McLuhan: Media and their effects

Alistair Wood AC-2203 Week 1

Why study history of the media?

Knowing any subject which changes over time involves knowing its past Media have changed a lot over time Current rate of change is very fast A lot of discussion of new media Much of what people think is new is actually recurring pattern

Old vs new media

Need to know what is standard about media to know what is new about new media Media an important part of any modern society Media understudied historically important effects Knowledge of media history helps us understand contemporary media

Marshall McLuhan
First important media theorist First to bring media to centre of societys attention and stress importance of media Pop culture star of sixties and seventies Difficult aphoristic style Literary approach not social scientist Suggested lot of interesting ideas

Examples of McLuhanisms
The medium is the message The medium is the massage Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery Diaper backward spells repaid. Think about it I dont necessarily agree with everything I say

The Toronto School

Harold Innis precursor Innis studied Canadian history Influence of communications and media on rise and fall of empires Idea of media bias time-binding or space- binding media Newspaper space-binding, parchment time-binding

The medium is the message

Emphasis on form of medium rather than content Not meant literally to mean that the message is immaterial Focus on effect of particular media Each medium seen as different in type of effects

Media as extensions of man

The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962): the effects of printing Understanding media: The extensions of man (1964) Media seen as extensions of particular senses Print extension of visual sense

Media and senses

Print visual, sequential, linear, separated, lasting So enhances this type of cognition Different from oral/aural cognition Aural simultaneous, ephemeral, varied

The Gutenberg Galaxy

If a technology is introduced either from within or from without a culture, and if it gives new stress or ascendancy to one or another of our senses, the ratio among all our senses is altered So changes in medium change the use of our senses and therefore change our thinking

Understanding media
[T]he personal and social consequences of any medium that is, of any extension of ourselves result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology. So new media alter the scale of effects and thus change society

Hot and cool media

Builds on extension of senses idea Each medium can be classified as hot or cool A hot medium is one which extends one single sense in high definition High definition is the state of being well filled with data

More media temperatures

Radio hot medium because extension of one sense, hearing, in high definition TV cool medium because leaves a lot to be filled in by the viewer Any hot form allows of less participation than a cool one Lecture and tutorial hot or cold?

The global village

McLuhan saw change from print age to age of electronics Move from hot to cool media so disruptive Concept of global village interrelated worldwide tribal culture Predicting Internet ahead of his time

The Web
The web the ultimate cool medium? Across a number of senses Use of images Multitasking Interactive highly participatory

Tetrad of media effects

Published in Laws of Media (1988) What does the medium enhance? What does the medium make obsolete? What does the medium retrieve that had been made obsolete earlier? What does the medium flip into when pushed to extremes?

Tetrad of TV
TV intensifies the visual Makes obsolete a purely aural mass media form for general entertainment TV returns to the visual aspect of print TV flips in high definition into extension of film

Problems with McLuhan

Does not provide evidence Does not provide well worked out argument Does not depend much on previous academic work Whimsical style is he serious? Out of date?

Positive aspects
Lots of interesting concepts Provocative led to many insights Influenced a lot of other work Havelock, Goody, Ong on literacy Prefigured Internet and Web Shows us how to think about media as technology not in terms of content

McLuhan and media history

Problem of technological determinism Idea that medium causes particular historical change by itself Need to focus more on data and evidence Need to pay attention to particular historical circumstances

Approach to media history

Not looking at media via content/products Not looking at textual analysis Not looking at media as organisations Media here as type of technology Effect on surrounding society and how affected by society What it says about media as a whole

Studying media history

Media as agents effect of media Danger of technological determinism Media as instruments Danger of downplaying media and focussing solely on human agency Economic or other determinism Danger of downplaying media because of economic or political forces

Studying media history

Role of media Media as technology Role of other factors Interplay with media Effects of culture, society, economy & politics on media Effects of media on culture, society, economy and politics

Media history questions

How is this medium different from others before/after it? How is it the same as others before or after? How does it fit into the society of its time? What effects does it have on that society? How does it affect my conception of what media are/do?