“Does my telephone call to New York strengthen my conviction that the earth exists?”
-Wittgenstein

Living in New York (for now), this question puts me under a lot of pressure. To convince people calling me that the earth exists. If they called in a panic? To be an example of groundedness, and so testify to ground, earth, soil… To be so important to them that I make it exist? A source of support, and supported. (Wittgenstein’s point is that there are certain things we take for granted, and he stresses that, even lacking explicit guarantees, we manage to “go on”).
I used to think how insane cellphones were, the possibility of having a conversation while walking. Same with conversations in cars: there’s a movement to a conversation that seems so complicated to maintain if you’re moving through a real landscape too. (What relationship, if any, does this bear to the frustration of talking on a sofa, facing forward like driving? And for another time: Calle’s red phone on the bed (bed art! Rauschenberg etc…) cutting out the middleman between the jangle of the receiver and the lid of the heart when he calls. Also the time the phone at the cottage broke and I liked knowing that if I called it would ring in rhythm indefinitely).
Recently I’ve been thinking about phonecalls on trains; I’m on them (trains) so often lately. It seems important that we consider lengthy cell conversations so rude but don’t mind if friends are traveling together, talking. Why, though? Because we’re curious and want to hear the whole thing? Does the halfness aggravate us like a chord that we want resolved? (Against this, Marshall Mcluhan’s claim that one need only ever read one of two facing pages, that we’re able to deal with blindspots.) Or the unsettlement that s/he – the telephonist – gets to confirm for someone that the earth exists, the unsought voyeurism?

8848 Module 5 BLOG

I was in Hawaii for a Walden residency the week this assignment was due. I planned to watch one of the movies on the airplane, but my little netbook does not have a DVD drive, so I could not just rent it. Therefore, I went to the ITunes store, rented Blade Runner, and downloaded it. It cost $2.99 to rent a movie for 30 days.

I believe the current competition between DVDs and video on demand is an example of Red Queens I believe that the market will continue to support both technologies, and that neither will be driven into extinction by the other. Eventually they will both be driven to extinction, according to McLuhan’s tetrad, because every technology carries the seeds of its own obsolescence. However, I predict that it will be some completely new technology that drives them both into extinction.

As explained in the concept of Red Queens, DVDs and video on demand are the only two viable competitors in the home movie market. Video cassettes still exist and are rented, but I believe these will go the way of the floppy disc, and eventually become extinct. Movie players are not mostly DVD, without VHS support. The increasing popularity of laptop computers, and the capability they have to play DVDs but not VHS tapes, will contribute to the extinction of VHS.

On the other hand, in spite of the convenience of video on demand, eliminating the need to go anywhere or to have a DVD drive, I do not believe that DVDs will be driven to extinction by video on demand. One reason for my faith in the DVD industry is my Grandma. She has a DVD player and has been using it for years, albeit with some difficulties along the way, but she vows never to touch a computer. Most people have the ability to watch DVDs. Fewer people have the tools necessary to play videos on demand.

Another reason that I believe DVDs are not at risk is that, although videos on demand are convenient and mobile, even on laptops without DVD drives, people often like to view movies on their TV sets with larger screens. Although some people have newer TVs with the ability to download video on demand, more people have regular televisions accompanied by DVD players.

I think that both DVDs and video on demand are in the enhancing and obsolescing sections of McLuhan’s tetrad. They enhance the movie watching experience by making any movie available at any time, and allowing the movie to be viewed in locations other than a theatre or home. They are rapidly making VHS tapes obsolete because of their enhanced quality, durability, and mobility.

Na atual conjuntura, sim. Se o meio é a mensagem, o gestor é um dos canais mais eficientes para que os objetivos da empresa sejam melhor interpretados.

Nunca o diálogo foi tão necessário como agora, em que governo e empresários admitem que a crise financeira, no Brasil, dá sinais de cansaço. O ano de 2010 pode ter uma interpretação mais otimista do que era esperado. Comunicação e liderança, portanto, devem caminhar lado a lado.

