Media, Information and Technoculture 1050A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Sensorium, Media Create, Real Change
23 Jul 2018
School
Department
Professor
October 1, 2015
Medium/Message/Massage
Sleep and the electric light – these techno cultural changes – are what alter culture
• In the past 200 years, humans have been sleeping less and less well (due to electricity –
urban lights)
The Electric Light
• This example was chosen by Marshall McLuhan
• “The ‘message; of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern
that it introduces into human affairs” – McLuhan
• The electric light has no overt message, it’s just a light bulb, it is a pure technical
phenomenon
o The real message that new technology carry is the way in which they alter the
pattern through which we live our lives (there’s many things we can do in which
involve electric light)
• Therefore, the Medium is the Message (McLuhan)
o The way technology changes how we perceive the world, what we do, is the real
content of that media form
Marshal McLuhan:
• Classic, white guy media theorist who lived through the age of Hippies, the Vietnam War
• Why bother with Marshall McLuhan?
o He experimented with much more graphic media in terms of punchy aphorisms
o His ideas are big, bold, and provocative – he comes closest to answering the
question: “WHAT IS MEDIA?”
o He is in some ways upbeat and inspiring – rather hopeful view of what media can
do for humanity, but at the same time, there is a somber side of some of his
thoughts (complexity of looking at upsides and downsides)
Media Extend the Human
• “all technologies are extensions of our physical and nervous systems to increase power
and speed” – what is media? (this is his answer)
o Ways of projecting our bodies further into space and time
o Media are expanding us out, are like our extensions
• “the wheel extends our feet, the phone extends our voice, television extends our eyes
and ears, the computer extends our brain, and electronic media, in general, extend our
central nervous system
• Because media are an extension of us, as media changed, we changed as well
o He’s suggesting that media systems are elements of a sensorium – they make us
more than we would be without them
The Medium is the Message/Massage (McLuhan)
• The effects of media do not occur at the level of opinion or concepts
o It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, what matters is that you’re on technology
• They change the nature of the human,
• Media alter patterns of perception steadily and without resistance (we don’t notice it),
by…
• …changing the ‘sense ratios’ – the importance of touch, sight, sound
• …which alters how we perceive and think
o The Medium is the Massage – media give us a complete work over, they alter
how we perceive the world and how we operate in it.
o We are being bathed, or massaged, by electronic media, that are doing things to
our electronic nervous system, to our attention span etc.
• We make our tools and then our tools make us
o Issue of control
Three Eras of Media (McLuhan) – biggest, most exciting assertions about what he says media
do to society
• Oral societies create people with complex emotions and feelings and a strong sense of
community
o Interaction depends on face to face conversations
▪ This type of society creates people who have complex emotions and
feelings because relationships are very primary and front and center
• Print literacy (‘alphabetism’) teaches people how to suppress their emotions in the
interests of efficiency and practicality
o Mechanical printing press – print is abstract, symbolic and is a medium you tend
to engage with in isolation and that is emphasizes linear cause and effect,
rational thinking
▪ Read print, an idea comes, the next idea comes – sequence is important
• Electronic media create the “global village” combining scientific knowledge and the
interdependence of all of human society
o Culture can communicate very strongly through music, image etc.
▪ Not dependent on written text
Rear View Mirror Media
• The content of new media is old media
• Print draws on spoken language
• Films and television take plots from novels
• Digital media take over cinematic forms – video games, Youtube, etc. often seem to
repeat motifs that are found in television/film
• But the real change – the message – is happening at the level of the medium, the form
of communication
“We drive into the future using only our rear-view mirror” – McLuhan
Document Summary
Sleep and the electric light these techno cultural changes are what alter culture. In the past 200 years, humans have been sleeping less and less well (due to electricity urban lights) The medium is the message/massage (mcluhan: the effects of media do not occur at the level of opinion or concepts. Three eras of media (mcluhan) biggest, most exciting assertions about what he says media do to society: oral societies create people with complex emotions and feelings and a strong sense of community. Mcluhan"s hot and cool media: cool, requires participation (a higher degree of active participation, which encourages more reflective thought, requires more senses, ex. Tv, comic books: tv is experienced in the home, more subject to interruption, can be engaged in other activities at the same time, hot, absorbs once sense, linear, spoon fed, ex. Gates: the global village is a place of very arduous interfaces and very abrasive situations (mcluhan, the turned turtle, (cid:862)we tu(cid:396)(cid:374)ed tu(cid:396)tle.
