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Understanding Micropolis and Compunity 55

Carey (1989) links the study of communication to the study of
social relations, noting two trajectories along which we think about
communication. The first trajectory is along the lines of the “trans-
portation” metaphor of communication. In this model communica-
tion is, in the main, the movement of messages from one place to
another. This is the model I have thus far characterized, and the
model on which the communication industry itself is built.
Carey contrasts the transportation model to the “ritual” model
of communication, the latter intended to connote communication as
the sharing of ideas and beliefs. Whether for a particular purpose or
not, whether for transmission of information or participation in
those activities that make us human, be they mundane or special,
the ritual model points out that communication is the medium
within which we exist, as much as is the air we breathe. Again we
find a twist on McLuhan—the medium is the message because the
medium is not one of communication per se but rather it is the
ground in which human connectedness can grow and flourish.
But the ritual model does not enter into our public conversation
about new media, and it does not fit industry models and methods of
communication technology development. To put it another way,
when one is asked “Did you hear?” these days, the question connotes
something about whether we are connected, wired. Forster’s admo-
nition that we “only connect” has been taken too literally. Rarely
does being connected anymore carry the connotations of community,
gossip, storytelling. What is connoted is instead “compunity,” a
merger of computers with communities and our sense of community.
We long for the community and communion that the ritual model
holds dear as these are elements inseparable from communication,
but we are given instead the ability to send messages to and fro as
disconnected and disembodied texts. The ritual model emphasizes
that communication is the means by which we build our under-
standing of the world and ourselves, and the transmission model’s
emphasis is on moving messages around as an end unto itself. The
latter activity is more easily quantifiable and commodifiable and
much better suited to the marketplace and to industry.
It is also a cynical activity, insofar as it reduces values to num-
bers, by valuing only numbers. Others have noted this development
by examining the substitution of marketing for collectivity, or, as
David Marc’s (1984) wry comment on Walt Whitman tells us, we are in
an age of “demographic vistas.” The result is a fueling of our distrust
of the myth of progress and modernity, and fear that though we may
never again be out of touch, we will rarely again feel touched by what