‘individual characteristics of a particular medium’

medium theory

Toronto school

the centre for the social effects of media technologies

its work has been generally categorized as ‘technological determinism’

… technology is the dominant, determining factor in the relation between technology and society/culture

the perspective

determinism (the doctrine of causal primacy)

trying to explain social and historical phenomena in terms of one principal or determining factor

focuses on causality – cause and effects relationship

offering a single cause as an explanation of change

technological determinism

a technology-led theory of social change – technology is seen as the primary mover in history

particular technical developments, communications technologies or media, or, most broadly, technology in general are the sole or prime causes of changes in society

technology is seen as the fundamental condition underlying the pattern of social organization

… transforming society

interpret technology in general and communications technologies in particular as the basis of society in the past, present and even the future

the entire form of society is seen as being determined by technology, including institutions, social interaction and individuals

‘human factors' and social arrangements are seen as secondary

the figures

Harold Adams Innis

Marshall McLuhan

… their work aimed to illuminate how the technological apparatus of the mass media shaped social relations in the contemporary world

• Harold Innis

Empire and Communications (1950); The Bias of Communications (1951)

the key question for Innis is: 'why do we attend to the things to which we attend?

… emphasizes the importance of communication in determining ‘things to which we attend’

‘bias’

Innis attributed the characteristic features of successive ancient civilizations to the prevailing and dominant modes of communication

… each of which will have its own bias in terms of societal form …

examples

- the change from stone to papyrus caused a shift from royal to priestly power

- ancient Greece: an oral tradition and flexible alphabet favoured inventiveness and prevented the emergence of a priesthood with a monopoly over education

…

- the foundation and endurance of the Roman Empire was assisted by a culture of writing and documents (administering distant provinces)

- printing: challenged the bureaucratic monopoly of power and encouraged individualism and nationalism

the contributions

- historical analysis with two dimensions: the ‘study of communication in history’, and the ‘history of communication’

- focus on the actual medium/technological artifact in order to examine processes of communication and their social significance

…

- adapted the theory of monopoly to the study of communication

as in the economic sphere, communication leads over time to monopolization by a group or a class of the means of production and distribution of knowledge ‘monopoly of knowledge’

…

- introduced the idea of time-space divide

the most important dimensions of empire are space and time and some means of communication are more suitable for the one than for the other (space-binding, time-binding cultures)

…

- time-binding media would be more capable of delivering knowledge over periods of time, reinforcing collective memory, whereas space-binding media would be much more effective in enabling knowledge transfer across geographical space

… thus, empires can persist either through time (ancient Egypt) or extensively in space (Rome), depending on the dominant form of communication

• Marshal McLuhan

‘‘The Gutenberg Galaxy’ (1962); ‘Understanding Media’ (1964)

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpIYz8tfGjY)

McLuhan’s advance on Innis was to look at the process by which we experience the world through different media of communication and not just at the relation between communication and social power structures

‘the medium is the message’

the discussion on media too narrowly focused on their contents: the effect of an advertisement, the meaning of a film, the line of a newspaper editorial

… these were thought to be the messages the media conveyed, but for McLuhan ‘the medium is the message’

media: ‘extensions of man’

media are technologies each of which extends a particular human sense or faculty

the real message of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs

the true significance of any medium is to be found in the overall impact of the generalized employment of that technological system

focus

McLuhan drew attention to the implications of a shift from a purely oral communication to one based on a written language

he focused on how we experience the world, not on what we experience (content)

… each new medium transcends the boundaries of experience reached by earlier media and contributes to further changes

… changes

printing press: linearity, individualism and sequential rationality

electronic media (radio, telephone, television and computerization): instantaneity, abolition of spatial separation, unified field, simultaneity

‘hot’ vs ‘cool’ media

hot media engage one sense completely (little interaction from the user) – experiencing the world by reading printed text is isolating and non involving (encouraging the rational, individual behavior)

radio and film are included too; they engage one sense of the user to an extent that although the user's attention is focused on the content, their participation is minimal

…

cool media engage several senses less completely in that they demand a great deal of interaction on the part of the audience

television viewing is involving; more of our senses are engaged in the process of taking meaning (phone conversations, comic books are cool media too)

‘global village’

McLuhan saw different media working together

the global communication network he foresaw was an externalization of the central nervous system

he predicted the attainment of a global village in which information and experience would be freely available for all to share

• building on medium theory

Donald Ellis, ‘Crafting Society’ (1999)

the predominant medium at given time will shape behavior and thought

as media change, so do the ways in which we think, manage information, and relate to one another

sharp differences among oral, written, and electronic media, each with different effects in terms of how we interact with each medium

… oral

oral messages are immediate and ephemeral, passing information through speech

telling and retelling of stories over time privilege narrative as a form of communication and require group memory as the holder of society’s knowledge

… group identification and coheviness – culture of community

… written

when you can write something down you can separate it from the moment; you can change it

you can act on information and knowledge in a way that is not possible in oral tradition; knowledge becomes objectified and can assume the status of truth; information can be stored or saved

division among those who have the ‘truth’ and those who do not – culture of class

… electronic

electronic media can be immediate and ephemeral, but they are not tied down to a particular place; extend our perception beyond where we are at a given moment

create an information explosion; a great competition occurs among various media to be heard and seen

knowledge changes rapidly; we become aware of different version of truth – culture of ‘cells’ (promoting special interests)

overall

- communication technology is fundamental to society

- each technology has a bias to particular communication forms, contents and uses

- the sequence of invention and application of communication technology influences social change

- communication revolutions lead to social revolutions

#- Barlow, D. & Mills, B. (2009) Reading Media

Theory: Thinkers, Approaches, Contexts. London: Pearson

- Chandler, D. (Notes) Technological or Media Determinism

- Innis, H. (1999) The Bias of Communication (reprinted edition). University of Toronto Press

- McLuhan, M. (1994) Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man. Cambridge

- McQuail, D. (1994) McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory, 4th edition. London: Sage

thank you for your attention

workshop:

reflecting on: the ‘global village’