The term communication process refers to the exchange of information (a message) between

two or more people. There are many different models of the interpersonal
communication process, but here are some of the key elements:
the sender or communicator (the person who initiates a message)
the receiver or interpreter (the person to whom a message is directed)
the message (the verbal and/or nonverbal content that must be encoded by the
sender and decoded by the receiver)
the channel (the medium by which the message is delivered and received)
the context (the setting and situation in which communication takes place)
noise (anything that interferes with the accurate expression or reception of a
message)
feedback (a response from the receiver indicating whether a message has been
received in its intended form)
Put simply, effective communication takes place when a sender's message is fully understood
by the receiver.

surroundings. . . . Most obviously there is the physical context--whether we are talking to

someone in our living room or on the terraces at a football match. But then there is the social
context, which is to do with the occasion involved and the people in it. This might be a group
of friends in a club or a family meal or a group of mourners at a funeral. And then there is
the cultural context, which refers to an even broader set of circumstances and beliefs, which
still may affect how we talk. For example, it would matter if the funeral was in a Hindu or an
Anglican context. It is particularly important to see that the media are part of the cultural
context in which we operate. How we talk, what we talk about, what music we listen to, has a
lot to do with the influence of the cultural context of the media."
(Richard Dimbleby and Graeme Burton, More Than Words: An Introduction to Communication,
3rd ed. Routledge, 1998)

Noise in the Communication Process

"Noise is anything that disrupts or interferes with the communication process. Noise can
be physical or psychological, it can disrupt the communication process at any point, and it
can be associated with any element in the system."
(Sandra D. Collins, Interpersonal Communication: Listening and Responding, 2nd ed. SouthWestern, 2009)

Feedback in the Communication Process

"Feedback is the final link in the chain of the communication process. After receiving a
message, the receiver responds in some way and signals that response to the sender. The
signal may take the form of a spoken comment, a long sigh, a written message, a smile or
some other action. Even a lack of response, is in a sense, a form of response. Without
feedback, the sender cannot confirm that the receiver has interpreted the message correctly.
Feedback is a key component in the communication process because it allows the sender to
evaluate the effectiveness of the message . . . [and] take corrective action to clarify a
misunderstood message."
(Sathya Swaroop Debasish and Bhagaban Das, Business Communication. PHI Learning, 2009)

Co-orientation in the Communication Process

"An interesting manifestation of the attention paid to the receiver in the study of the
communication process is the concept of 'co-orientation,' which has become popular in the
United States recently. The idea behind this concept is that two persons can have similar
perceptions and interpretations of the same object, and the greater the similarity (coorientation), the more efficient will be the flow of communication between the persons.
Conversely, an intense flow of communication may increase co-orientation."
(Juan Diaz Bordenave, "Communication Theory and Rural Development." Communication for
Social Change Anthology, ed. by Alfonso Gumucio Dagron and Thomas Tufte. CFSC
Consortium, 2006)

Shel Silverstein on the Communication Process

If we meet and I say, "Hi,"
That's a salutation.
If you ask me how I feel,
That's consideration.
If we stop and talk awhile,
That's a conversation.
If we understand each other,

Examples and Observations

Sender and Receiver

"In the basic interpersonal communication model, the sender, also known as the source, is
the person who initiates the communication process. In a dyadic, or two-person,
communication situation, the receiver is the other person involved. In a public speaking or
public communication situation, the audience is made up of receivers. The numbers can vary
from a few to a few hundred. The speaker may use only his/her voice or may need a public
address system. In mass communication, there could be literally hundreds, millions, or even
billions of receivers.
"In dyadic communication or public speaking, the channel, or a means of sending or receiving
information, is both verbal communication (the spoken word) and nonverbal communication
(gestures and one's appearance)."
(W. A. Kelly Huff, Public Speaking: A Concise Overview for the Twenty-First Century. Peter
Lang, 2008)

