Citizens and Nation: An Essay on History, Communication, and Canada studies four historical epochs through the stories of ordinary Canadian citizens (Friesen). Print capitalism, the third epoch, occurred during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and was the time of several technological innovations – the telegraph, railway, the daily newspaper, sound recordings, the photograph, radio, and film (Friesen 108). The print capitalism era, told through the stories and experience of Phyllis Knight and Elizabeth Goudie, explores the shaping and understanding of time and space for the average Canadian worker in a world of new technology and communication. Following the print capitalist era, Citizen and Nation defines the screen capitalist generation.
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Face-to-face society was being replaced by face-to-screen society. The advances in the speed of transportation, speed of spreading information, and the monitoring of work by computers meant that companies could spread their production processes all over the world. Competition not only increased, but the tasks that workers were doing were simplified. What was once a single factory would be divided among six countries, or an office might be situated among the homes of thousand data ‘inputters’ (Friesen 177). The simplification of the work meant that stream lining production processes became evident and time was an important factor in the production process to remain …show more content…
Those who obtained skills which allowed them to enter the competitive labour market benefitted from long-term employment, good wages, and benefits (Friesen 181). These jobs required a higher degree of specialized knowledge. For the unskilled worker, this was problematic. They entered a time of low wages, fewer benefits, relentless surveillance, and not to mention high job insecurity. Although this epoch was considered a time of plenty – new developments in the labour market and record-breaking profits, there was high unemployment, rising levels of underemployment, and an emerging relevance of the working rich and the working poor (Menzies 118). “An invisible digital divide between the rich and poor, the technologically enfranchised and the technologically disenfranchised.” (Menzies
Face-to-face society was being replaced by face-to-screen society. The advances in the speed of transportation, speed of spreading information, and the monitoring of work by computers meant that companies could spread their production processes all over the world. Competition not only increased, but the tasks that workers were doing were simplified. What was once a single factory would be divided among six countries, or an office might be situated among the homes of thousand data ‘inputters’ (Friesen 177). The simplification of the work meant that stream lining production processes became evident and time was an important factor in the production process to remain …show more content…
Those who obtained skills which allowed them to enter the competitive labour market benefitted from long-term employment, good wages, and benefits (Friesen 181). These jobs required a higher degree of specialized knowledge. For the unskilled worker, this was problematic. They entered a time of low wages, fewer benefits, relentless surveillance, and not to mention high job insecurity. Although this epoch was considered a time of plenty – new developments in the labour market and record-breaking profits, there was high unemployment, rising levels of underemployment, and an emerging relevance of the working rich and the working poor (Menzies 118). “An invisible digital divide between the rich and poor, the technologically enfranchised and the technologically disenfranchised.” (Menzies