June 15th, 2010
McLuhan, M. (1968). The gutenberg galaxy: The making of typographic man: Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968.
This text, obviously enough by title, largely addresses the effect of the Gutenberg press on both oral and chirograph communication. There is much to this that will be of use to me as I get further into my studies and seek to add more historical foundation. However, of most relevance today is the book’s consideration of what occurs when a new technology is presented either from within or external to a culture.
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June 14th, 2010
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. 1st MIT Press ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994.
In this chapter, McLuhan begins by noting that movies, which for the purposes of this post only certain aspects refer also to video, merges the mechanical and the organic in a special way. On the base level, the idea of a camera (mechanical) recording something organic like the growth of a flower or the fluid movement of someone walking is such a merging. However, on a somewhat deeper level, film takes something that may not be organic and makes it seem so by presenting a sequential series of still images into a moving picture, such as making a chair walk across a room. Film also links technology with print in that they both generate fantasy in the viewer or reader. Read the rest of this entry »
June 12th, 2010
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. 1st MIT Press ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994.
“Language does for intelligence what the wheel does for the feet and the body. It enables them to move from thing to thing with greater ease and speed and ever less involvement” (113).
McLuhan begins this essay with an example of a rather animated radio DJ that reacts with sounds, comments, groans, etc. to his own comments, noting that it is in this way that the audience participation is created. This is a condition of the one-to-many broadcast. Of course it is arguable that by merely passively listening, the audience is participating. However, the DJ’s reactions perhaps make it seem more active, since operating solely in the spoken and not written realm of experience, he may feel the need to put forth those emotions and reactions, which one might normally draw out more in a written work, since the author tends to add richer detail to prose. Read the rest of this entry »
June 11th, 2010
McLuhan, M. (1997). Media research: technology, art, communication: Routledge.
As Narcissus fell in love with an outering (projection, extension) of himself, man seems invariably to fall in love with the newest gadget or gimmick that is merely an extension of his own body” (121).
McLuhan does not mean that we are prone to fall in love with our own image, but rather that we fall in love with extensions of ourselves. All of the communication media that we have created are extensions of ourselves, ways to communicate in as close to a natural manner as possible while adding certain conveniences, such as communicating at a distance. Read the rest of this entry »
June 10th, 2010
“From the development of phonetic script until the invention of the electric telegraph human technology had tended strongly toward the furtherance of detachment and objectivity, detribalization and individuality. Electric circuitry has quite the contrary effect. It involves in depth. It merges the individual and mass environment” (112).
I did not take too much from this essay for my own study. However, this one quote did get me thinking on our perceived and intended purposes of current communication media. Is our intent to use it to bring us closer together or to make us individuals, and regardless of intent, what is the actual effect?
Communication in our current age, that is to say communication conducted largely via the internet, does offer the opportunity for participants to be deeply involved and to merge with the larger mass environment. This point is evidenced by Read the rest of this entry »
