In the past century, educators such as Edgar Dale and James D. Finn talked about communication media as “time binding” and “space binding.” Today the focus has moved to “interactive”, “digital”, and “Internet.”

Time Binding: Art, sculpture, photographs, documentary film and newsreels record experiences and events. Restoration processes and digital reconstruction have extended the lifespan of perishable media and enhanced the quality of replication. Media of historical and cultural value can be inexpensively reproduced in the form of books, pictures, films, television, and now computers. Recorded media bind us to the past, and theatrical producers enrich these offerings with docudramas and stories that recreate the past and present and extend it into the future.

Space Binding: Space binding media provide instantaneous communication of current events to large populations.  The provincial nature of television stations is expanded by satellite and cable so that, when the occasion demands, the whole world can share the same communications at the same time. Television delivers blow-by-blow accounts of important events even as they are happening. We were there for the Kennedy assassination and were among the first to be engaged in the drama of TWA flight 800.  We have watched and listened to the world’s leaders as they work out century old problems. The number of channels limits the variety of messages communicated. New technologies have expanded local TV to hundreds and potentially thousands of channels.  The Internet further expands these options. In the process, a significant bandwidth has been made available for educational programming and distance learning.

Time Binding and Space Binding: When we broadcast recorded media, the medium is both time binding and space binding.  As we explore King Tut’s tomb on film or television, we are linked to the past along with millions of other viewers, some viewing at the same time, others viewing at different times.  Time-binding communications can be played back “on demand” by renting a video, by accessing it from a cable television company, or on the Internet.  Motion pictures are now distributed to theatres via private Internet for simultaneous presentation. This makes the transport of thousands of heavy reels of film unnecessary.

Interactive Communication and the Internet: The telephone gave us two-way communication in the nineteenth century.  The first installations used a party line – a public network with no privacy.  Switched networks now enable millions of simultaneous conversations around the globe. Interactive video is a logical extension of the telephone for business and education. It is now a feature of the Internet and will be a standard telephone feature within a few years.

Digital Communications: Images and print are accurately transmitted and replicated in digital format. Degradation of quality in successive copies is essentially eliminated, except where copy protection is used. Modern communication media make information very accessible.  The Internet is the ultimate medium in providing virtually infinite resources for the lowest cost per viewer and the lowest cost per hour.

An expensive computer is no longer a prerequisite for Internet access – there are a plethora of email devices, set-top boxes, and web-TV appliances to adapt older technology. New products combine these features - witness the TV with videocassette or DVD player and Internet connectivity; the office digital copy machine that is also a network printer, scanner, and fax; and the cell phone with Internet access. Is it difficult to project what will come next?

Computers are intrinsic to every communication medium and every medium is synergistically related to the computer. People are becoming computer dependent for their very survival. Human interface design makes the computer friendly so that almost any person can use it to access or communicate information with little or no prior training. This is indeed the information age.

The technology, training and cost issues of the past century have been largely resolved. Educators must now focus their energies on effective use of these technologies for affordable high-quality education and distance learning that is time-binding, space-binding, interactive and digital.

Drs. Donald & Elizabeth Perrin
Managing Editors
Ed Journal and Ed at a Distance Magazine

USDLA Official Publications
3345 Pachappa Hill Riverside, CA 92506
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EMAIL: eperrin@pacbell.net or dperrin@pacbell.net