Is the technology the message?

Lecture 3, 2009ARIN2600 Technocultures

Chris ChesherDigital Cultures

University of Sydney

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7GvQdDQv8g

Marshall McLuhan

•1911–1980Mechanical Bride (1951)

Gutenberg Galaxy (1962)

Understanding Media (1964)

Medium is the massage (1967)

Laws of Media with Eric McLuhan (1988)

The Mediumis

the Message

Media determinism

•‘Civilisations’ change with media change•Media extend human faculties •Media and thought are closely bound• inverts disembodiment of information to

argue that medium is all-pervading• Switches between figure and ground• From Communication to Medium

Gutenberg Galaxy: Oral/Aural culture

•Individuals are connected to their environment & community

•Magical, emotional

•Empathy and participation

•Rituals and memorisation

•Integration of the senses

•Resistance to change

The spoken word was the first technology by which man was able to let go of his environment in order to grasp

it in a new way…

Print culture

•Private individual • independent of environment• Possessive individualism

•Uniformity and homogenisation• Alphabet + uniformity of print

•Specialisation•Detachment• fixed point of view

Electric age

•Instantaneity — allatonceness

•Decline in linear thinking

• Instant connections; multi-tasking•Less specialisation

•Retribalisation

• Aware of others watching

The effects of new media on our sensory lives are similar to the effects of new poetry. They change not our thoughts

but the structure of our world.

What is intellectual work?

•For McLuhan…•Aphorisms & epigrams•Hyperbole & epochal generalisations•pattern recognition not Classification•probes more than concepts•Teacher / public intellectual

(academic as media event)

Annie Hall (1977)

New media are new archetypes, at first

disguised as degradations of older media.

These degradations happen when new media inevitably use old media as content. Using the older ones as

content hastens the tidying up process by which a

medium becomes an art form (1964)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbaETHAM0Og

Understanding several media simultaneously is the best way of

approaching any one of them. Any study of one medium helps us to

understand all others

The tetrad

ENHANCE OBSOLESCE

RETRIEVE REVERSE

The tetrad

ENHANCE OBSOLESCE

RETRIEVE REVERSE

"What does the artifact ENHANCE or intensify or make possible or accelerate? This can be asked concerning a wastebasket, a

painting, a steamroller, or a zipper, as well as about a proposition in

Euclid or a law of physics. It can be asked about any word or phrase in

any language."

"If some aspect of a situation is enlarged or enhanced,

simultaneously the old condition or unenhanced situation is displaced thereby. What is pushed aside or

OBSOLESCED by the new 'organ'?"

"What recurrence or RETRIEVAL of earlier actions and services is

brought into play simultaneously by the new form? What older,

previously obsolesced ground is brought back and inheres in the new

form?"

When pushed to the limits of its potential (another complementary action), the new form will tend to reverse what had been its original

characteristics. What is the REVERSAL potential of the new

form?"

Video

• McLuhan’s Wake • directed by Kevin

McMahon. • narrated by Laurie

Anderson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faK9HUvH2ck

Overall focus of this unit of study…

1. How do technology and culture relate?•How does technological change affect

perception / society / reality? 2. How can we study technology and

culture? •ontology, epistemology•methodologies•disciplinary influences•theoretical abstractions

McLuhan’s influences and legacies

Innis

•1894-1952

•Space-binding media

• Empire-building•Time-binding media

• ‘plea for time’

•McLuhan follower

•sees McLuhan’s work fulfilled in digital media

•Darwinian theory of media change

•libertarian politics

Paul Levinson

Media professor/expert Paul Levinson on new media influence (excerpt_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqZNGYit3kY

Other branches of thought influenced by McLuhan

Walter Ong+Orality and

literacyJoshua Meyrowitz+social spaceRaymond Williams• critic of McLuhan

& technological determinism

• James Carey• + culture

• Baudrillard• + political economy

• Wired magazine• ‘Patron saint’

Limitations of McLuhan

Probes fall apart on close inspection

• Paradoxes or inconsistencies?Epochal analysis

• Is this really a new oral/aural civilisation?Technological determinism

• Media change seems to cause everythingWhat happened to social power?