Innis & McLuhan Flashcards
How does Innis see the issues of ICT within larger issues?
Modern technology is closely linked to issues of industrialisation and mass production
Modern technology is a central to economic discussions
How does Innis’ observation of Canadian geography of space influence his research?
Innis saw that the Canadian rail route overlaid the route of the fur trade, which was the basis of his studies on history, space, and technology
How does Innis link communication and movement to human action?
Human action is constrained by the temporal and spacial characteristics of movements and communication resources. Means of communication within a community affect the size and type of the community.
What is, for Innis, the relation between time and space in communication?
Time and space are interconnected, but they still are separate. Biases towards time or space in media results in different forms of power. Time-bias media underpins religious power, space-biased media underpins political power.
How is literacy and means of communication an important breaking point for Innis?
The distinction between literate and non-literate cultures is a very important distinction. Oral cultures develop very differently that literate cultures.
How does McLuhan build on Innis’ view towards literacy and means of communication?
McLuhan sees alphabetisation as the shift from a wholeness and unity-based speech to individualistic, silent, visual, and detached view of the world.
What does McLuhan’s “the medium is the message” mean?
The formal properties of Media are more important that the content of Media when analysing its effects on our senses. Media is an extension of the human, as all media are extensions of our senses. Media disrupts the balance between our senses, where the eye is dominant, rendering a visual culture.
What is McLuhan’s Global Village
Due to technological advancement, the world became a global village with live connections between any two points on the globe.
Electronic media retribalises/resocialise us
