Compare and Contrast

After doing the readings from Bush, Englebart , McLuhan and Williams, I think that the central theme that links the articles together is that each article seeks to find the most efficient way that media can be stored, transmitted and viewed.  Society, in turn, then will decide how that medium will fit in, and what place in society it will take.  In the article Augmenting Human Intellect, Englebart describes how the augmented system would accelerate the process of storing media.  " Our view of the interaction of human and computer in the future augmented system sees a large number of relatively simple processes being preformed by the computer for the human-processes which often will require only a few thousandths of a second of actual computer manipulation." Which is basically just taking a new and efficient method to improving the "intellectual efficiency of the human being".  Englebart and Bush's systems essentially preform the same function however Englebart's system of indexing requires simple note cards, while Bush's system looks at a memex as an efficient way of indexing.  Bush describes his memex as a "sort of mechanized private file and library".  The purpose of the memex will be to "observe the power of the associative recall which human memory exhibits, and proposes that a mechanization of selection by association could be realized to considerable advantage".  In McLuhan's "The Medium is the Message" the medium is anything from TV to radio to telephone to the telegraph.  McLuhan says these medias are "extensions of ourselves".  McLuhan also believes that technological media are as essential to our society as cotton or coal is.  He believes that because society is so reliant on these technological media they create a sort of social bond that everyone can relate to.  William's article seems to add onto McLuhan's, he speaks of how the medium of television brought about a new society.  Williams believes that cause and effect in technology is the key to understanding it.  By answering the questions that come along with it we "form and increasingly important part of our social and cultural arguments." As you can see there are many differences in each of the articles, however the central theme remains constant throughout, which is to find the most efficient way the media can be stored, transmitted and viewed and how society will decide how the medium will fit in.