I found many of McLuhan's anecdotes about various studies throughout history very interesting. His notion about hot and cold media was a new concept for me but I must question the section about cartoons and photographs. To me political cartoons can say more than a photograph especially about a particular time period and I think it was Arendt who also made the distinction about photographs and their inability to portray information. One final comment before the prompt, when McLuhan discusses television and its effects on now background media like radio, I think that today the internet and cell phones more so have almost made television background media. Yes, many Americans and really globally television is being watched but the use of the television set to receive programming in not as much, more people will go on their computer or use their phones to catch up on television shows. In fact, there are many web-series that play exclusively on the internet.
One thing that can be found to be problematic for Marxists is the fact that for a Marxist as I understand it, the ideology should be the message. Furthermore, McLuhan addresses critics such as Weiner who claim that a technological instrument is inherently good or bad. McLuhan is also skeptical about claims that the gun is not evil, it depends on who wields it (11). It is understandable that a military man would make the latter claim. Extrapolating from that and focusing on media, Adorno and Horkheimer would be very angry with McLuhan. for the the media contains inherently negative qualities worsened by its wielders, the bourgeoisie. I found McLuhan's point relevant today where there is much debate as to whether violent video games are one of the root causes of school shooting and teen violence. McLuhan compares media to staple in any society such as cotton and wheat and in doing so reacts to Adorno and Horkheimer's distaste for new media, Marxists must understand that the media is not going away and will only become more expansive especially because of the manipulation of electronics (21). Also, while Marxists would not like to admit it, McLuhan notes how the intelligentsia have always been the mediators between old and new powers (37). From an historical perspective one must note the influences of the intelligentsia in European history. Pamphlets about freedom and republicanism spread across to the educated and land holding elites of colonial America with few exception such as George Washington (who did not receive a college education) as founders of a new country. Prior to the revolution these type of people were the liaison between the Crown and the middle strata of colonial society. It is further a frightening thought for Marxists to think that technology has become an extension of ourselves, in order for us to destroy technology we would have to destroy ourselves. that is an extreme which the majority of Marxists and communications critics would probably disagree with--McLuhan especially shows how media saturated our society has become due to the series of breaking boundaries from print to moveable type to radio, television and the apex of media for us (the internet and computers). So far, he is one of my favorites just because of all the engaging anecdotes.
One thing that can be found to be problematic for Marxists is the fact that for a Marxist as I understand it, the ideology should be the message. Furthermore, McLuhan addresses critics such as Weiner who claim that a technological instrument is inherently good or bad. McLuhan is also skeptical about claims that the gun is not evil, it depends on who wields it (11). It is understandable that a military man would make the latter claim. Extrapolating from that and focusing on media, Adorno and Horkheimer would be very angry with McLuhan. for the the media contains inherently negative qualities worsened by its wielders, the bourgeoisie. I found McLuhan's point relevant today where there is much debate as to whether violent video games are one of the root causes of school shooting and teen violence. McLuhan compares media to staple in any society such as cotton and wheat and in doing so reacts to Adorno and Horkheimer's distaste for new media, Marxists must understand that the media is not going away and will only become more expansive especially because of the manipulation of electronics (21). Also, while Marxists would not like to admit it, McLuhan notes how the intelligentsia have always been the mediators between old and new powers (37). From an historical perspective one must note the influences of the intelligentsia in European history. Pamphlets about freedom and republicanism spread across to the educated and land holding elites of colonial America with few exception such as George Washington (who did not receive a college education) as founders of a new country. Prior to the revolution these type of people were the liaison between the Crown and the middle strata of colonial society. It is further a frightening thought for Marxists to think that technology has become an extension of ourselves, in order for us to destroy technology we would have to destroy ourselves. that is an extreme which the majority of Marxists and communications critics would probably disagree with--McLuhan especially shows how media saturated our society has become due to the series of breaking boundaries from print to moveable type to radio, television and the apex of media for us (the internet and computers). So far, he is one of my favorites just because of all the engaging anecdotes.
I definitely agree with you about television and other things becoming background media. On occasion, people I know get together to watch a movie and almost everyone has a laptop or homework or something else to do while they're watching TV. As far as the Marxists and McLuhan are concerned, I think Benjamin and McLuhan would agree that the form which information takes can influence people, But Benjamin definitely placed more emphasis on media forms promoting the 'correct' ideology and influencing the people's political beliefs, while I think McLuhan focused more of the effects of medium on the way we think and learn. So I guess what I'm trying to say is Benjamin thought form contained a type of content in and of itself, while McLuhan argued more that our brains conform to the form of the dominant type of media. Does that make sense?
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that near-instantaneous information and communication you mention (the internet and the different uses of cellular phones) have not only pushed television to the background, but more basic human communication as well. A modern individual will be in conversation face-to-face with one person while texting one or more others, creating multiple streams of information, each of which switch between relegating the others to the background. Regardless of what people say about 'multi-tasking,' the human brain can't efficiently process more than one stream of information at a time, so something will always be lost. If I'm understanding McLuhan's "the medium is the message" theory correctly, it seems as if the speed and variety of these new mediums of communication are actually destructive to whatever message is being delivered.
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