Reading Marshall mcLuhan’s the medium is the MASSAGE. Deep. The impact of media - the wheel as an extension of the leg, clothes as an extension of the body, electronic circuitry as an extension of the brain - has powerful impacts on the way we are.

He makes the point about “electric technology” presenting a unifying force, “recreating in us the multidimensional space orientation of the ‘primitive’” unconstrained by the dictates of the primarily visual and pushing us to become aware of the integration of time and space – “an acoustic, horizonless, boundless, olfactory space”.

“Environments are not passive wrappings, but are, rather, active processes which are invisible.”  This is crucial to us when we think about creation of learning environments. To be able to use “multiple models for exploration – the technique of suspended judgment” is key to these environments.

We cannot approach now by looking into the rearview mirror or use new media to do old things or things the old way. We need to understand how that impacts the way we “do learning”.

Writing in 1967, mcLuhan exhorts us – “it is a matter of the greatest urgency that our educational institutions realize that we now have civil war among these environments created by media other than the printed word”.

The book, and the wonderful visualization by Quentin Fiore, is a call to action. And action it should provoke among us!

I picked up Hot & Cool again today, again in a bid to give me a slight distraction. It helped that there weren’t any interesting NFL football games on television. Sundays I usually set aside for some football watching. (Added note: I’m glad I didn’t watch — I would have been shocked to see the Green Bay Packers lose to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers by a score of 38-28.)

The reading came at a good time: I was trying to finalize my thoughts for a presentation I have Monday night for my curriculum design class all about media studies curricula.

I stumbled upon a chapter that started with this quote from McLuhan: “Today we’re beginning to realize that the new media aren’t just mechanical gimmicks for creating worlds of illusion, but new languages with new and unique powers of expression.” McLuhan wrote this chapter of the book, all done in a narrative-style poem with some sections in bold, others in italics and some in different font types. (Note: I have typed up portions of the chapter in this post and formatted them exactly as they appeared in the book.)

McLuhan makes the point that the printed word, such as in the form of a book, is seen as an “individualistic form” unlike radio, television, journalism and movies (today, I would add digital media and information communication technology) that is considered “mass media.” The book, McLuhan argued, helped create the Western self-identity, even though it was the “first product of mass production.”

Because the printed word was so crucial to the development of self-identity in the Western world, maybe it is still seen as the medium through which students need to grow their own identities unlike mass media that is seen as destroying a sense of individuality. However, this seems like a reaction based more on fear — specifically, a fear of the unknown. Technology is progressing and evolving at such a rapid pace, it is hard for the current education system to keep up with those changes and integrate them into the classroom, or provide the training and resources teachers need to use new media as a way to enhance education.

It is also possible that children haven’t really changed where they learn: most learning takes place outside the classroom. The only difference is who, or what, is doing the teaching, McLuhan argued:

Before the printing press,
the young learned by
listening, watching, doing.

So, until recently, our own
rural children learned the
language & skills of their elders.
Learning took place
outside the classroom.
Only those aiming at professional careers
went to school at all.

Today in our cities,
most learning occurs outside the classroom.
The sheer quantity of information conveyed by
school instruction & texts.
This challenge has destroyed
the monopoly of the book as a teaching aid
& cracked the very walls of the classroom,
so suddenly,
we’re confused, baffled.

In this violently upsetting social situation,
many teachers naturally view
the offerings of the new media
as entertainment,
rather than education.

But this view carries
no conviction to the student.

If anything, the media have replaced one form of learning while at the same time re-enforced the traditional model of transferring knowledge inside the classroom. Where before teachers were seen as the purveyors of truth, the digital generation now sees media as the purveyors of truth. So what do educators do? They discredit this new form of communication as disingenuous and misleading, and prod students to not always be critical of what they see and how they see, but become critical of how much media they are accessing and using:

Today these new media
threaten, instead of merely reinforce,
the procedures of this traditional classroom.

