communication theory

Last night in class we had a guest who dropped a lot of info on us in 75 minutes. After he left, next 75 minutes were spent unpacking a small portion of his info. A thread through the whole talk had to do with communication theory and he spoke to the class about oral tradition, written, broadcast and digital communication. Throughout most of history, oral tradition was foremost. Then for nearly 500 years written communication was elevated with the advent of the printing press. The past 100 years have been dominated by broadcast and then digital. The spans of time are shrinking. It struck me that as far as communication theory goes, we now have two generations living simultaneously, whose theories are very different from one another.
It struck me that different people approach new technology skewed to their communication theory. I thought about the great bogus news article that was circulating via email a few years ago about a third world man who had been given a modem and used it to crack a walnut. It was very effective at what he had used it for, but that wasn't what it was designed for, and it was capable of so much more.
A broadcast generation sees the internet as a source of consumables. It is a place to see what is going on in the world and gather information, to try to keep up with culture so that one doesn't get left behind. The exchange of information is one-sided and doesn't allow for any interaction.
The digital generation sees it as a means of plugging into the world, joining the conversation, contributing thoughts and ideas, helping shape the culture, interacting globally and becoming the information that the broadcast generation receives. An interesting thing about digital communication is that it is copied and pasted and within a (digital) generation or two, becomes entirely anonymous and sourceless. Already, I have had myself inadvertently quoted to me from my blog. It won't surprise me a bit when I show up at a meeting and find myself being "taught" something that I wrote.
Several months ago, I experienced this first hand when someone known for his internet passion read my blog and told me, "you have entirely too much time on your hands." I am baffled by the thought that consuming non-sense is not considered time consuming, yet 30 minutes a day producing a consumable, is considered wasted time.
I predict that this phenomenon will have a huge impact in many ways very quickly. I told my class last night that in the very near future, they will find themselves much more knowledgeable than their teachers in many areas that are being covered in their courses. This is inevitable as consumer teachers play catch-up with the culture, technology, and methods that the students are creating. It already happens to me as folks go to conferences or read books and learn some mind-boggling information about me, and then come back and share it with me as if I didn't know how I'm thinking, or what I'm doing. I'm supposed to be as surprised as they were. I want to scream, "I am the information you are sharing with me." I feel that the interaction of a mustard seed would have made this old news to these people.
The hopeful irony in all this is that I might finally be heard by folks with whom I've never had a voice. If they are bent on consuming, and I'm bent on contributing, surely at some point the voice of my generation will be all that's left to consume.