Speaking Into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication

John Durham Peters teaches at the University of Iowa, where he encourages his students to think about what they take for granted or what may be, at first glance, obvious about the way humans communicate with one another. In this book the teacher practices what he preaches by exploring the broad idea of communication as a human construct. He explores the evolution of the term and how it has been thought of in various cultures throughout the history of Western civilization. Peters' approach targets students of communication who read from the desks of University halls as well as the business professionals in their leather chairs. The focus of "Speaking Into The Air" is that communication is so innate to human existence and everyday interaction, from face-to-face dialogue to the mediated kind made possible through electricity, amplification, and information storage. Peters asks us to pay close attention to these communication situations and reveals that there are interesting things to be gleaned from reflecting on them.

Peters brilliantly examines the problem of communication and explores many of the major themes in the history of communication theory. This is a beautifully written and insightful work, more philosophy than history, that will have you thinking about what really is essential about human expression. Peters adroitly critiques the romantic new age veneration of dialogue and traces its origins from Socrates to the present day. "In certain quarters," he observes, "dialogue has attained something of a holy status. It is held up as the summit of human encounter." The author argues convincingly that dialogue is highly overrated, for not only are we incapable of accurately conveying our thoughts to others, but it is usually insufficient or even dangerous to do so. Further, objective "truth" is neither an attainable, nor sufficient goal for communicators, "The authentic representation of self or world not only is impossible, it is also never enough." At times Peters seems to wander unnecessarily into discussions of such topics as spiritualism, extrasensory perception and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, but these tangents ultimately provide significant insights into the human yearning for meaningful contact.Peters calls much of modern communications "Unmitigated bleat mixed with the rare voice of truth crying in the wilderness," a criticism not only of broadcast media, but of intimate personal conversation as well. We may chastise the media for perpetuating social inequalities and spotlighting vulgarity but, per Peters, "such criticism ought not to overlook the inequalities that exist outside media or the tawdriness that fills our hearts unbidden." Media may more reflect than shape the contents of the human heart: a scary conclusion, perhaps, but one worth thinking about.

Communication is often received as a universal category by which the nature of human species is expressed. For Habermas, in particular, communicative competence (i.e., language) distinguishes human beings from other animals; he defines communication as a more substantial feature in human association than labor that takes the most privileged position in historical materialism. Then, is it possible to analyze the whole array of social, historical and political relationships among human beings in terms of the modes of communication, as historical materialism tried to do so? It may be possible with high degree of abstractions and some degree of reductionism. But let us insert us onto the scene and look ourselves against the backdrop of the scene. Why do we want to understand ourselves in terms of communication, and from when? If the questions are like these, John Peters' Speaking into the Air may be a good and, perhaps, the first introduction. By taking self-reflective and historical perspective, John Peters seems to relativize the philosophical proposition that humans are "speaking animal"(Aristotle). That is, the author aims to redefine the idea of communication as the essence of human species as a historical phenomenon. His question is: from when have "we defined ourselves in terms of our ability to communicate with one another"(p.1)? And his answer is that the idea of communication as spiritual interpenetration is a modern invention. Then, the question to be sought hereafter may be why communication was problematized or how the concept of communication was invented in a particular period in history, although we always communicate. He implies that the feeling of "breakdown" or "impasses" of communication (due to the beginning of mass communication), and the search for "mutual communion of souls" gave birth to the modern concept of communication which, at the same time, he wants to criticize. His primary method may well be to search historical "traces". Historical method implies already a communication between the alive and the dead. The dead say their stories to us by borrowing or utilizing the mouth and the hand of the alive as a medium. The dead do not also say their stories to historians for themselves. They only left traces or externalized "texts" in Ricoeur's term. As an archeologist restores the lives and exploits of dead men from the fragments of defaced epitaph, historian should find and reconstruct the history of the ideas of communication from the traces of dispersed writings, which constitute another medium. When the dead say something to us audience, they do so through their traces or writings, and by the mouth and the hand of historians. Thus, there is an unbridgeable chasm and "breakdown" of communication between the dead and the alive. Even though unintended, historical method functions as a strategy in Speaking into the Air; it expresses the idea of communication "fixed in a direction of thought which comes from afar a

I almost gave up on Speaking into the Air. It's a densely packed volume requiring total concentration for absorption. I often read passages two or three times before I comprehended them. Six weeks elapsed from start to finish, and I feel I now need to go back and read some of it again. It was worth the effort. Peters has organized the literature about communication into categories. Among them, he discusses spiritualism, talking with the dead, and communicating with machines, animals and aliens. His sources are varied, including classic literature, the Bible, Plato, and numerous others. It isn't about communication technique or tools; this is an exploration of the question: what is communication and how do we know it's been accomplished? It's far more than a literature review however. The concluding chapter wraps up with a touching summary, combining spirituality with love. I read the last two paragraphs to a friend. She cried.

Peters' work is a smorgasbord of scholarship and insight. It is intellectually challenging and artistically satisfying. Filling but not fattening. Why are all these food images popping into this review? Perhaps because so much of the rhetoric associated with communication and putative claims about communication are genuinely void of nourishment. I have just experienced two interviews involving "speaking into the air." In the first instance a person at the other end of the phone read a series of questions which I answered into the air. The questioner simply asked the next question after my response. In the second instance the questioner was present but did not respond, much like my students when questioned about a reading assignment. These were education job interviews and were surrogates for the question "will you help and not harm our students in any way." Of course this is a question which cannot be asked. Peters is on target. Not only is communication really about "Speaking into the Air," our institutions and technologies can or do only create more structures based on a design of dissemination rather than dialogue. Whether or not dialogue is actually possible only a thoughtful reading of and disputation with Peter's work can answer. What Peters argues about dissemination is more likely the reality of communication today.A wonderful, well-written, insightful book.