Designing effective organizational communications: Uncovering the transformative nature of communications technologies of a past age for a better understanding of communications technologies in the digital age.

摘要

This study is an investigation of the visual acoustic phenomenon first discovered by Robert Hooke and Ernst Chladni. It suggests that the discovery of this phenomenon may be seen as a first link in a chain of discoveries that have led to the development of modern day communications technologies. It also suggests that the discovery of this phenomenon might be a rediscovery, and its original discovery in the past may have contributed to the development of ancient communication technologies, in particular, the phonetic alphabet. The study consists of a hermeneutic analysis of ancient Greek mythologies, which seem to incorporate this phenomenon as the subject of enigmatic presentation. The study is also semiotic in nature, suggesting that the patterns of this phenomenon may relate to the development of symbolic language used in the enigmatic presentation of Greek poetry, and formative etymologies of the concept and word symbol may be traced to the knowledge of this phenomenon. The studies of Marshall McLuhan have suggested that media technologies influence and affect the meaning and message of communications transmitted through those technologies, and to understand how electronic media may influence meaning in the present, it is necessary to look at how the graphic media of the alphabet influenced meaning in the past. This study suggests organizational communications, which incorporate electronic and graphic communication technologies on various levels, are not immune to these influences. McLuhan has suggested that the development of the alphabet transformed Western society from oral/visual village-based culture dominated by right-brain processing, to a literate national-based culture dominated by left-brain processing; and that the advent of electronic communications technology is taking society back to an oral/visual base. This study suggest that the authors of the ancient mythologies may have somehow intuited the problems that might arise through the domination of either type of brain processing and devised enigmatic poetry as a means of communication that engages more equally both hemispheres of the brain. If so, enigmatic poetry may provide insight into the design of organizational communications.