Bruno Latour and Tannis McBeth Williams present arguments about the manner in which modes of communication affect the way we think and behave. Latour presents an account of how the mobility and immutability of inscriptions, written material and "graven images," changed the ways in which people were able to think about science and made advances in science possible (13). Williams, on the other hand, discusses a study of television viewing habits and their effect on behavior, development, formation of concepts, and other topics. Williams' research found that the effects of television viewing were largely negative.
Latour discusses the ways in which the emergence of printing and, later, the reproduction of accurate pictures, transformed the manner in which science was approached. An example is the time lag that occurred between the availability of printing and the presentation of "exact realistic pictures" (12). Once images became mobile they had to be accumulated. It was not until they were gathered together that people could compare them, note the discrepancies and, by asking the appropriate questions, proceed to resolve them. Nine intrinsic advantages of inscriptions are listed by Latour. Mobility and immutability have to do with the availability and reliability of inscriptions. Inscriptions can also be modified, for whatever reason one wishes, because they are on a small scale. They can also be reproduced, are flat (and thus easily dominated), and can be recombined as the individual wishes. They can also be "superimposed," despite "totally different origins and scales," thus allowing for combination of materials developed in different areas of knowledge (21).
The printing press, like other inventions and innovations, allowed the extension of dominance. Whether it is geometry or new ships, such technologies answer the question, "how to dominate on a large scale?" (Latour 13). Investigating objects that are imperviou...