Interaction of Senders and Receivers

"Because communication is interaction, participants take turns 'sending' and 'receiving.'
This turn-taking is even true for mass-mediated communication, for instance, the process
whereby an entertainment program is created, programmed, and aired for an audience's
enjoyment. If the audience watches and enjoys the program, it is likely to continue to be
aired. If the audience is not amused, the program is cancelled.
"Interaction means that both parties--persons or entities--can affect the other. In this way,
both parties are senders and receivers. They are also co-persuaders in that they may take
turns trying to affect one another by sharing symbols."
(Robert L. Heath and Jennings Bryant, Human Communication Theory and Research:
Concepts, Contexts, and Challenges, 2nd ed. Lawrence Erlbaum, 2000)

Context in the Communication Process

"Context refers to the idea that every act of communication must happen in some sort of

That's communication.
If we argue, scream and fight,
That's an altercation.
If later we apologize,
That's a reconciliation.
If we help each other home,
That's cooperation.
And all these ations added up
Make civilization.
(And if I say this is a wonderful poem,
Is that exaggeration?)
(Shel Silverstein, "Ations." A Light in the Attic. HarperCollins, 1981)

A feedback mechanism is a set of procedures and tools formally established and

used to allow humanitarian aid recipients (and in some cases other crisis-affected
populations) to provide information on their experience of a humanitarian agency or of the
wider humanitarian system. Feedback mechanisms can function as part of broader
monitoring practices and can generate information for decision-making purposes. Feedback
mechanisms collect information for a variety of purposes, including taking corrective action in
improving some elements of the humanitarian response, and strengthening accountability
towards affected populations. For one thing, they can help close the gaps between
accountability rhetoric and practice. Currently, however, there is a need for evidence on what
works, and doesn't in different contexts. A feedback mechanism is seen as effective if, at
minimum, it supports the collection, acknowledgement, analysis and response to the
feedback received, thus forming a closed feedback loop (see figure above). Where the
feedback loop is left open, the mechanism is not fully effective.

Media as an Information Industry

The information industry or information industries are industries that
are information intensive in one way or the other. It is considered one of the most
important economic sectors for a variety of reasons.

There are many different kinds of information industries, and many different ways to classify
them. Although there is no standard or distinctively better way of organizing those different
views, the following section offers a review of what the term "information industry" might
entail, and why. Alternative conceptualizations are that of knowledge industry and
information-related occupation. The term "information industry" is mostly identified
with computer programming, system design, telecommunications, and others.
First, there are companies which produce and sell information in the form of goods or
services. Media products such as television programs and movies, published books and
periodicals would constitute probably among the most accepted part of what information
goods can be. Some information is provided not as a tangible commodity but as a service.
Consulting is among the least controversial of this kind. However, even for this category,
disagreements can occur due to the vagueness of the term "information." For some,
information is knowledge about a subject, something one can use to improve the
performance of other activitiesit does not include arts and entertainments. For others,
information is something that is mentally processed and consumed, either to improve other
activities (such as production) or for personal enjoyment; it would include artists and
architects. For yet others, information may include anything that has to do with sensation,
and therefore information industries may include even such things as restaurant, amusement
parks, and prostitution to the extent that food, park ride, and sexual intercourse have to do
with senses. In spite of the definitional problems, industries producing information goods and
services are called information industries. Second, there are information processing services.
Some services, such as legal services, banking, insurance, computer programming, data
processing, testing, and market research, require intensive and intellectual processing of
information. Although those services do not necessarily provide information, they often offer
expertise in making decisions on behalf of clients. These kinds of service industries can be
regarded as an information-intensive part of various industries that is externalized and
specialized. Third, there are industries that are vital to the dissemination of the information
goods mentioned above. For example, telephone, broadcasting and book retail industries do
not produce much information, but their core business is to disseminate information others
produced. These industries handle predominantly information and can be distinguished from

