Transcript Lecture IV

Lecture IV
Understanding media, culture and
technology Part II: Marshall McLuhan
Johan Lindell, Ph. D Student
[email protected]
Media and Communication Studies
Karlstad University
Lecture Outline
1.) Harold Innis: Quick Revisit
2.) Marshall McLuhan – Main line of thoughts
3.) ”Newer” Medium Theory
--Coffee--
4.) McLuhan’s Wake
1.)
”Fifty years after his death, Harold Innis remains one
of the most widely cited but least understood of
communication theorists” (Comor, E. 2001).
’Medium theory’ is research on the particular
characteristics of a medium and its impact on
society (Meyrowitz, 1985)
Innis’ main arguments:
 THE BIAS OF COMMUNICATION (1951):
Human agency limited by time/space
Communication media help overcome these barriers in
different ways: time-biased/space-biased
Technology (communications) NOT completely
determinant force:
Rather communication media should be understood to
help realize the course of intended human action in
that they provide possibilities that project the course
of development of a society towards overcoming
space or time.
Innis’ main arguments:
 MONOPOLY OF KNOWLEDGE
Communication media as ’expert systems’ controlled by
specifc groups in society.
Dominant means of communication are the channel
through which most of societes information pass.
Control of information -> Monopoly of Knowledge
Case-study: Journalism in 2010
 ’Heuristic tool’ / Conceptual framework
Joseph Goebbels, minister of
propaganda, Germany WWII
Control press -> Control public
opinion
Control public opinion -> ”is
right”
The one who ”is right” ->
comes into power
2.) Marshall McLuhan (19111980)
 Born in 1911, Edmonton, Alberta
Professor of English literature and world
famous communication theorist
The Toronto school of communication
theory -> medium theory with: Harold
Innis, Eric Havenlock and Northrop Frye
Innis’ student
McLuhan and the ’maelstrom’ =
metaphor to McLuhans exclusive and
holistic understanding – ”McLuhan the
maelstrom observer”
A Decent Into Maelstrom (Poe,
E.A. 1841)
McLuhan: Main Contributions
The Medium is the
Message
The Global Village
The Medium is the Message
•We are Narcisuss
•The extensions of man
•Focus should be on the social
impact of the technological
medium possibilities, mastering
– not on content and effects of
content.
•Placing us in the maelstrom,
turn our heads from the
hypnotizing reflection to what’s
really important.
•Foreword to Gutenbergs
Galaxy = ”a footnote to the
observations of Harold Innis”
Narcissus by Caravaggio
The Global Village
Tribalization:
 Pre-modern social organization
 Closeness, locality.
 Shared norms ethics, langue -> shared culture.
De-tribalization:
 Modernity (printing press, industrialization,
mechanization, urbanization)-> New social
organization
 Nation-states. Globally: Cultural diversity
Re-tribalization:
 Post-modernity. Electronic revolution -> New,
global social organization.
 The global village. World culture
The Global Village
A metaphor for our planet reduced in all apects of its functioning and social organization
to the size of a village by the effect of electricity since the advent of the telegraph
– W. Terrance Gordon
Innis vs. McLuhan
 Loner vs. Celebrity
 Political economy vs. Humanities/English literature
 Dystopian vs. Utopian
 Understand the biases of media to grasp societal change
and power relations vs. Possibilities to predict and control
technological developments and their impact on society
as the extensions of man
”Newer” Medium Theory
=?
+
Marshall McLuhan, Medium Theory
Erving Goffman, Sociology
Joshua Meyrowitz
•Medium theory conceptual
framework
•Sociological empiricism and
behaviour theory
NO SENSE OF PLACE (1985)
Main point:
New media create new social
situations in which new
behavioural structures emerge
Facebook as ”middle region”?
Has the ”massification” of Facebook (around
200 million users worldwide) implemented
a new type of social behavior?
Is social networking private or public, front
stage or back stage?
4.) McLuhan’s Wake
Documentary
on the life and
philosophy of
Marshall
McLuhan. 2002.
by Kevin
McMahon
References and Reading tips
Comor, Edward. (2001). ’Harold Innis and the Bias of
Communication’ in Information, Communication and Society.
Routledge
Goffman, Erving. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
Anchor
Habermas, Jürgen. (1962/1989). The Structural Transformation of
the Public Sphere. Polity Press
Innis, Harold. (1952). The Bias of Communication. University of
Toronto Press
McLuhan, Marshall. (1962). The Gutenberg Galaxy. University of
Toronto Press
McLuhan, Marshall. (1964). Understanding the Media: The
Extensions of Man. Unversity of Toronto Press
Meyrowitz, Joshua. (1985). No Sense of Place: The Impact of
Electronic Media on Social Behaviour. Oxford University Press
Poe, Edgar Allen. (1841). A Decent into Maelstrom
Rantanen, Tehri. (2005). The Media and Globalization. SAGE
Publications
Tomlinson, John. (1999). Globalizaiton and Culture. University of
Chicago Press