Control Revolution

“ The Control Revolution” Presentation by Mindy McAdams Week 13.1 MMC 2265

Increased and continuing digitization of information

Blurs any distinction between communication and processing

Blurs differences between machine and human communication

Increased and continuing digitization of information blurs any distinction between communication and processing , as well as differences between machine and human communication

Does this result in more control or less control?

Technology out of control: A threat to all humanity? (1954)

(1951)

During World War II, improving target accuracy was a top priority

A military need for control
Weapons technology improved, and targets also became harder to hit (faster planes, for example)
Complex calculations were needed to “program” the operation of the military guns
An engineer (John Mauchly) suggested that an electronic calculator could be constructed to do this

Bureaucracy
Separate from the origin of electronic computers, civilization and governments were also becoming more complex
Like the Romans with their roads and written law
Like the Sumerians with their need for more efficient records of accounting

Max Weber (1864 – 1920)
Bureaucratization as one of the leading features of the modern world
A leader needs a staff (the bureaucracy ) to help him/her maintain control a keep order
The rise of the professional politician (neither king nor general)
Beniger calls bureaucracy a technology of control

Adding new technology
Modern bureaucracies developed from the 1800s onward
After World War II, computers began to play a larger and larger role in bureaucracy
Beniger’s point: The need for control in modern societies existed before the computers came along

One thing leads to another
Progress toward development of electronic computers was preceded by:
Telegraph (1830s)
Photography
Typewriter (invented
in the 1860s)
Telephone
Motion pictures
Radio
Television (1920s)

Control and communication
Control: “Any purposive influence on behavior, however slight ”
Information processing
What’s going on?
What does it mean?
Two-way communication
Tell me what happened
I will act on that information
Book jacket illustration: Caught Short: A Saga of Wailing in Wall Street, 1929.

Example: The Stock Market
An investor checks the current stock price
Is it moving up or down?
Does the investor sell ? Or buy more?
The investor’s decision in turn affects the price of the stock
Two-way flow
Feedback loop

Information Theory (1948)

Information Theory

“ A society’s ability to maintain control will be directly proportional to the development of its information technologies .” – James R. Beniger

Information Theory Reloaded

Computer technology owes much to the textile industry

Punch cards: 1804
A revolution in weaving (yes, textiles)
Joseph Marie Jacquard, a French weaver
He combined two other inventors’ ideas with a common treadle loom
Earliest use of punched cards programmed to control a manufacturing process
Process first used in U.S. about 1826
http:// www.sscnet.ucla.edu/geog/gessler/topics/jacquard.htm

Herman Hollerith (1860 – 1929)
An engineer, he worked on the 1880 U.S. Census (it took 7 years to complete)
Tried to improve the process of tabulating the Census data
After trials using paper tape, he was inspired by the Jacquard loom to try punched cards instead
His designs won the competition for the 1890 U.S. Census (so he got the contract )

The 1890 U.S. Census
The results of a tabulation were displayed on 40 clock-like dials
Each completed circuit caused an electromagnet to advance a counting dial by one (+1)
Source: Hollerith 1890 Census Tabulator

Herman Hollerith (1860 – 1929)
Reduced a 10-year job to 3 months (different sources disagree : range from 6 weeks to 3 years)
Saved the 1890 taxpayers $5 million
1896: He founded the Tabulating Machine Co. (leased equipment and sold punch cards to many countries for their census, and also to insurance companies)
1911: Merged with two other firms to form the Computing Tabulating Recording Corp.
1924: Renamed – IBM

The IBM 29 card punch machine was announced in October 1964. This was a new version of the device first developed 74 years earlier. Along with the “IBM 59 card verifier,” the card punch was used to record and check information in punched cards. These cards were read and processed by a computer or an accounting machine. Source: IBM

Winner: Most Outstanding Book in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 1986 (Association of American Publishers)
A New York Times Notable Paperback of the Year (1989)

“ The Control Revolution” Presentation by Mindy McAdams University of Florida

Control Revolution

by Mindy McAdams

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Control Revolution Presentation Transcript