wholesale or retail industries in general. It is just a coincidence, one can argue, that some of
those industries are separately existing from the more obvious information-producing
industries. For example, in the United States, as well as some other countries, broadcasting
stations produce very limited amount of programs they broadcast. But this is not the only
possible form of division of labor. If legal, economic, cultural, and historical circumstances
were different, the broadcasters would have been the producers of their own programs.
Therefore, in order to capture the information related activities of the economy, it might be a
good idea to include this type of industry. These industries show how much of an economy is
about information, as opposed to materials. It is useful to differentiate production of valuable
information from processing that information in a sophisticated way, from the movement of
information. Fourth, there are manufacturers of information-processing devices that require
research and sophisticated decision-making. These products are vital to informationprocessing activities of above mentioned industries. The products include computers of
various levels and many other microelectronic devices, as well as software programs. Printing
and copying machines, measurement and recording devices of various kinds, electronic or
otherwise, are also in this category. The role of these tools are to automate certain
information-processing activities. The use of some of these tools may be very simple (as in
the case of some printing), and the processing done by the tools may be very simple (as in
copying and some calculations) rather than intellectual and sophisticated. In other words, the
specialization of these industries in an economy is neither production of information nor
sophisticated decision-making. Instead, this segment serves as an infrastructure for those
activities, making production of information and decision-making services will be a lot less
efficient. In addition, these industries tend to be "high-tech" or research intensive - trying to
find more efficient ways to boost efficiency of information production and sophisticated
decision-making. For example, the function of a standard calculator is quite simple and it is
easy to how to use it. However, manufacturing a well-functioning standard calculator takes a
lot of processes, far more than the task of calculation performed by the users. Fifth, there
are very research-intensive industries that do not serve as infrastructure to informationproduction or sophisticated decision-making. Pharmaceutical, food-processing, some apparel
design, and some other "high-tech" industries belong to this type. These products are not
exclusively for information production or sophisticated decision-making, although many are
helpful. Some services, such as medical examination are in this category as well. One can say
these industries involve a great deal of sophisticated decision-making, although that part is
combined with manufacturing or "non-informational" activities. Finally, there are industries
that are not research intensive, but serve as infrastructure for information production and
sophisticated decision-making. Manufacturing of office furniture would be a good example,
although it sometimes involves research in ergonomics and development of new materials.
As stated above, this list of candidates for information industries is not a definitive way of
organizing differences that researchers may pay attention to when they define the term.
Among the difficulties is, for example, the position of advertising industry.
Information industries considered important for several reasons. Even among the experts
who think industries are important, disagreements may exist regarding which reason to
accept and which to reject.
First, information industries are a rapidly growing part of economy. The demand for
information goods and services from consumers is increasing. In case of consumers, media
including music and motion picture, personal computers, video game-related industries, are
among the information industries. In case of businesses, information industries include
computer programming, system design, so-called FIRE (finance, insurance, and real estate)
industries, telecommunications, and others. When demand for these industries are growing
nationally or internationally, that creates an opportunity for an urban, regional, or national

economy to grow rapidly by specializing on these sectors. Second, information industries are
considered to boost innovation and productivity of other industries. An economy with a strong
information industry might be a more competitive one than others, other factors being equal.
Third, some believe that the effect of the changing economic structure (or composition of
industries within an economy) is related to the broader social change. As information
becomes the central part of our economic activities we evolve into an "information society",
with an increased role of mass media, digital technologies, and other mediated information in
our daily life, leisure activities, social life, work, politics, education, art, and many other
aspects of society.
Media as a Channel
All the modes of advertisement that are used to reach out to the consumer are called media
channels, e.g., print media, radio, television, and internet. Each of these has its advantage
and disadvantages.
Film Industry
The film industry or motion picture industry comprises the technological and commercial
institutions of filmmaking, i.e., film production companies, film studios, cinematography, film
production, screenwriting, pre-production, post production, film festivals, distribution;
and actors, film directors and other film crew personnel. Though the expense involved in
making movies almost immediately led film production to concentrate under the auspices of
standing production companies, advances in affordable film making equipment, and
expansion of opportunities to acquire investment capital from outside the film industry itself,
have allowed independent film production to evolve. Hollywood is the oldest film industry of
the world[1] and the largest in terms of box office gross and number of screens.

