September 25, 2005

Chapters 1,8 and 9 of Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media

This reading took the discussion and consideration of media's effects several levels deeper than I've ever thought possible. There is a lot of use of what seems to be a specialized media studies vernacular that I was unprepared for, and navigating the ideas on the author's terms was difficult. I spent a lot of time resisting my initial feeling that the emperor has no clothes (words?). Nevertheless, I'll do my best to summarize, react (when possible), and explain.

In the first chapter, The Medium is the Message, the author expounds on the time-worn cliche that I had never really considered in depth. One statement that I liked was the example of the light bulb: a light bulb is not considered to have any content until it is being used to spell out an advertiser's name on a sign. I had a hard time with the author's statement that GE is in the business of moving information. When lights are used to display a message, yes, I can see how that would be true. But can't a light just be a light? The lights in my apartment certainly don't spell out any messages.

The author also states that a light can be used to enable a surgeon to perform surgery and to enable baseball players to play in the night. I fail to see how this is relevant. Aren't there a multitude of other media that enable the actions to occur? Gravity, air, the blood in the veins of the surgeon (the patient), the baseball players, are all enabling media.

The author did do a good job of dispelling the myth that technology is only either good or bad depending on how it is used. That is certainly a well-accepted fallacy.

Chapter 8 is titled, "The Spoken Word: Flower of Evil?" In this chapter we explore a little bit how different the spoken and printed words are. What came to my mind is email and IM conversations gone awry; when the non-verbal, non-printable gestures aren't effectively communicated, a lot of conversational cues go missing, which can lead to misunderstandings.

An interesting point made in that chapter, the significance of which is still not quite clear to me, is that electric technology does not need words, and may indeed lead us to a collective consciousness much like that of preverbal humans.

In chapter 9, "The Written Word: An Eye for an Ear," the author explains the fixing power of written language. He makes clear the limits of written language in the way that signifiers with adequate external referents (like the words, "American Flag"), while they do completely describe their external objects, are poor substitutions for them.

Posted September 25, 2005 11:01 PM. Categories: Reading Responses , Week 2 | Permalink