The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word

by Mitchell Stephens

For decades educators and cultural critics have deplored the corrosive effects of electronic media on the national consciousness. The average American reads less often, writes less well. And, numbed by the frenetic image-bombardment of music videos, commercials and sound bites, we may also, it is argued, think less profoundly. But wait. Is it just possible that some good might arise from the ashes of the printed word? Most emphatically yes, argues Mitchell Stephens, who asserts that the moving image is likely to make our thoughts not more feeble but more robust. Through a fascinating overview of previous communications revolutions, Stephens demonstrates that the charges that have been leveled against television have been faced by most new media, including writing and print. Centuries elapsed before most of these new forms of communication would be used to produce works of art and intellect of sufficient stature to overcome this inevitable mistrust and nostalgia. Using examples taken from the history of photography and film, as well as MTV, experimental films, and Pepsi commercials, the author considers the kinds of work that might unleash, in time, the full power of moving images. And he argues that these works--an emerging computer-edited and -distributed "new video"--have the potential to inspire transformations in thought on a level with those inspired by the products of writing and print. Stephens sees in video's complexities, simultaneities, and juxtapositions, new ways of understanding and perhaps even surmounting the tumult and confusions of contemporary life. Sure to spark lively--even heated--debate, The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word belongs in the library of millennium-watchers everywhere.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Technology, History

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 8, 1998

About the author

MITCHELL STEPHENS, a professor of journalism in the Carter Institute at New York University, is the author of A History of News, a New York Times “notable book of the year.” Stephens also has written several other books on journalism and media, including Beyond News: The Future of Journalism and the rise of the image the fall of the word. Recently he published Imagine There’s No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World. Stephens was a fellow at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He shares Lowell Thomas’ love of travel and had the privilege of following Thomas' tracks through Colorado, Alaska, the Yukon, Europe, Arabia, Sikkim and Tibet.

Reviews

[Sally Sugarman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been on my shelf for ages and I finally decided it was time to read it. At first it seemed as if it might be dated with its focus on television in our contemporary world of computers and iphones. However, it offered a great deal to think about in terms of how people use new technology. Stephens provides the history of the book, the printed word which was as revolutionary in its day as the Internet is in ours. Much of the reaction to the new technology of print was similar to that which greeted television. Stephens also makes the point that new technologies adopt the modes of the previous ways of telling stories or discussing issues. The first films were essentially filmed plays. It took time for the new medium to find its own uniqueness. Stephens is particularly interested in the moving image. His model is the montage from films like Potemkin. Rapid, separate images that build an impact through their sequencing. He cites many advertisements that use this technique. Much as Steven Johnson makes the point that everything bad is good for us, Stephens says that there are new possibilities for ways of thinking and creating through the use of the moving image. He outlines the criticisms of television, seeing them similar to the criticisms of the book before it found its own unique voice. Published in 1998, the books seems to anticipate some of what has happened even if the direction and the pace is somewhat different and more rapid than could have been foreseen. The impact of carrying all of the images and information available in one’s hand is not to be underestimated. This is a book worth reading particularly with the added perspective of time.

[G · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book about the condensation of information that is ironically about 20 times longer than it needs to be. The whole thesis is "trust me, bro, the new video will be great...but I don't know what it is exactly and instead I'll give many, many examples of montage (which has existed since the silent film era)".

Even in 1998 this book was pretty dated. An absolute slog to read this in 2025.

[Constantine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't annotated a book so heavily in decades! Stephens really rattled my cage as he calls for "the fall of the word" in the face of the paradigm shift he calls the rise of the image or the rise of the "new video". His argument is thorough, nuanced, well articulated and fairly scholarly. I fought him every step of the way as he assaulted the heretofore sacrosanct dominion of printed word, and the now outmoded (according to him) sequential logic of those things called "books" that are my passion and my raison d'etre, and the time honored repository of culture, meaning, and wisdom. Stephens says the rise of the new technique and technology of "new video" will be the paradigm shift that ultimately extinguishes print in the same manner that print arrived to destroy the oral tansmission of knowledge up to Plato's time. We're entering a brave new world, according to Mr. Stephens....one that is no longer linear/narrative but rather,comes as a roiling, roaring whirl-a-gig frenetic realm that demands a new medium that is condusive to ..."the speed, the assymetry, the nonnarrative techniques, the surrealism and the juxtapositions of the new video ..."
According to Stephens those,like myself,that strubbornly cling to the word and the book are really displaying the all too human quality of clinging to the past as as a result of our fear of the unknown.He proclaims that revolutions are always and necessarily ambiguos in that they are destructive and constructive simultaneously (I thought of Neitzche's "philosophizing with a hammer" at this juncture). Perhaps he is right....he makes a strong and thought provoking case in this book.
I do question his lack of supporting neurological evidence for his claims on the nature of this supposedly new modality of thinking and expressing ourselves.I also wonder about the puny (rather pathetic, really) number of examples and exemplars of the "new video" that he musters in trying to show the power of this paradigm shift. (He cliams that we are in the very beginning stages of this shift and that we will have to wait for the new video to evolve into its full glory)
To conclude, I think Stephens does an admirable job of clarifying just what the future may hold for my children and grandchildren. I have reservations as to what life will be in a world without books. Stephens looks forward to the demise of the old paradigm. I'm not so sure it will be a world I would want to live in.

[Mjhancock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stephens argues that the value of the printed word is on the decline, and the value of the moving image is on the rise, using television as his main artifact. But that doesn't mean cultural engagement is on the outs, and he states that we are witnessing a new video, bound by new logics of fast cuts and montages, which can grow to replace anything lost in print in the meantime. It's a well-detailed account--especially in the history of film section--but technological advances have changed the playing field enough that his argument isn't as relevant. While Stephens recognizes the computer transformation that was well underway at that point, he didn't quite predict that discussions of the image were pretty much going to be subsumed in favor for discussion of the digital. Essentially, if the revolutionary media change he hopes for is going to happen, it'll have to be in that format, rather than the new video he imagines. It's still a good resource for its discussion of media trends in general, and image/word arguments in particular.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book. Mitchell has many interesting insights and his style of writing is very accessable. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the evolution of writing and/or the rise of video.