The Purpose of Broadcast Media

Broadcast media is the most expedient means to transmit information immediately to the
widest possible audience, although the Internet currently challenges television as the primary
source of news. Most people now get their daily news through broadcast, rather than printed,
media. Integration of the Internet has increased the pressure on broadcast media groups to
deliver high quality information with minimum cost. Improving operations is more important
for these groups now than ever before.

A Brief History of Broadcast Media

transition based in part on the limited availability of color programming. Cable television
expanded the possibilities for broadcast media, and in 1980 Ted Turner launched CNN, the

Broadcast media originated with the development of the radio in the twentieth century. Prior
to the radio, news and other information was transmitted across telegraphs and, later,

first 24-hour news channel. It has since been followed by numerous other networks devoted
entirely to news broadcasts.

telephones, but both technologies transferred information from one party to another. Radio
allowed for information transfer from one party to multiple parties and, just as importantly,
freed information transmission from physical wires. Radio was in its infancy prior to World War
I, and governmental restrictions during the war prevented its rapid expansion. After the war,
the development of radio technology increased quickly although programming remained
limited. During the 1920s the US government developed guidelines and regulation for radio
broadcasting that influenced the development of NBC and CBS.

By the 1930s radio had become well established as a medium for entertainment and
information. By 1946 NBC, CBS and an emergent ABC (formed from a court-mandated
division of NBC similar to NBCs formation from a court-mandated division of AT&Ts radio and

Modern Trends in Broadcast Media

The development of the Internet has challenged the broadcast news organizations. Just as
24-hour cable news channels diminished the audience for the major networks, the Internet
has begun to draw the audience away from television in general. More and more people
report every year that the Internet is their main source of news. An increase in media
broadcast outlets and declining viewership have generated intense competition within the
industry in the early twenty-first century.

telephone operations) began regular television broadcasts, including newscasts that were
generally ten to fifteen minutes in length. Although slow at first, the acceptance of television

Publishing

increased rapidly during the boom of the 1950s, and television ultimately replaced radio as

Publishing is the dissemination of literature, music, or information the activity of making

information available to the general public. In some cases, authors may be their own
publishers, meaning originators and developers of content also provide media to deliver and
display the content for the same. Also, the word publisher can refer to the individual who
leads a publishing company or an imprint or to a person who owns/heads a magazine.
Traditionally, the term refers to the distribution of printed works such as books (the "book
trade") and newspapers. With the advent of digital information systems and the Internet, the
scope of publishing has expanded to include electronic resources such as the electronic
versions of books and periodicals, as well as micropublishing, websites, blogs, video game
publishers, and the like.
Publishing includes the following stages of development: acquisition, copy editing,
production, printing (and its electronic equivalents), and marketing and distribution.
Publication is also important as a legal concept:
1. As the process of giving formal notice to the world of a significant intention, for
example, to marry or enter bankruptcy;
2. As the essential precondition of being able to claim defamation; that is, the
alleged libel must have been published, and

the chief source of in-home entertainment by 1960.

Edward R. Murrow laid the foundation for modern television newscasts on CBS with the first
program featuring simultaneous transmission coast-to-coast. Newscasts in the 1960s
expanded to half-hour programs, and included The Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC (later the
NBC Nightly News) and the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. Color television, first
introduced in the 1950s, spread slowly both because of the associated production costs, and
because many people who had first purchased black and white televisions sets were slow to