It’s customary to answer this threat
with denunciations of
the unfortunate character & effect
of movies & TV,
just as the comicbook
was feared & scorned & rejected
from the classroom.

Its good & bad features
in form & content,
when carefully set beside
other kinds of art & narrative,
could have become a major
asset to the teacher.

Some media studies theorists use this argument as a reason for media studies, but under the protectionist model curriculum banner. However, discrediting media doesn’t create critical thinkers, nor does it produce effective media studies teachers, the latter issue being of key interest to me in my master’s thesis. This protectionist road doesn’t lead to some of the key issues and goals of media literacy, just as discrediting some authors doesn’t create critical literary thinkers:

The educational task
is not only
to provide
basic tools
of perception,
but to develop
judgment & discrimination
with ordinary social experience.

…

To be articulate & discriminating
about ordinary affairs & information
is the mark of an education man.

The more I read Marshall McLuhan, the more I think that he was well ahead of his time, and that the education system is still trying to catch up to a place he envisioned decades ago. Papers I have read debate how a media studies program should be organized, usually with a distinctly humanistic curriculum slant, where learning is based on what the student wants and their growth as an individual is of prime importance. What I haven’t read is how to organize a media studies training program for pre-service teachers. If I were to use McLuhan as a basis for development, it seems that, at least from this chapter, the first goal of a training curriculum should be to remove the fear and apprehension teachers have with media. Turn teachers into critical thinkers about media and they can turn their students into critical thinkers as well.

Until then, I wonder if it will be possible to fully realize the potential for a media studies curriculum.

The relationship among medium, message, and content is that the medium is how it is used, the content is what is being used (which is usually its own medium to begin with), and the message is what the content is about. In order to understand the message, the audience cannot simply look at the content; the medium itself, how the content is presented, means something on its own, and, in some ways, inherently alters the original message.
Notpron uses the medium of online websites, the digital coding coupled with the perceptual images and layouts, to send its message about the medium. In this sense, it is decidedly meta in its approach. It uses the hidden letters, numbers, and values of source code to provide hidden clues and messages. The content itself is hidden by the medium it is presented in.
The riddle’s message is that the Internet we know and the websites we use contain far more information than we ever lend credit. It sends this message through the structure of the clues in the medium.

Las nuevas tecnologías han traído consigo nuevas expresiones, una redefinición de espacio-tiempo e incluso una concepción distinta de la vida misma.

Los términos de “era de información”, “sociedad de conocimiento”, “aldea global”, entre otros., dejaron de ser meras hipótesis para convertirse en la realidad palpable de la sociedad. El presente cada día más automatizado, se “conecta hacia el mundo a través de la electrónica, empujando a la humanidad hacia un futuro robótico” (McLuhan 1989).

Pocos periodos históricos han tenido un crecimiento tan acelerado como lo ha sido el siglo XXI, se vive un presente donde las palabras: cambio, innovación y renovación son los ejes organizacionales. La web 2.0 es una obligación para toda persona y empresa que desea estar vigente no sólo en un ámbito profesional, sino también en el social, ya que las personas ajenas a estas tendencias automáticamente quedan excluidas, es aquí donde la distancia entre los conectados y desconectados tiende a marginar a los segundos no sólo en el ámbito tecnológico, sino también en la creación y fortalecimiento de sus  relaciones y roles sociales. Esto me trae a la mente la teoría de comunicación llamada Brecha del Conocimiento, la cual señala a grandes rasgos que las diferencias en el conocimiento entre quienes saben algo y quienes lo ignoran, depende del desnivel educativo y social entre unos y otros.

