McLuhan Redux
Introduction to McLuhan
Last week, we left off with Jacques Ellul in the year 1964, who had declared there were four rules of technology. But Ellul wasn’t the only major technological theorist to publish something that caught the world’s attention in 1964, Marshall McLuhan – who may or may not be a technological determinist – published Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
Let’s turn back to the question of cellphones and what effects they might have on society. To illustrate our theory, we again turn to an article, this time, from the Toronto Star about cellphones and McLuhan. It’s called “Now the Mobile is the Message: Cellphone Sparks cultural shift.” It was written by I. John Harvey and appeared in The Toronto Star about a year ago on November 11, 2004.
"The cellphone is not a phone any more than a computer is a computer," says Federman. "It's a device that delivers content." Called a "mobile" by most of the rest of the world, the cellphone can serve as a database of calendars and contacts, social-convener, mate-finder, camera, pager, social-protest organizer, electronic wallet, music machine, fashion statement, and, oh yes, a wireless telephone. The mobile "allows us to be ubiquitously connected," says Federman, and by extension, "be in pervasive proximity to our tribe, no matter how distantly those members are scattered." McLuhan's other famous idea, of the global village, of course, is evident to all. Satellite TV images, the Internet, email and the cellphone all shrink our world.
McLuhan's laws of technology adapted to fit the mobile phone model:
The laws hold that all technology exhibits four effects: It contains an element of retrieval. It brings back something that already exists. In the mobile's case, the telephone. It enhances existing technology. Mobiles cut the wires associated with phones. It renders something obsolete. The mobile eliminates the need to be in a specific place, rendering land phones somewhat obsolete. It reverses progress to some degree. By overdoing the new, we run out of benefits and slip into what McLuhan called "reversal," which, in this case, might take the form of the intrusion of the mobile into our lives and our inability to escape its siren call.
I. John Harvey. "Now the Mobile is the Message" -- The Toronto Star, November 11, 2004.
Even if you’ve never studied McLuhan you’ve likely heard some of the most repeated sayings – the medium is the message, hot and cool media, the global village, etc.
Back when McLuhan was all the rage you’d not only be familiar with some of his catch phrases, you’d actually have been hard-pressed not to have not known who McLuhan was.
McLuhan was on numerous talkshows, had cameo appearances in films like Annie Hall and came to be known as a media prophet.
Harold Adams Innis: The Bias of Communications & Monopolies of Power byMarshall Soules 1996
"Innis’ central focus is the social history of communication media; he believed that the relative stability of cultures depends on the balance and proportion of their media. To begin our inquiry into this area, he suggests we ask three basic questions:
How do specific communication technologies operate?
What assumptions do they take from and contribute to society?
What forms of power do they encourage?For Innis, a key to social change is found in the development of communication media. He claims that each medium embodies a bias in terms of the organization and control of information. Any empire or society is generally concerned with duration over time and extension in space.
Time-biased media, such as stone and clay, are durable and heavy. Since they are difficult to move, they do not encourage territorial expansion; however, since they have a long life, they do encourage the extension of empire over time. Innis associated these media with the customary, the sacred, and the moral. Time-biased media facilitate the development of social hierarchies, as archetypally exemplified by ancient Egypt. For Innis, speech is a time-biased medium.
Space-biased media are light and portable; they can be transported over large distances. They are associated with secular and territorial societies; they facilitate the expansion of empire over space. Paper is such a medium; it is readily transported, but has a relatively short lifespan."
McLuhan picks up some of Innis’ themes and goes on to write, amongst other books, The Mechanical Bride, The Gutenberg Galaxy and finally his most famous, Understanding Media.
Understanding Media, published in 1964, defines media as technological extensions of the body.
The Book is an extension of the eye.
The wheel is an extension of the foot.
A hammer is an extension of our arm.
Is the computer an extension of our central nervous system?
Marc Federman, author of McLuhan for Managers, has an excellent article on what the Medium is the message actually means.
"Many people presume the conventional meaning for "medium" that refers to the mass-media of communications - radio, television, the press, the Internet. And most apply our conventional understanding of "message" as content or information. Putting the two together allows people to jump to the mistaken conclusion that, somehow, the channel supersedes the content in importance, or that McLuhan was saying that the information content should be ignored as inconsequential." -- Marc Federman
"Thus we have the meaning of "the medium is the message:" We can know the nature and characteristics of anything we conceive or create (medium) by virtue of the changes - often unnoticed and non-obvious changes - that they effect (message.)
McLuhan warns us that we are often distracted by the content of a medium (which, in almost all cases, is another distinct medium in itself.) He writes, "it is only too typical that the "content" of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium." (McLuhan 9) And it is the character of the medium that is its potency or effect - its message." -- Federman continued.