3. For copyright purposes, where there is a difference in the protection

of published and unpublished works.
There are two categories of book publisher:
1. Non-paid publishers: A non-paid publisher is a publication house that does not
charge authors at all to publish their books.
2. Paid publishers: The author has to meet with the total expense to get the book
published, and the author has full right to set up marketing policies. This is also
known as vanity publishing.
Photography
The Oxford English Dictionary describes the medium of photography to be, "the process or
art of producing pictures by means of the chemical action of light on a sensitive film on a
basis of paper, glass, metal, etc.." If we are to break apart photography and trace its roots
back to their origins we would find that according to the OED, "graph," when used as a noun
means, "A kind of symbolic diagram (used in Chemistry, Mathematics, etc.) in which a system
of connections is expressed by spots or circles, some pairs of which are colligated by one or
more lines." To trace "-graph" as a suffix, we find that its root is Greek and was used to form
an adjective of the passive voice of "written." "Photo-" as a prefix simply means light. The
word, "photograph is a conjunction of Greek words and means 'mark produced by light'."
( Encyclopedia of Aesthetics , p.491) If we combine some of the elements of these roots we
can see that photography has something to do with some form of writing with the use of
light. The Grove Dictionary of art defines photography in relatively the same manner as a
"term used to describe the technique of producing an image by the action of light on a
chemically prepared material." Here we see that the medium of photography as a process or
technique. If we combine some of the elements of these definitions we can conclude that
what is ultimately produced from this process or technique is either a picture or an image.
(see representation)
In his book, Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes argues, "a photograph can be the object of three
practices (or of three emotions, or of three intentions): to do, to undergo, to look." (Barthes,
p.9) He considers the photographer to be the operator, those of us who look at the
photographs to be the spectators, and the person or object photographed, the target. It could
be argued that all three (operator, spectator, and target) need to be present in the medium
of photography. Photography, in its concrete form (the photograph) functions as a medium in
which something is transmitted to a receiver. Photography, when used to describe all aspects
of the medium (the photographer, the process, and then the photograph or image produced)
can also function as a medium through which something is transmitted. The Oxford English
Dictionary defines a medium to be, "An intermediate agency, means, instrument or channel.
Also, intermediation instrumentality: in phrase by or through the medium of. (specific
medium)" (OED) The image of the object photographed, the target is transmitted by the
photographer (the operator) through the medium of photography (specifically in the
photograph) to the spectators.
We could describe the medium of painting to produce pictures and images as well. However,
painting is obviously a different medium than photography and uses highly different physical
substances. The Oxford English Dictionary regards painting as "the representing of objects or
figures by means of colours laid on a surface; the art of so depicting objects." (OED) However,
the objects and images represented in a painting induce very different effects than those in a
photograph. "The subtle emanations from anobject in a photograph are incomparable with

anything in painting. Photography shares with film this exclusive and peculiar property--'the
sense of nearness involved in the thing." ( The Art of Photography, p.8)
One of the debates over the medium of photography deals with the idea of the medium
ofdrawing being nested within the medium of photography. In her Keyword Essay on drawing,
Dawn Brennan argues, "drawing functions as a medium both to and through other forms of
art." We see drawing to be nested inside other mediums such as painting and architecture,
yet is this really the case in photography? "What seems to be missing from any reasonably
correct description of how a photograph is made is some account of how it is drawn. It seems
right to think of photography as a kind of mechanical or automatic drawing, but there is no
drawing in photography." (Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, p.490) Yet, photography must be
distinguished from other things which are mechanically produced for mass culture that take
on no element of art, and are merely there for their functional value. To suggest that
photography is in a way a form of drawing, is to suggest that its creation was on some level
by an artist and not solely by a machine.
Photography, as compared to other mediums such as painting and drawing, is a relatively
recent phenomenon. Its discovery was derived from what scientists already knew about the
ability of light to change certain substances. It was during the 16th century that it became
known that when exposed to light salts of silver would darken. Even modern day photographs
possess a silver halide base. Louis-Jacques-Mande-Daguerre and William Henry Fox Talbot
were the first to introduce two successful methods of generating photographic images; the
daguerreotype and photogenic drawing. "Daguerreotypes were direct positive images on
copper plates coated with a thin layer of silver." ( Grove Dictionary of Art ) Both processes
took awhile to be perfected. It was in 1840 that the daguerreotype process was improved so
that it was now possible to photograph human beings due to a reduced exposure time. This
process is known as calotype. In 1851 the waxed paper negative process was introduced
which was an expansion of the calotype process. This allowed for the photographing
of landscapes and architecture. Then came the emergence of wet collodion photography
which was the ability to produce a negative on glass, this ended the production of
daguerreotypes and photogenic drawing.
For Daguerre and Talbot, their invention was a means for replacing older forms of media.
They "saw their pictures as continuous with the tradition of picture making preceding them;
each viewed his new process as a replacement for drawing pictures by hand..."
( Encyclopedia of Aesthetics , p.489) However, when these early forms of photography were
first introduced many were skeptical about the advantage of using photography over older
media such as drawing. It seemed to them that it would serve the same purpose. Below we
see one of Daguerre's first daguerreotypes, Still Life, which was produced in 1837.

