In the herd is quite an ambiguous phrase. It could refer to the dynamics of animals that live in groups. Biologists, zoologists and agriculturalists would certainly be well employed in studying this topic. Human beings themselves display many characteristics of herd behavior and poets are justified in imagining the reality of it. However, it is also pertinent to note that the name of a popular US radio show is ?The Herd with Colin Cowherd?.
The phrase could therefore be a pun, with a play on the word ?heard? and the name of the radio show presenter. This radio show is apparently branching out into podcast s that can heard over the Internet. Presumably this would convert many smart phones into what used to be called portable radios. In the distant days of the twentieth century portable radios were an exciting innovation that allowed people to take sports broadcast with them on fishing expeditions or out into a workshop.
The word podcast will not be found in a dictionary published in 1982. Nevertheless it is widely understood in 2012 to mean spoken messages or music sent through computer rather than radio channels. With the relegation of many portable radio sets either to museums or to outside storage sheds podcasts seem to be a way forward for the presenters of messages through the primary medium of sound.
Gadgets are only one of a set of elements in the communication process, They are the channels through which senders send messages to receivers. The communication process needs several elements all of which are subject to interference. The hiker in Pakistan listening to a cricket match commentary from London does not wish to be distracted by images because his eyes could be occupied in keeping an eye on his immediate environment.
Though communication in the Information Age is complex and effective there is evidence to suggest that Stone Age people also had deep insights into animal communication systems. This was used in hunting activities and in killing animals whereas the efforts of contemporary scientists and psychologists are directed to preserving the few wild animals that have managed to survive.
Academics in the twenty-first century may be engaged in rediscovering much of the knowledge that was available to primitive tribes. It is now known that elephants can communicate by sound and vibration over wide areas of a continent. Whales may communicate even further from one part of the world to another through undersea vibration and sound. In some ways it seems that the pachyderms and behemoths might have used their own Internet like systems even before human beings created artificial versions of similar systems.
It would appear that communication is a fundamental element in the welfare of all social groups. The advent of cell phones and similar gadgetry has enabled human beings to create artificial communication systems that are at least as good as those of elephants and whales, and probably much better.
The instinct to live in groups seems common to species that do survive better than solitary creatures like endangered tigers and polar bears. Some human beings are instinctively loners, especially if they have known solitude during their formative years. Though such solitary people usually are happy with their own company and enjoy being habitually alone there remains a deep instinct in most of them to be, at least for a limited time, in the herd.
The homepages at www.intheherd.com offer details about the concept of being in the herd. You can learn more about the philosophy of herd instincts at http://www.intheherd.com now.
Source: http://nuve.com.au/seo-image/the-meaning-of-being-in-the-herd/
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