Bøger af Hans Giessen

Without language, not much else would exist: no writing, no computer ¿ as a matter of fact, no technical or medical progress that make our lives less painful, and easier indeed; but also not some horrors that characterize our world. In fact, language is what defines humans and distinguishes them from other living beings ¿ and is the basis of all other developments. How is it possible that something as complex and fascinating as 'language' has come into being at all? How does language 'work'? And how did it develop? What is common to all languages ¿ and why are there so many? Further questions are how man began to write, and how printing developed ¿ in which languages? Why not in any language? And does this teach us anything for further developments? In trying to answer these and other questions, we experience an exciting history of scientific research.

The text brings together two aspects from my research on television¿s formal properties on social structures funded by the German Science Foundation. Field research was done in villages from rural Tunisia and rural Germany. The aim was to describe long-term consequences on social structures through television. The outcome seems to be that television, as it bonds time and has its effects in small rooms only, might be able to focus attention on the family or even the core family, thus destroying larger institutions that are typical for traditional life. Moreover, reciprocity, a condition sine qua non of traditional life, does not seem to work any more with television. For example, invitations cannot be responded to if the invited family does not possess a television set. Furthermore, a re-invitation to watch television does not seem to be adequate to the medium, considering its limitations to please in small rooms only. Thus, the obligation to share seems to be replaced by structures of possession and property, at least in context with the medium. It can also be shown that and how television changes traditional societies, especially gender roles, and strengthens core families.