Upload
anastasia-rosemary-hubbard
View
216
Download
0
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Marshall McLuhan
LCC 2700: Intro to Computational MediaSpring 2006Ian Bogost / David Jimison
Marshall McLuhan
Gutenberg Galaxy (1962)
printing changed culture
Understanding Media (1964)
“electric” media change culture
Media shape our senses and perceptions
A new medium means a new shape to human consciousness
McLuhan and Media Ecology
Studying media environments
Technology plays a role in human affairs
Neil Postman, NYU ‘71 — How media communication affect human understanding
Structure, content, effect
Communication technology’s cognitive effect on society
The alphabet, printing press changes the way we think
Print culture (15th c). began to privilege the visual over the oral
Print encourages static, segmented attitudes that resist collaboration and encourage compartmentalization
Gutenberg Galaxy
Mechanization of print
reinforced orientation toward uniform objective truth
introduced a segmented, cause /effect, rationalist worldview
prepared us for a mechanical, industrial, collectivist age
suppressed mythic, multi-sensorial, “organic” experience
Gutenberg Galaxy
Electronic media are poised (1960s!) to replace print
New tribalism — multisensory awareness
The Global Village and “surfing” as rapid, heterogenous movement
Understanding Media(1964)
All media as extensions of ourselves serve to provide new transforming vision and awareness.
Media themselves — not their content — should be the object of study
The properties of the medium are far more important than the “content” they carry
McLuhan Aphorisms from Understanding Media (1964)
The medium is the message:A new medium shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action.e.g. railroad, plane; telegraph, telephone,
mobile phone
The content of any medium is always another medium
Print encapsulates writingWriting encapsulates speech
McLuhan’s sound barrier metaphor
We feel the contours of a medium as we are moving beyond it
Media are invisible when we are hypnotized by their ubiquity
“Electric media” are like Cubism: simultaneous viewpoints from multiple angles
Pablo PicassoThe Guitar Player (1910)