Media theory of Marshall McLuhan, brief history of mass production and objectified society and ways to use that knowledge to determine trends in the current media landscape.

1. globalization & new media: theoretical context and macro trends

2. Fontys - FHJ - Internetjournalistiek - WG1
theo
!2
ploeg, @theoploeg

5. understanding the impact of media

6. marshall mcluhan (1911-1980)

7. !7
toronto, 1930

9. McLuhan’s cycle of change
The new media
technology
alters our sense
ratios
We invent a new
media
technology
New models of
reality give rise to
new inventions
The altered
sense ratio
alters our
perception
‘we shape our tools
and tools shape us’,
!
Marshall McLuhan
The altered
perception
changes the way
we think
With a new way of
thinking we
create new models
of reality
cycle of change

10. mcluhan's main thought #1: media are extensions of some human faculty

11. mcluhan’s main thought #2: the medium is the message

12. mcluhan’s main thought #3: walking backwards !12 the future
into

13. ‘history is bunk’, henry ford

14. ‘History
is more or less bunk. It’s
tradition. We don’t want
tradition. We want to live in the
present, and the only history
that is worth a tinker’s damn is
the history that we make today.’
henry ford in chicago tribune, 1916

15. adam smith (1723-1790)

16. ‘The
value of any commodity is
equal to the quantity of labour
which it enables him to purchase
or command. Labour, therefore,
is the real measure of the
exchangeable value of
commodities.’
adam smith in ‘the wealth of nations’, 1776

17. surroundings of manchester 1780

19. 9
early 20th century: capitalists!1as benefactor

20. fordism (1910 - 1965)

21. fordism: shopping as capitalist action

22. max weber: ’entzauberung der welt’

23. back to marshall mcluhan

24. ‘societies have always been shapes
more by the nature of the media by
which men communicate than by the
content of the communication’
mcluhan as ‚technologal determinist’

25. tribal man living in acoustic space
in between: man becoming more symbolic
literate man living in the gutenberg galaxy
network man living in the global village
historical fases according to mcluhan

26. !26
acoustic space

27. • ear is dominant organ (sense)
• community as powerful structure
• hearing is believing
• truth is fluid and non-lineair
• time and place don’t exist
• involvement and equality
• myths
characteristics of acoustic space

28. !28
liquid truth at the agora in athens

29. !29
gutenberg galaxy

30. around 1500
• eye as dominant organ (sense)
• truth becomes universal
• individual replaces community
• hierarchy and centralization
• privacy, distance and isolation
• time and place becoming important
• objectivity and rationality
• sound becomes vision
• seeing is believing
• becoming as central human idea
characteristics of gutenberg galaxy

31. books are vehicles for objectivity!31
and rationality

32. 2
the!3global village

33. newspaper as hot medium: they feel like a hot bath

34. !34
tv as cool, electric medium

35. !35
1960: US elections broadcast on tv

36. in Playboy (1969)
‘The
computer thus holds out the
promise of a technologically
engendered state of universal
understanding and unity, a state
of absorption in the logos that
could knit mankind into one
family and create a perpetuity of
collective harmony and peace.’
the electronic age

37. macluhan’s advice: don’t drown in the media mahlström

38. observe, take distance, find patterns

39. so, what macro trends do we see?

40. trend #1: news isn’t relevant anymore
hierarchies implode, subjectivity, experience, emotions, involvement, liquidity

41. trend #2: storytelling is back
subjectivity, experience, emotions, involvement, liquidity

42. trend #3: curating instead of classic journalism
hierarchies implode, subjectivity, experience, emotions, involvement, liquidity

43. trend #4: mass is defragments in niches
hierarchies implode, subjectivity, involvement, liquidity, being, networks

44. trend #5: local and global
hierarchies implode, subjectivity, involvement, liquidity, being, networks

45. trend #6: the network is everything
hierarchies implode, subjectivity, involvement, liquidity, being, networks

46. trend #7: just be
subjectivity, involvement, liquidity, being

47. a few examples

53. thank you!