These are some fun concepts to play with. McLuhan had an interesting approach to the
effects and affects of technology. Interesting
to think about. Technology is our ecological environment.
Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian professor of Sociology, was
best known for popularising views on the effect of the new communication
technologies of television and radio on a society's culture. He saw culture as
a derivative of technological change rather than an independent factor. He
introduced the public to such terms as the 'global village' and the 'message
is the medium'.
McLuhan saw media as an extension of self, that is, as
technology that extends natural human abilities. Technologies are not simple additions
to human existence. These technologies change how humans think, feel and act,
even the individual's perception and information processing. New technologies
have had psychological, physical and social effects. "We shape our
tools and our tools shape us". McLuhan abstracted four laws of media
from his research.
The four laws help describe the properties of each medium or
technology:
1. EXTEND
An individual's or organisation's use of technology in a new
way extends the reach of body and mind: the car can be seen as an extension of
the feet; a microscope as an extension of the eye; an engine an extension of
our feet and arms, a library an extension of the mind. 'What does the
artifact enhance or intensify or make possible or accelerate?'.
2. REVERSE
Every innovation has within itself the seeds of its
reversal. When a technology is pushed to its limit, it risks reversing the
target audience's enthusiasm for its original benefits into complementary or
even opposite emotions, e.g. an over-extended automobile culture that is
stressed by traffic jams and smog, longs for a pedestrian lifestyle.
3. RETRIEVE
Humans have a limited set of senses and motor skills. The
current media stimulate and reinforce only some of them. For example, the
internet enhanced the visual senses over the aural. A successful new medium
will "retrieve" and enhance a sense or skill that the current media
do not stimulate. Since the number of senses and skills is limited, an older,
outdated medium had probably addressed this sense or skill. 'What recurrence
or retrieval of earlier actions and services is brought into play
simultaneously by the new form?'
4. OBSOLESCE
The new media subsumes older forms of media. 'What is
pushed aside or obsolesced by the new 'organ'. New technologies keep
expanding the limited number of senses and motor skills. The content of the old
technology becomes incorporated into the new, further reaching technology.
Writing made speech "obsolete", just as printing made writing
"obsolete". The old technology is not eliminated, but loses its
initial reputation and effectiveness.
McLuhan observed that communication media went full circle
in the 1960's, from oral (folk stories) to a written (books), then back to an
oral culture. This time, tv and radio reached larger audiences at greater
distances. He predicted that these new connections would lead to a 'global
village' that shared a common, oral culture.
McLuhan's model can be used as a thinking tool to assess
successful product or organisational change adoptions where human interaction
is essential.
http://www.provenmodels.com/18/four-laws-of-media/mcluhan,-marshall
Mashall McLuhan's 4
Laws of Media
A friend commented on
this video: I think she gets
obsolescence wrong. Radio is a much different medium and more portable than
television. Television does obsolete movie theaters (not movies themselves).
The laws, of course, are a good basic way to evaluate media.
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