1. Understanding media, culture and technology Part II: Marshall McLuhan
Lecture IV
Understanding media, culture and technology Part II: Marshall McLuhan
Johan Lindell, Ph. D Student
Media and Communication Studies
Karlstad University

2. Lecture Outline
1.) Harold Innis: Quick Revisit 2.) Marshall McLuhan – Main line of thoughts 3.) ”Newer” Medium Theory --Coffee-- 4.) McLuhan’s Wake

3. 1.)
”Fifty years after his death, Harold Innis remains one of the most widely cited but least understood of communication theorists” (Comor, E. 2001).

4. ’Medium theory’ is research on the particular characteristics of a medium and its impact on society (Meyrowitz, 1985)

5. Innis’ main arguments:
THE BIAS OF COMMUNICATION (1951):
Human agency limited by time/space
Communication media help overcome these barriers in different ways: time-biased/space-biased
Technology (communications) NOT completely determinant force:
Rather communication media should be understood to help realize the course of intended human action in that they provide possibilities that project the course of development of a society towards overcoming space or time.

6. Innis’ main arguments:
MONOPOLY OF KNOWLEDGE
Communication media as ’expert systems’ controlled by specifc groups in society.
Dominant means of communication are the channel through which most of societes information pass.
Control of information -> Monopoly of Knowledge
Case-study: Journalism in 2010
’Heuristic tool’ / Conceptual framework

7. Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda, Germany WWII
Control press -> Control public opinion Control public opinion -> ”is right” The one who ”is right” -> comes into power

8. 2.) Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) Born in 1911, Edmonton, Alberta
Professor of English literature and world famous communication theorist
The Toronto school of communication theory -> medium theory with: Harold Innis, Eric Havenlock and Northrop Frye
Innis’ student
McLuhan and the ’maelstrom’ = metaphor to McLuhans exclusive and holistic understanding – ”McLuhan the maelstrom observer”

9. A Decent Into Maelstrom (Poe, E.A. 1841)

10. McLuhan: Main Contributions
The Medium is the Message
The Global Village

11. The Medium is the Message
We are Narcisuss
The extensions of man
Focus should be on the social impact of the technological medium possibilities, mastering – not on content and effects of content.
Placing us in the maelstrom, turn our heads from the hypnotizing reflection to what’s really important.
Foreword to Gutenbergs Galaxy = ”a footnote to the observations of Harold Innis”
Narcissus by Caravaggio

12. The Global Village Tribalization: Pre-modern social organization
Closeness, locality.
Shared norms ethics, langue -> shared culture.
De-tribalization:
Modernity (printing press, industrialization, mechanization, urbanization)-> New social organization
Nation-states. Globally: Cultural diversity
Re-tribalization:
Post-modernity. Electronic revolution -> New, global social organization.
The global village. World culture

13. The Global Village
A metaphor for our planet reduced in all apects of its functioning and social organization to the size of a village by the effect of electricity since the advent of the telegraph
– W. Terrance Gordon

14. Innis vs. McLuhan Loner vs. Celebrity
Political economy vs. Humanities/English literature
Dystopian vs. Utopian
Understand the biases of media to grasp societal change and power relations vs. Possibilities to predict and control technological developments and their impact on society as the extensions of man

15. + ”Newer” Medium Theory = ? Marshall McLuhan, Medium Theory
Erving Goffman, Sociology

16. Joshua Meyrowitz Medium theory conceptual framework
Sociological empiricism and behaviour theory
No Sense of Place (1985)
Main point:
New media create new social situations in which new behavioural structures emerge

17. Facebook as ”middle region”
Facebook as ”middle region”? Has the ”massification” of Facebook (around 200 million users worldwide) implemented a new type of social behavior? Is social networking private or public, front stage or back stage?

18. 4.) McLuhan’s Wake
Documentary on the life and philosophy of Marshall McLuhan
by Kevin McMahon

19. References and Reading tips
Comor, Edward. (2001). ’Harold Innis and the Bias of Communication’ in Information, Communication and Society. Routledge Goffman, Erving. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Anchor Habermas, Jürgen. (1962/1989). The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Polity Press Innis, Harold. (1952). The Bias of Communication. University of Toronto Press McLuhan, Marshall. (1962). The Gutenberg Galaxy. University of Toronto Press McLuhan, Marshall. (1964). Understanding the Media: The Extensions of Man. Unversity of Toronto Press Meyrowitz, Joshua. (1985). No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behaviour. Oxford University Press Poe, Edgar Allen. (1841). A Decent into Maelstrom Rantanen, Tehri. (2005). The Media and Globalization. SAGE Publications Tomlinson, John. (1999). Globalizaiton and Culture. University of Chicago Press