If we look at the history of the medium of photography we find that the first photograph was
produced during the middle of the 19th century. The earliest photographs produced were,
"portraits, topographical views, and renditions of architectural structures." ( Grove Dictionary
of Art ) Photography satisfied the desire of the middle to upper class individuals to be able to
have an accurate representation of something. In Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes argues,
"photography, moreover, began, historically, as an art of the Person: of identity, of civil
status, of what we might call, in all senses of the term, the body's formality." (p.79) Before
the daguerreotype process was transformed and perfected, many portraits were
daguerreotypes. Below we have the earliest photographic portrait taken by Robert Cornelius
in 1839. He titles it, Self Portrait.

Walter Benjamin posits that there are two different values to a work of art. The first is their
cult value and the second is their exhibition value [see aura]. He argues that along with our
ability to mechanically reproduce works of art, we have shifted the emphasis from the cult
value of the work of art to the exhibition value. Their existence alone is no longer what is
important, it is their display that allows them to derive any meaning. Benjamin argues that,
"In photography, exhibition value begins to displace cult value all along the line." (Benjamin,
p.225) After the emergence of the portrait which offered a, "cult of remembrance of loved
ones, absent or dead," (Benjamin, p.226) the cult value of photography seemed to become
lost. Photography becomes incorporated into politics and is used for displaying evidence of a
crime and recording historical events. "As man withdraws from the photographic image, the
exhibition value for the first time shows its superiority to the ritual value." (Benjamin, p.226)
[see memory, (2) ]
One of the many questions consistently debated by theorists surrounding the medium of
photography is, what is its "special" relation to reality? [See reality, hyperreality.] Edgar Allen
Poe argues, "photographs are... 'infinitely' more precise than any human hand, and no skills
of manual dexterity can compete with them." ( Encyclopedia of Aesthetics , p.491)
Photography as an art is by no means a precise representation of reality. "If in this sense the
photograph is identical with actuality it is, of course, also a rhetorical construction of the
photographer. This is why connoisseurs of the medium may treat it as an art object." (The Art
of Photography , p. 8) Many have also discussed the idea of the relation between
photography and death. Friedrich Kittler in his book, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter argues
that photographs and photograph albums, "establish a realm of the dead..." (Kittler, p.11)
They guarantee the object photographed will be preserved. They induce in the spectator a
feeling that the target of the photograph is real, and this reality we equate with being "alive."
Yet, Barthes argues we take this a step further, "because of that delusion which makes us
attribute to reality an absolutely superior, somehow external value; but by shifting this reality
to the past ("this-has-been"), the photograph suggests that it is already dead." (Barthes,
p.79)

