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Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message (Dependence on FEW staples…
Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message
Technology as an extension of the human
has personal and social consequences
Machines alter our relations with one another
Machines
fragmentary
centralist
superficial
Automation
integral
decentralist
depth
the medium shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action
The content of the medium blinds us to the medium
David Sarnoff: The products of modern science are not in themselves good or bad; it is the way they are used that determines their value
Incorrect
it was true that print caused much trash to circulate, but it had also disseminated the Bible and the thoughts of seers and philosophers
Electric light
brain surgery
night baseball
these activities could not exist without the electric light
eliminates time and space factors like
radio
telegraph
telephone
television
has no content
medium without a message
Technology brings about change in
SCALE
and
PATTERN
in human affairs
eg. Railway
new kinds of cities
new kinds of work and leisure
in all places it functions
Electricity
Ended sequence and made things instant
Movies
sheer speeding up the mechanical
caused transition from lineal connections to configuration and structure
message of the movie medium is that of transition from lineal connections to configurations
appears as world of triumphant illusions and dreams that money could buy
gave rise to Cubism
interplay of planes and contradiction or dramatic conflict of patterns, lights, textures
instant total awareness
people would ask "what was the painting about"?
mistook the medium for the content
Print
Napolean: "Three hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets".
Alexis de Tocqueville
French Revolution
: it was the printed word that, achieving cultural saturation in the 18th c., had homogenized the French nation.
England
: Based on customary and oral laws - no redoing of laws like French rev. happened
America
: had no medieval institutions to discard
A Passage to India
conflict between East: West; Irrational: Rational; Oral: Print
The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance.
This change does not depend upon approval or disapproval of those living in the society
People mistake the "content" for the "medium"; as it is given another medium as "content"
Movie based on
Novel
Play
Opera
Writing/ Print contains speech; but reader is almost entirely unaware of either print or speech
Dependence on FEW staples
extreme instability in economy
great endurance in population
stronger social bonds
eg. Latin America
eg. Metropolis' dependence on the press
All media are extensions of human senses
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All media are extensions of human senses
Media configure the awareness and experience of each one of us