Objectives. To study, discuss, reflect upon, write about and develop working definitions of some or of the following concepts:

 

• the medium is the message or massage

• the global village

• technology and media as extensions of our senses or thought processes

• "literary man" & the private point of view of literate man

• becoming "tribal" - retribalization through media

• how different media change the balance of our sensory input

• how different media shift our need for social involvement

• the role of "close circuit" as an antidote to the filing cabinet (predicting telecommuting)

• shifting from products to consequences

• hot vs. cool media

• personalization of purchasing- impacts of xerox on buying books, products becoming services

• figure - ground theory of what we notice vs. what impacts us

 

Primary viewings

 

James Burke's explanation of the evolution of printing. Recall that to McLuhan, there are three primary historical periods: pre-literate, literate (made possible by the printing press), electronic (the age we are in now, made possible by electronic technology). Electronic media "retribalizes us," returning us to pre-literate times. Burke does an excellent job of setting the stage for our consideration of McLuhan in this regard.

 

A Matter of Fact: Printing Transforms Knowledge. This is episode 4 of James Burke's highly acclaimed series, The Day the Universe Changed. In this episode, Burke traces the change from a pre-literate culture, to life after the invention of the printing press, a historical period McLuhan refers to as the Gutenberg Galaxy. While the computer technology you will see in the series is a bit dated, the concepts are not.

 

McLuhan clips. I have selected several short video clips that are either by or about McLuhan. They illuminate some of McLuhan's important ideas. These are from the Marshall McLuhan speaks, Centennial 2011 website, which contains access to a number of short videos of McLuhan explaining his ideas:

 

• Overview of McLuhan, by Tom Wolfe, from Marshall McLuhan speaks, Centennial 2011. (22 minutes)

• Private identity. From Marshall McLuhan speaks, Centennial 2011; recorded 1968. (time- :39)

• Communication via the Internet. From Marshall McLuhan speaks, Centennial 2011; recorded 1966. (time- :40). Note that the Internet does not public for another 25 years.

• End of secrecy. From Marshall McLuhan speaks, Centennial 2011; recorded 1974. (time- 2:06). Note that this predicts our current inability to hide on the Internet by about 40 years.

• Privacy in the Electric Age. From Marshall McLuhan speaks, Centennial 2011; recorded 1968. (time- :59)

• From a print world to an acoustic world. From Marshall McLuhan speaks, Centennial 2011; recorded 1974. (time- 2:28)

• The medium is the message. From Marshall McLuhan speaks, Centennial 2011; recorded 1968. (time- :33)

• The medium is the message. From Marshall McLuhan speaks, Centennial 2011; recorded 1974. (time- :58)

• Global village. From Marshall McLuhan speaks, Centennial 2011; recorded in 1977. (time- 1:01)

 

Primary readings

Then scan this book by McLuhan and Fiore. Once you get it, you will see why I ask you just to scan it:

 

The Medium is the Massage. This is a very different kind of book. In fact you will find yourself scanning it rather than reading it because there is no other way to approach it. That's fine. The book is as much an exploratoin of the medium of the book (and the other media that make up the mediascape) as it is about the content the book conveys. This book is quintessential McLuhan. It is available via Amazon.

 

Secondary readings

If you have time, have a look at-

• Figure/Ground: Cracking the McLuhan Code, by Robert Logan.

 

• "What If He’s Right?" by Tom Wolfe. It is one of the essays from the book, The Pumphouse Gang. You can buy a used copy of if from Amazon for less than $3. Note: please DO NOT read the version of this essay you find on the web. It is very different. You will need to read the version found in the book. It is difficult to read McLuhan. His approach to prose reminds us of being on the web, as we navigate a "click here, go there" environment without strong narrative threads that help us progress through typical stages of narrative development. In that sense, following his ideas sometimes can feel like trying to hold on to a kite that is twirling in a strong wind.Thus, we turn to others to explain him to us. No one does a better job than Tom Wolfe, a reporter and novelist who received the American Book Award for his 1979 book, The Right Stuff, which served as the basis for the movie of the same name.

 

• The origins of the term The Global Village, by Eric McLuhan.

 

• McLuhan: Figure and Ground, from the Library Archives of Canada.