Las tecnologías digitales han facilitado la labor del humano de crear, agilizar y transformar su mundo, aspectos que antes eran una fantasía (unos más que otros) ahora son una realidad, me refiero a:

•  Servicio al cliente y relaciones interpersonales las 24 horas los 365 días al año.
• Optimización en el servicio de preventa, postventa y seguimiento de satisfacción.
• Redefinición en las relaciones humanas: dejaron de existir barreras físicas (todo a un clic de distancia).
• Reducción de costos.
• Nueva cosmovisión de espacio y tiempo: ahora es posible realizar más actividades en menor tiempo.
• Replanteamiento de la efectividad: ya no basta en saber llegar a la información, sino llegar primero.
• El saber leer, escribir y hablar ya no bastan para subsistir, ahora se necesitan desarrollar habilidades tecnológicas y de investigación.

Estos cambios tecnológicos principalmente digitales han venido a facilitar y enriquecer nuestras actividades laborales y cotidianas, pero también hay que tener en mente las palabras de uno de los más importantes exponentes de comunicación desde un punto de vista tecnológico, me refiero a Marshall McLuhan, el cual señaló que cada tecnología debe de ser utilizada y comprendida en su totalidad porque toda innovación trae consigo un riesgo, mismo que repercute en la sociedad, en este caso hago alusión a los incluidos y excluidos, los conectados y desconectados.

Referencias:

• MCLUHAN,  Marshall y B.R. Powers. La Aldea Global. Ed Gedisa. Tercera reimpresión. España 1989. pp 203.

Gourmet may survive the death of its original medium, the magazine. Polaroid, on the other hand, is inseparable from the form that gave it life.

When Condé Nast announced the closing of Gourmet magazine with its November issue, reverberations were felt throughout the publishing world as well as the world of those committed to the pleasures of the palate. But the suffering may last longer in the former.

Upscale and ubiquitous, Gourmet was published as a magazine from 1941 through November 2009.

Recently debuted, as reported by the New York Times, are several projects under the Gourmet banner. A new cookbook, “Gourmet Today,” is already on tour with former editor in chief Ruth Reichl. And “Gourmet’s Adventures With Ruth,” a public TV show (underwritten by American Airlines) began airing in October, featuring, again, Reichl.

What’s interesting is that since 1941, the Gourmet brand has been synonymous with the magazine. But it turns out while print media was essential life support for the brand for decades, it may have been only a temporary vehicle. The soul of the Gourmet brand may transcend its bodily form.

This is not a refutation of Marshall McLuhan’s statement, “the medium is the message.” He conveyed the idea that a medium’s content is “a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind.” People focus on the content but miss the long term impact that the medium itself, and how we interact with it, has on our lives.

Rather, we know that highly effective communications sometimes depend equally on the medium and the content; where the content could not generate the same impact if conveyed via other media. In these rare and delicious cases we cannot distinguish the media from the content, nor rank order their importance to the message. We often relate to brands this way, confusing the delivery mechanism with the true meaning that the product or service has in our lives.

But if Gourmet devotees can still get a fix from follow-on expressions of the brand, if another medium finds a way to channel the brand essence in regular (and profitable) doses, the brand will live on. And why shouldn’t it? Why should print be the only medium capable of educating, teasing and stimulating a group of people with an inordinately strong interest in fine food and drink?

Polaroid is another story, having already failed to adapt its brand to a new medium. Digital photography was everything the Polaroid brand stood opposite. The penultimate analog film, amateurs and professionals alike were enthralled with its randomness and lack of precision. That was magic. Which is what great brands are built on. Polaroid digital cameras? Flying pigs.

The Polaroid Land Camera, an icon of the '70's and '80's.

With its funky colors that developed before your eyes, and its large bottom border, suitable for writing captions on, the polaroid picture became an emotional touchstone for an entire generation of photographers.

If ever a brand were tied to a medium, this was it. Maybe what Polaroid needed was a different economic model that made room for the monumental market dislocation caused by the emergence of digital. Two years after Polaroid ceased operations, we are about to find out. To the relief and joy of tens of thousands of loyal former customers, Polaroid film (including some “brand new and astonishing” instant films, black and white as well as color) goes on sale again in 2010. (Reported by AOL’s DailyFinance.)

