Last week’s focus: communication as information This week’s focus: media technology in the writings of Walter Benjamin and Marshall McLuhan

Media as Extension Media or “medium theory” Examines the particular qualities of a media technology. Considers how media technologies may bring about different forms of patterns of human and social organization. May also theorize how particular media technologies affect sense perception and re- organize our experience and understanding of space and time, individually and socially.

Walter Benjamin: “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” 15 July 1892 – 27 September 1940 Benjamin was a Marxist, but he was also influenced by Jewish mysticism. Associate with a group of writers known as “The Frankfurt School –Leo Lowenthal –Max Horkheimer –Theodore Adorno –Jürgen Habermas Early Frankfurt School members were philosophers, sociologists, psychologists looking for ways to explain, and understand the devastation of Europe, Fascism, the Holocaust

Walter Benjamin: “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” Preface: superstructure (art, culture, ideology) and substructure (economy) (Marx’s German Ideology most clearly distinguishes between ideology/ economy and modes and means of production). Benjamin’s work on art as production clearly criticizes this “classical Marxist position”. 1.Art has always been reproducible. 2. Brings out aspects of a work that would be invisible; extends the ‘reach’ of a work. Also destroys the idea that a work has a unique history in time and place, what Benjamin calls its AURA. 3. It transforms human sense perception and ‘humanity’s entire mode of existence’. It ‘equalizes’ everything by destroying it’s distinct difference as a discrete object.

Walter Benjamin: “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” 4. They lose their primary function within ritual. 5. Exhibition value takes over. 6. Cult value may survive, but it is a residual aspect.

MARSHALL McLUHAN. The Medium is the Message” July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980

MARSHALL McLUHAN. The Medium is the Message”

A Canadian Communications Scholar associated with “The Toronto School” A new scale is introduced by media that McLuhan says are extensions of our senses. This brings about new patterns of human association The mechanical era fragmented the senses The electrical age brings about their re-integration, thought McLuhan. What does the electronic age, or digital epoch do?

MARSHALL McLUHAN. The Medium is the Message”

MARSHALL McLUHAN. The Medium is the Message” Light is pure information: a message without any content. The content of one media is another media All media have a particular ‘grammar’ and this is what we must study. The change of scale or pace that it introduces into human affairs. The introduction of a new media technology can bring about a clash within civilizations or between civilizations and cultures. Different media are also associated with different values (individualism) and forms of political organization (Nationalism; globalization)

Media (or Medium) Theory According to Joshua Meyrowitz, “Medium theory focuses on the particular characteristics of each individual medium or of each particular type of medium. The evolution and history of communications media have been distinguished by different phases of development. Innis emphasized, among other evolutions, the difference between oral and literate cultures in the development of civilization. He also traced the rise of modern print culture and the dramatic changes that took place with the emergence of technological media in the 19th century. In doing so, he helped to create a framework for understanding the emergence of "new" media, one which continues to influence communication scholars today.” Meyrowitz, Joshua. "Medium Theory." In Communication Theory Today. Edited by D. Crowley and D. Mitchell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p From the website: Old Messengers, New Media: the legacy of Innis and McLuhan