The photograph was what allowed for the creation of film. It made possible the establishment
of a whole new medium, cinema. In film, just as in photography, we are given this illusion of
reality. He argues, "...the world of the movie that was prepared by the photograph has
become synonymous with illusion and fantasy..." (McLuhan, p.192-193) McLuhan argues that
the camera has the ability to objectify people. Celebrities become images that connote these
elements of illusion and fantasy. He states that the camera can, "turn people into things, and
the photograph extends and multiplies the human image to the proportions of massproduced merchandise. The movie stars and matinee idols are put in the public domain by
photography." (McLuhan, p.189)
In the late 1800's, photography was mainly classified as an industrial art rather than a fine
art, due to its mechanical nature. "Many writers on the art of the period concentrated on
what they took to be the crucial distinctions between photography and painting, elaborating
the differences in terms of oppositions between materiality and ideality, between the
technical skills of photographic manipulation and the artist's practiced skills of hand, between
the mindless machine and the mind of the painter." ( Encyclopedia of Aesthetics , p.491)
However, in 1889 a fine-art photography movement was founded by photographer Peter
Henry Emerson. He called it "naturalistic" photography. His position was that, "a photograph
could be a work of art, irrespective of its genetics, if it occasioned 'aesthetic pleasure' in the
viewer... the artistic value of some photographs in the prints themselves and in the habits
and expectations of viewers--not in the way photographs came into being." ( Encyclopedia of
Aesthetics , p. 491-492) Below we see an example of Emerson's "fine-art" photography,
entitled Gathering Water Lilies and taken in 1886.

In the 1930's, Benjamin suggested that the question should not be whether or not
photography is an art but, "whether the very invention of photography had not transformed
the entire nature of art." (Benjamin, p.227) Benjamin sees photography to be the great new
revolutionary medium that due to its reproducibility changed how we value art. Art becomes
art only when it is exhibited to the masses, which is only possible through its ability to be
reproduced.
The medium of photography in the twenty-first century could be seen as having four primary
estates: "fine art, advertising, amateur photography, and journalism." (The Art of
Photography , p.8) The function of photography differs greatly in each of these estates.
However, it can be argued that, "In present photography, as the museum culture becomes
ever more commercial (no longer the mere preserver but the active creator of culture), the
relations between these once separate orders of photography become increasingly
interdependent." ( The Art of Photography , p.8) There is no longer a clear line between
photography as a fine art and photography as a functional art. Today we can see many
photographs that would be considered fine art in advertising and journalism. Both still place

the emphasis on the exhibition value of the photograph. The images in the photographs take
on new meanings with new connotations. Advertising uses these images to represent cultural
fantasies and illusions. Journalism uses it to depict a historical event or to allow the world to
travel to a new destination through observing photographs of it. It is the display if the image
and the photograph that makes these four estates possible.

The crucial feature of the industrial Internet is that it installs intelligence above

The medium of photography is known most for its reproducibility, its ability to communicate
with the masses, its notion of reality that is induced in the spectators, and its ability to
abolish time and space and allow for anyone to feel they have witnessed an historical act,
been to a far away place, or communicated with the realm of the dead. Beaumont Newhall
argues in his book, The History of Photography, that "the ability of the medium to render
seemingly infinite detail, to record more than the photographer saw at the time of exposure,
and to multiply these images in almost limitless number, made available to the public a
wealth of pictorial records exceeding everything known before." (Newhall, p.85) Yet, we must
not forget the aesthetic and artistic value of photography. It is not merely a mechanically
reproducible medium with many functional purposes and objectives, but it is also an art form
created by a more modern and methodical type of artist (the photographer) who wants to
depict the world in a different way than the painter or the sculptor. The artist gives us in a
sense a kind of coated reality of his construction that can only be transmitted through a
photograph.

accurately because they take into account vast quantities of data generated by large systems

Ali Geiger
Winter 2003
Internet Industry
The Internet market includes an Internet infrastructure service segment and an Internet
application service segment. Internet infrastructure services mainly include Internet access
services, domain name registration services, Internet data center (IDC) services and CDN
services, while Internet application services mainly embrace E-mail box, search engine,
instant messaging, online games, online advertising, E-business and other new application
services.

the level of individual machines enabling remote control, optimization at the level of
the entire system, and sophisticated machine-learning algorithms that can work extremely

of machines as well as the external context of every individual machine. Additionally, it can
link systems together end-to-end for instance, integrating railroad routing systems with
retailer inventory systems in order to anticipate deliveries accurately. In other words, itll look
a lot like the Internet bringing industry into a new era of what my colleague Roger
Magoulas calls promiscuous connectivity.