Comments are welcome. Can you think of any other brands like Polaroid that are inseparable from their media? Or brands we have improperly confused with the media that convey them?

Was perusing the online video catalogue of Marshall McLuhan, and found this one that, while it didn’t really help me narrow my thesis thinking, it was still interesting to watch. McLuhan and Norman Mailer, two great minds, talking about society and where we are all headed.

I needed a distraction as the sky darkened. Two books came off my shelf, both with one thing in common: they shared the same author, a one Marshall McLuhan. I have feared reading these books — The Gutenberg Galaxy and McLuhan: Hot & Cool, a series of essays about McLuhan. I figure that if I’m going to understand theories of media studies and media literacy, I have to comprehend McLuhan’s impact on how we think and interact with media, beyond that Canadian heritage commercial:

By the way, that little bit about people getting into newspapers like a warm bath and not reading them… that was a McLuhanism.

I was on page 34 of Hot & Cool, reading an essay by the incomparable Tom Wolfe, who himself was a trailblazer in the realm of journalism, as he described McLuhan’s thinking and how every time he heard something, he pulled his chin down into his neck and respond with something so cryptic and metaphorical that the learned ear could only think one thing: What if he is right? And then Wolfe got into McLuhan’s head:

McLuhan has developed a theory that goes like this: The new technologies of the electronic age, notably television, radio, the telephone, and computers, make up a new environment. A new environment: they are not merely added to some basic human environment. … They radically alter the way people use their five senses, the way they react to things, and therefore, their entire lives and the entire society. It doesn’t matter what the content of a medium like TV is.  … The most profound effect of television — its real “message,” in McLuhan’s terms — is the way it alters men’s sensory patterns. The medium is the message…

Wolfe goes on to explain McLuhan’s theory about the senses, which McLuhan wrote about in The Gutenberg Galaxy. When technology affects one sense — say, radio and its affect on hearing — it throws off a person’s sensory balance. To compensate, all the other senses heighten to bring everything back into balance. At the same time, every new technology “possesses the power to hypnotize because it isolates the senses” (The Gutenberg Galaxy, p. 322) and therefore hypnotizes society to the changes that are coming. As I also see it, it seems that new technology hypnotizes the user or audience into delving into its meaning, which is why there is debate in the research papers I have perused about how media literate young people are today.

For the television generation, this battle for balance meant they viewed television different than those who grew up in a print era. The TV generation was interested in tactile experiences and learning, which ran counter to what they got in school. It could be reasoned that the same thing is happening now, except the technology has changed: instead of it being television that is the medium that disconnects two generations, it is the Internet and digital technologies. Here’s McLuhan’s own words on the information age and how culture has become big business:

I’m kind of rambling on here and going to get back to reading, but this all popped into my head because of one line in one research paper I read the other day. In it, the author argued that of the current approaches to media literacy and media studies education, the majority of these approaches believe that meaning can be separated from the medium, and that these meanings can be analyzed and studied. What this approach doesn’t take into account is McLuhan’s famous quote that the medium is the message, “meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived.” (Thank you, Wikipedia.)

Without understanding how the medium affects us, how can we study it correctly or teach students to become critical users, and active users of media?

I’m going to have to do more reading. Me, McLuhan and some coffee. What a wicked Sunday night.

Graham Harman’s fourfold is very different to the tetrad of McLuhan, but there is a firm link between the two: each has fours poles intersected by two dualisms; the poles interrelate and transform each other; each part exists together simultaneously; they could be universal. Thus, Harman’s fourfold, which is largely inspired by Heidegger’s fourfold [das geviert] needs supplementing with McLuhan’s tetrad. As he explains, “All that is lacking is a detailed account of the mechanics of how the four poles [gods, mortals, earth, sky] interact with one another. Such an account is found only in ‘Laws of Media’. I believe that Harman will cross-pollinate these two fourfolds in his upcoming ‘The Quadruple Object’ and which is already hinted at in his articles ‘The McLuhans and Metaphysics’ and ‘The Tetrad and Phenomenology’.