 

• The medium is the message. Nothing to buy or link to. Please just read the quotation below. It appears at the beginning of the CBC program At the Feet of the Master, which you may have listened to earlier:

 

"It's commonplace among painters, poets, musicians of the symbolist and abstract era, to say that the medium that is being used by the artist is the message. And I simply picked it up here. It doesn't lose its relevance or its meaning when transferred to popular media. Whether its an electric light or radio or telephone or TV, each of these media creates a new environment. It creates a new situation for human association and human perception. That is the effect of the medium, (it) has that total pervasive effect; that is the message, that social change that is brought about. The content of the medium is never the message because the content is always the old medium."

 

If you have time, peruse:

• www.marshallmcluhan.com. This is the official Marshall McLuhan site maintained by the McLuhan Estate. It is important that we have an authoritative site because McLuhan's work is so often misrepresented.

• Marshall McLuhan speaks. Fabulous source of short video clips of McLuhan talking about his most important ideas.

 

Secondary viewings. If you have time, watch:

• Peter Hirshberg TED Talk: The Web and TV, a sibling rivalry (2007). While the entire talk is very interesting, the excerpt featured here specifically references McLuhan. (time- 1:27)

• Why Marshall McLuhan Would Dig Transmedia and DIY Distribution by Nick DeMartino.

• The Difference Between Connected TV, Social TV and Expanded TV – and Why You Should Care by Nicl DeMartino.

 

Recommended (but not required) listening:

• Marshall McLuhan 100. From "To the Best of Our Knowledge," which is a repository of radio interviews with extraordinary people. The website is called TTBOOK. From its website: "TTBOOK is a nationally-syndicated radio show that cracks open the world and the ideas that fuel its engine...EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE are at the heart of TTBOOK. Novelists and poets, scientists and software designers, theologians and physicists, composers and filmmakers, historians, naturalists, journalists.... they’re people who are shaping our culture, changing our ideas, re-thinking our world." This particular repository contains access to interviewees speaking about Marshall McLuhan. Interviewees include Paul Levinson, Robert Logan, Douglas Coupland and Carrie Rickey.

 

• Marshall McLuhan, And the Discussion of Implications of Modern Day Media. This is a show Bob Marshall, Chris Twomey and Nelson Thall did on November 19, 1984. It features audio excerpts from McLuhan, interspersed with commentary.

 

Of particular interest is Eric McLuhan’s Wheaton College Presentation. This is an audio file of a panel discussion. To get to Eric's discussion you need to fast forward to 23:13. Eric's presentation occurs from 23:13 to 37:03. In his presentation he explains the eight major characteristics of the new electric mass audience. I list them here, but listen to the recording if you would like a more in depth explanation of these:

 

• Mass audience. The mass audience is invisible.

 

• Electric presence. Minus the physical body, the user of electric media can be in two or two dozen or two million places simultaneously — everywhere the Internet reaches, in fact.

 

• The electric crowd. The Electric Crowd, composed as it is of new nomads, who haunt the metaphysical world, cannot have distant goals, or directions, or objectives.

 

• People without physical bodies. People without physical bodies use participational imagery to generate the emotion and the aesthetics of being — the only reality left after leaving the physical body and the physical world behind.

 

• Image quality. The quality of image adjusts the degree of participation.

 

• Electrified nomads. The crowd of electrified nomads has no natural boundaries.  It overleaps all natural and physical limitations.  It is exempt from natural law.

 

• The new mass audience. The mass audience was coined, the term, to denote broadcast crowds.  Sheer speed makes the mass, not numbers.

 

• The soul of the private individual. The last characteristic concerns the impact on identities.  Now we believe that each of us is endowed with an individual soul since conception, and the concomitant, individual conscience. The private individual with a private self is also charged with private responsibility for his or her own actions and quests for private salvation. 

 

Discuss. Please go to our Moodle forum and discuss the following:

• According to McLuhan, what does it mean to be "retribalized?" Does the Internet retribablize us?

• What does McLuhan mean when he says the medium is the message or the massage? Draw on contemporary experience living in the digital age to support your response.

• How does these concepts impact your work as a media psychologist?

 

Secondary questions:

• What is meant by "figure-ground?"

• How does media and technology extend us?

• How has electronic media created a global village?

• How have we evolved from pre-literate to literate to post-literate culture?

• How has electronic media retribalized us?

• What is meant by "the medium is the message," and/or "the medium is the massage?"

 

Post:

• Your learning summary. Choose from the best of your discussion postings, add new insights and post a formal reflection on 1 or 2 of McLuhan's key ideas. Make sure your reflection relates to your life as a media psychologist. That is, address this question: How does your understanding of these concepts help you in your professional practice? Suggested length: 1-2 pages. As always use the three-part format: abstract or thesis, development, conclusion and call for further inquiry.

 

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