So, McLuhan theorized that there were three ages of man:
1. The Preliterate Age.
2. The Gutenberg Age.
3. The Electronic Age of Retribalized Man.
Daniel Chandler on three ages of man and hot and cool media
Last week, we left off with Jacques Ellul in the year 1964, who had declared there were four rules of technology. But Ellul wasn’t the only major technological theorist to publish something that caught the world’s attention in 1964, Marshall McLuhan – who may or may not be a technological determinist – published Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
Let’s turn back to the question of cellphones and what effects they might have on society. To illustrate our theory, we again turn to an article, this time, from the Toronto Star about cellphones and McLuhan. It’s called “Now the Mobile is the Message: Cellphone Sparks cultural shift.” It was written by I. John Harvey and appeared in The Toronto Star about a year ago on November 11, 2004.
"The cellphone is not a phone any more than a computer is a computer," says Federman. "It's a device that delivers content." Called a "mobile" by most of the rest of the world, the cellphone can serve as a database of calendars and contacts, social-convener, mate-finder, camera, pager, social-protest organizer, electronic wallet, music machine, fashion statement, and, oh yes, a wireless telephone. The mobile "allows us to be ubiquitously connected," says Federman, and by extension, "be in pervasive proximity to our tribe, no matter how distantly those members are scattered." McLuhan's other famous idea, of the global village, of course, is evident to all. Satellite TV images, the Internet, email and the cellphone all shrink our world.
McLuhan's laws of technology adapted to fit the mobile phone model:
The laws hold that all technology exhibits four effects: It contains an element of retrieval. It brings back something that already exists. In the mobile's case, the telephone. It enhances existing technology. Mobiles cut the wires associated with phones. It renders something obsolete. The mobile eliminates the need to be in a specific place, rendering land phones somewhat obsolete. It reverses progress to some degree. By overdoing the new, we run out of benefits and slip into what McLuhan called "reversal," which, in this case, might take the form of the intrusion of the mobile into our lives and our inability to escape its siren call.
I. John Harvey. "Now the Mobile is the Message" -- The Toronto Star, November 11, 2004.
Even if you’ve never studied McLuhan you’ve likely heard some of the most repeated sayings – the medium is the message, hot and cool media, the global village, etc.
Back when McLuhan was all the rage you’d not only be familiar with some of his catch phrases, you’d actually have been hard-pressed not to have not known who McLuhan was.
McLuhan was on numerous talkshows, had cameo appearances in films like Annie Hall and came to be known as a media prophet.
Harold Adams Innis: The Bias of Communications & Monopolies of Power byMarshall Soules 1996
"Innis’ central focus is the social history of communication media; he believed that the relative stability of cultures depends on the balance and proportion of their media. To begin our inquiry into this area, he suggests we ask three basic questions:
How do specific communication technologies operate?
What assumptions do they take from and contribute to society?
What forms of power do they encourage?For Innis, a key to social change is found in the development of communication media. He claims that each medium embodies a bias in terms of the organization and control of information. Any empire or society is generally concerned with duration over time and extension in space.
Time-biased media, such as stone and clay, are durable and heavy. Since they are difficult to move, they do not encourage territorial expansion; however, since they have a long life, they do encourage the extension of empire over time. Innis associated these media with the customary, the sacred, and the moral. Time-biased media facilitate the development of social hierarchies, as archetypally exemplified by ancient Egypt. For Innis, speech is a time-biased medium.
Space-biased media are light and portable; they can be transported over large distances. They are associated with secular and territorial societies; they facilitate the expansion of empire over space. Paper is such a medium; it is readily transported, but has a relatively short lifespan."
McLuhan picks up some of Innis’ themes and goes on to write, amongst other books, The Mechanical Bride, The Gutenberg Galaxy and finally his most famous, Understanding Media.
Understanding Media, published in 1964, defines media as technological extensions of the body.
The Book is an extension of the eye.
The wheel is an extension of the foot.
A hammer is an extension of our arm.
Is the computer an extension of our central nervous system?
Marc Federman, author of McLuhan for Managers, has an excellent article on what the Medium is the message actually means.
"Many people presume the conventional meaning for "medium" that refers to the mass-media of communications - radio, television, the press, the Internet. And most apply our conventional understanding of "message" as content or information. Putting the two together allows people to jump to the mistaken conclusion that, somehow, the channel supersedes the content in importance, or that McLuhan was saying that the information content should be ignored as inconsequential." -- Marc Federman
"Thus we have the meaning of "the medium is the message:" We can know the nature and characteristics of anything we conceive or create (medium) by virtue of the changes - often unnoticed and non-obvious changes - that they effect (message.)
McLuhan warns us that we are often distracted by the content of a medium (which, in almost all cases, is another distinct medium in itself.) He writes, "it is only too typical that the "content" of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium." (McLuhan 9) And it is the character of the medium that is its potency or effect - its message." -- Federman continued.
So, McLuhan theorized that there were three ages of man:
1. The Preliterate Age.
2. The Gutenberg Age.
3. The Electronic Age of Retribalized Man.
Daniel Chandler on three ages of man and hot and cool media
posted by Christine at 9:17 AM
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