First of all I will review Harman’s fourfold and then look to see how this intersects with McLuhan’s tetrad. Harman’s fourfold consists of these interlinking features: time, space, essence, eidos.

Essence is that which ontologically withdraws from view (in Heideggerese, the ready-to-hand, RTH). It is the absence at the heart of the object which cannot be reduced to a relation. It is that part of the object which stays the same from one moment to the next (the persistence of a unity of multiple parts). It is the Real object. It cannot be exhausted by any number of ‘notes’ (to use Zibiri’s terms): complete description is impossible.

The eidos is that which presents itself in ontic relations (the present-a-hand, PAH). It is that which is made manifest to us and other objects. It is the relational usefulness of an object.

Time and space are not a continuum (i.e. two structuring principles that support all beings in them and beyond), but a by product of the tension between the essence and the eidos of objects. The changes in relations give the impression of movement in time. Objects are not in time, they are through time. Objects are time-space. But it is only because objects have both related and withdrawn sides (one could say light and dark, or chiaroscuro), that time is possible at all. Thus because all objects (semiotic, non-semiotic, material or imaginary) have both relating and non-relating parts, we cannot ontologically prioritize one over they other. Each object is a real event which unfolds as time.

The tetrad of McLuhan relies on a similar dualism of relational/withdrawn objects via his well known maxim of ‘the medium is the message’. This means that the medium not its content is the vehicle for the message of the object. The real object and its essence is the medium which is withdrawn from view. The content of the medium is the relational eidos, the RTH which engages vicariously with other objects. However, the McLuhan’s remain staunch correlationists who insist that their tetrad is only applicable to human related media. To support their anthropocentricism they bring in Fritjof Capra and quote from his ‘The Tao of Physics’, which explains that ‘all things and events we perceive are creations of the mind’ (cited in McLuhans and Metaphysics, p.107). Harman shuns this modest claim seeing the tetrad as having implications beyond the idealism of the internal world of the human mind and a powerful axis within a robust realism. How then does the tetrad account for object-object relations?

I’ll try to experiment here using pollen as my medium:

Primitive plants reproduce using flagellated sperm which must swim through water to find and then fertilize ova [obsolese]. This obviously puts great limitations on where a plant might live and still reproduce. The solution is the development of a desiccation-resistant capsule that is capable of transporting sperm through the air [enhance]. This innovation we call pollen. Pollen consists of the male gametophyte and the haploid mitotic product of that gametophyte: sperm nuclei [retrieve]. Mcrospores develop into pollen grains, which mature to become the male gametophytes of seed plants. The pollen grains can be carried away by wind or animals after their release from the microsporangium. In seed plants, the use of resistant, far-traveling, airborne pollen to bring gametes together is a terrestrial adaptation that led to even greater success and diversity of plants on land [reverse] (p. 600, in Biology by Campbell & Reece, 2008).

I’m not sure if this is a correct analysis, but it is the best I can do as of now.

The point, I think, for Harman in the quadruple object is not to merely bring these together but show how change occurs. With Levi Bryant’s onticology, object’s have endo-relations:  the aspect of an object eld in reserve in order to give the object consistency. It’s endo-relations give the conditions for the possibility of ex0-relations, thus endo-relations consist of affects, i.e. the capacity to act and be acted upon.  Exo-realtions are relations between objects. Exo-relations can, however, affect the endo-relations of objects. He calls his brand of speculative realism ‘onticology’ or object-oriented ontology. He wants to focus upon how the withdrawn (or barred, as he calls it, mimicking Lacan) ontological endo-relations of objectile’s form and entropy within networks (exo-relations) and to examine the process of their ‘genesis’. Whereas Harman is focused upon the ontico-ontological dif-ferance. This ontico-ontological moment requires an engine of change, to propel ‘vicarious causation’ into linking and translation between object assemblages. I think we will see Harman use the McLuhan’s concept of ‘heating’ for his own metaphysics.

