Media Technology Flashcards
Media are…
Technologies
A ‘medium’ of communication
e.g. TV, telephone, writing
Communication Technology shape society in these 5 ways:
1) Social relations (watching TV instead of eating dinner as a family, communicating with loved ones abroad)
2) Social organisation (organising a protest/strike on Facebook)
3) Thinking (e.g. subliminal advertising, product placement)
4) Behaviour (superficial & image obsessed from looking at the appearance of things all the time)
5) Sense of time and space (e.g. binge watching shows and ADHD & bringing people ‘closer together’ or further apart
Marshall McLuhan
The Medium in the message
Media technologies are more influential in shaping contemporary society than the actual content
Innis
Different media technologies shape time and space differently -> and thus shape society as a whole
What is a physical time-biased media?
Fixed in space - difficult to move around
Durable & heavy
Controlled by 1 central authority (e.g. priests or king)
e.g. clay, stone tablets
What is the effect of physical time-biased media?
- ‘Sacred’ messages that cannot be contradicted
- Unchanging religious beliefs
- Unquestioning society
- Therefore, unchanging society
What is a nonphysical time-biased media?
Oral speech is a TIME-biased medium
Communication very limited in terms of SPACE
Memory depends on constantly repeated rituals, repeated phrases
Memories fail, so there is a danger of forgetting
What is the effect of nonphysical time-biased media?
Society is highly conservative, resistant to change & focused on the past
What is a space-biased media
Light
Can easily move through space
Can encourage not unchanging religious ideas, but secular, critical or even deviant thought
Not controlled by one single authority
Multiple different individuals and groups can use this medium
eg paper-based writing, letters, newspapers
What is the effect of a space-biased media
Can be used to coordinate people living in different places
Culture can be spread out from its original location
Focused on present and future, not the past
Society becomes more open to change
Cognitive effect - Transforms memory – no longer dependent on repeated rituals and phrases
McLuhan
KEY IDEAS
Media become extensions of body
eg Magazine becomes an extension of the eye
Radio is extension of the ear
These radically change how bodies work and what they can achieve
Who came first: Innis or McLuhan?
Innis came first
McLuhan takes Innis’s ideas and develops them
The Gutenberg Galaxy
Gutenberg invented the printing press
We live in the Gutenberg Galaxy
Multiple copies so potential mass audience (tiny audience before)
Lightweight & transportable
Writing in common people’s languages, not Latin (only for elites, especially priests)
Encourages new authors – no longer only priests
More critical voices therefore society changes
McLuhan
The media changes us like surgery
The new media and technologies are like a huge collective surgery carried out on a social body.
It is not the incised area that is most affected…It is the entire system that is changed. The effect of radio becomes visual, the effect of photo becomes auditory.
Hot media
Little or no audience participation from
eg Book, Cinema
Fixed meanings
Passive audience
Cool media
Audience participation
eg Telephone, some types of TV, Internet
Meanings not fixed; audience must work to make the meanings
Active audience
Timeline of media
Oral speech -> Writing -> Electronic communication
How has a change in media technologies changed cognitive function?
In societies based around oral speech, people have long memories & all 5 senses are used equally
Today, shorter memories as things can be remembered through documents & visual bias: away from using all senses, to using mostly the eyes
The Effect of the Gutenberg Galaxy
standardisation
Printing press leads to:
Uniformation and standardisation of writing & language
Rules set up about grammar and spelling
Language becomes more predictable
THEREFORE
Thinking becomes more standardised & predictable ie rational
THEREFORE
Lifestyles, space and time become more rational
So we experience a standardisation of culture
The Effect of the Gutenberg Galaxy
Top Down Authority
More critical voices but also new types of AUTHORITY are created
Books written by “experts”
Experts have authority
Experts expected to be believed by non-experts
This is “Top Down” Authority
The telephone
Cool medium Changes space (the far becomes near) Public media (anyone can send messages)
What are the 6 effects of new electronic communications media?
- Sense of space and time becomes confused (can access old articles & culture changes rapidly (e.g. memes))
- Saturation: constant pouring out of info & especially bad news
- Inescapable (e.g. big screens at Times Square, Tokyo)
- Many opinions available
- Decentralisation of information & therefore power
- Social boundaries collapse (e.g. politics & media become one, news & celebrity culture become one)
The Global Village
Media flows are global, constant and instantaneous
An individual can travel through SPACE and TIME without leaving bed
Global consciousness: a sense that we are all involved with everyone else on the planet
What are the 2 effects of new electronic communications media?
(Post literate society)
- Bias towards electronic images, not written words
2. Anyone can be involved in discussions (do not need to be educated or an “expert”)
Support for McLuhan
McLuhan anticipated 40 years earlier how the Internet will work
McLuhan & Tribalisation
The ‘Tribal’ age: (before 1500) Word of mouth is the main medium of communication, manifested in speech & song
The age of ‘Detribalisation’:(1500-1900) The emergence and dominance of print
The age of ‘Retribalisation’: (after 1900) Dominated by electronic media like TV and radio
2 Criticisms of McLuhan
- McLuhan takes Innis’s sensible ideas and sensationalises them
- McLuhan “de-socializes” media: cannot see complicated interplay of people and technology.
Says media technologies shape passive individuals (and therefore society) BUT people actively USE and thus RE-SHAPE those technologies, so not so passive
Can you really ignore the messages, only look at the medium?
Must consider with Media Technologies…
Marxist view – issues of ideology, manipulation and media ownership….
