents where we would interact with local scholars and practitioners. These meetings were held in Ecuador, Brazil, Hollywood, Australia, Thailand, Canada, Rome, Africa and Ukraine, among other sites. Later my work would take me to India and back to Ukraine where I could study these unique cultures and think about emerging digital environments there.

It is a huge challenge to keep current in the fast-moving field of digital communication technologies, in addition to tracking the resulting cultural changes. Just to monitor the global impact of social media (very connected to my early insights on interactivity) is a huge challenge. My work with Christian, the editor of my collected works and a talented member of the Net- generation, keeps me plugged in to these new realities.

Very early I recognized that emerging communication technologies would change our world and require new thinking and analysis. My Harvard studies confirmed this intuition. As my teaching advanced it was a race to keep up with unfolding technological tools and public policy legislation. There was a long and linear line of change: video recorders that first allowed time- shifting; the growth of the cable industry; the widespread emergence of the personal computer, then laptops, then cell phones as computers; the continued magic of Apple computers, iPods, iPhones and iPads; the development of wireless, the search engine and social networks.

My Harvard dissertation tracked the need for new policies for direct broadcast satellite technology. With today’s digital technology revolution, I feel I am back – once again – at another bold frontier, almost a jungle. Christian Taske and others help me ride that tiger.

This volume of my writings opens with texts that examine some aspects of the potential that interactivity and networks present globally. In one text Christian and I jointly explore the impact of digital communication tools in the election of Barack Obama. I also study: the role of interactive technologies in universities; the marketplace of ideas in the decentralization of power structures, including churches; new communication flows; organizational infrastructures; and how different generations view and utilize digital technologies. Section I concludes with two commentaries about social networks – Christian and mine – showing our generational differences.

Part II introduces tools I have found useful: Fact Sheets and Grids. I often assembled a one-page summary of basic factual data on a topic so my students and other audiences could have a copy of the data on such topics as digital networks, patriarchy, poverty, telephone technology in India, power structures and m-powerment for women, for example. I have also included here 4 grids that trace the development of interactive communication systems. These grids view the systems through the prisms of cultural structures, media formats and social and religious structures.

The texts in Part III explore varied dimensions of earlier mass media: early developments of Instructional Television Fixed Service (ITFS) for classrooms; my own Harvard study of the policy implications of direct broadcast satellite service to homes; the role of collaboration as new tools develop; and some ethical reflections on global media developments.

In Part IV I focus on the telephone exclusively. One early text of mine – written as AT&T was breaking up into “the baby Bells”, explores the technological and human dimensions of the breakup. Christian and I also explore how mobile phone technology has empowered women globally, with many examples from India.

Part V includes numerous reviews I have written about books dealing with various aspects of the information society. Most of these reviews have appeared in the international journal Communication Research Trends, edited by Paul Soukup, a noted communication scholar. Past issues are available at the Santa Clara University web site. [cscc.scu.edu/trends]

I have assumed that “creativity is communication” so Sections VI and VII of this volume contains some of my travel writings and personal essays. It’s easy to move around among these texts or various sections of the book since the topics vary and can be read independently.

It’s been a remarkable journey! I hope you will travel along with me.'

[Throughout these volumes, I have tried to obtain any appropriate copyright permissions].