Optimization becomes more efficient as the size of the system being optimized
grows (in theory). Your software can take into account lots of machines, learning from a
much larger training set and then optimizing both within the machine and for the group of
machines working together. Think of a wind farm. There are certain optimizations you need to
make at the machine level: the turbine turns itself to face into the wind, the blades adjust
themselves through every cycle in order to account for flex and compression, and the
machine shuts down during periods of dangerously high wind.

System-wide optimization means that when you can operate each turbine in a way that
minimizes air disruption to other turbines (these things create wake, just like an airplane, that
can disrupt the operation of nearby turbines). When you need to increase or decrease power
output across the whole farm, you can do it across lots of machines in a way that minimizes

wear (i.e., curtail each machine by 5% or cut off 5% of your machines, or something in

This will take some time to happen in cars because it takes 10 or 15 years to renew the

between depending on differential output and the impact of different speeds on machine

American auto fleet, because cars are maintained by a vast network of independent

wear). And by gathering data from thousands of machines, you can develop highly-detailed

mechanics that need change to happen slowly, and because car development works

optimization plans.

incrementally.

By tying machines together, the industrial Internet will encourage

But its already happening in commercial aircraft, which often come from clean-sheet designs

platformization.Cars have several control systems, and until very recently theyve been

(as with the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350), and which are maintained under very different

linked by point-to-point connections: when you move the windshield-wiper lever, it actuates a

circumstances than passenger cars. In Bombardiers forthcoming C-series midsize jet, for

switch thats connected to a small PLC that operates the windshield wipers. The brake pedal

instance, the jet engines do nothing but propel the plane and generate electricity (they dont

is part of the chassis-control system, and its connected by cable or hydraulics to the brake

generate hydraulic pressure or compress air for the cabin; these are handled by electrically-

pads, with an electronic assist somewhere in the middle. The navigation system and radio are

powered compressors). The plane acts as a giant hardware platform on which all sorts of

part of the same telematics platform, but that platform is not linked to, say, the steering

other systems sit: the landing-gear switch communicates with the landing gear through the

wheel.

aircrafts bus, rather than by direct connection to the landing gears PLC.

The security implications of this sort of integration in contrast to effectively air-gapped

isolation of systems are obvious. The industrial Internet will need its own speciallyThe car as enabled by the industrial Internet will be a platform a bus, in the computing

developed security mechanisms, which Ill look into in another post.

sense built by the car manufacturer, with other systems communicating with each other
through the platform. The brake pedal is an actuator that sends a brake signal to the cars
brake controller. The navigation system is able to operate the steering wheel and has access
to the same brake controller. Some of these systems will be driven by third-party-built apps
that sit on top of the platform.

The industrial Internet makes it much easier to deploy and harvest data from
sensors, which goes back to the system-wide intelligence point above. If youre operating a
wind farm, its useful to have wind-speed sensors distributed across the country in order to
predict and anticipate wind speeds and directions. And because youre operating machine-

learning algorithms at the system-wide level, youre able to work large-scale sensor datasets
into your system-wide optimization.
In isolation, all youre doing is turning on your windshield wipers. But if your car is networked,
then it can send a signal to a cloud-based rain-detection service that geocorrelates your car
with nearby cars whose wipers are on and makes an assumption about the presence of rain in
That, in turn, will help the industrial Internet take in previously-uncaptured data thats
made newly useful. Venkatesh Prasad, from Ford, pointed out to me that the windshield
wipers in your car are a sort of human-actuated rain API. When you turn on your wipers,
youre acting as a sensor you see water on your windshield, in a quantity sufficient to
cause you to want your wipers on, and you set your wipers to a level thats appropriate to the
amount of water on your windshield.

the area and its intensity. That service could then turn on wipers in other cars nearby or do
more sophisticated things anything from turning on their headlights to adjusting the
assumptions that self-driving cars make about road adhesion.