Heating, for the McLuhan’s allows for change. ‘All change in the world occurs through some transmutation of an existing figure/ground relationship’ (McLuhans and Met, p.116). Media are now defined by a thermodynamic scale between hot and cold. A hot medium does not allows the relating object room for interpretive maneuver, whereas a cold medium does. In the last couple of years the TV has been reinvented. From the small black boxes that were fuzzy and blurry with analogue static, we now how large plasma screen HD TV’s with digital receivers and blu-ray DVD hyper-detailed movies. Thus what was once a cool medium (compared to the cinema which was a hot medium), has heated into the hot medium of the cinema (or ‘home cinema’, as we now call it). Although due to the possibilities opened up by digital broadcasting, there is now more scope for interaction, thus it becomes a cooler medium. The cinema which was previously hot, now gets even hotter with the introduction of hyper-immersion 3D movies and iMax mega-screen cinema complexes. In contrast to this, Ye Olde Shakespearian theatre (such as The Globe) is a cold medium, as it leaves a lot up to the imagination of the relating object: the viewing public (where the antiquated authenticity of the ‘experience’ becomes its main selling point – could this be an aspect of the reversal of both cinema and theatre?).

When a medium thrusts upon another object an over-abundance of information, the relating object cannot decipher all this info and thus abstracts it into a pattern: ‘data overload equals pattern recognition’ (p.117). The figure becomes the ground; the message becomes the medium. The hot hyper-details of ‘figures’ (message) in our day to day lives, over time, are cooled into a narrative ‘ground’ (medium) of phases and moments we remember with fondness or embarrassment. Using the TV and cinema example, the medium overheats when the demands on cinemas to get newer technology, equipment and regulations to keep up with the logic of consumer desire: more detail equals greater immersion and a better ‘experience’, so the advertising tag line exclaims. This ‘detail’ is another word for ‘information’. As the information levels get ramped up, the medium starts to heat up until it exposes the limitations of the medium itself and reverses into a new medium.

For cinema’s, Disney’s ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Audience!’ ride in Disney Land takes this immersion to a farcical level of ‘realism’ (water squirted in your face, air blasted at the back of your legs and giant 3D snakes leaping out from the screen). The heating of any medium takes work. To make and maintain this Disney Land ride takes a lot of work. So much work that very few places and people can replicate its model. It’s selling point is its unique ability to sustain its essence and eidos over time in a very few instances. If we look at this tedradically, then the logic of the cinema should reverse into a new medium which exploits the high definition immersion, but without the crippling limitation of the cost, size and work required to sustain these qualities. There may even be interactive elements.

I will try and expand upon this in the next few weeks with a new post which details further this flowering of ideas between McLhuan and Harman.

“O algodão e o petróleo, como o rádio e a televisão, tornam-se ‘tributos fixos’ para a inteira vida da comunidade”.

Quanto à afirmação de McLuhan, julgo-a irrefutável. Imagino que se tivesse sido escrita nos dias de hoje, incluiriam a internet e o celular dentro do pequeno rol de tributos citados.

Quando McLuhan cita “tributos fixos”, imagino que esteja incluindo os meios de comunicação dentro da lista de obrigações de um indivíduo que deseja viver em sociedade. É o preço que temos que pagar por (e para) viver em uma sociedade pós-globalizada, onde o acesso à informação permeia o fortalecimento de laços afetivos, profissionais, culturais e sociais de um cidadão.

O rádio e a televisão (e o celular, e a internet) são meios cada vez mais intrínsecos na vida contemporânea em sociedade. Tanto que servem não só como veículo, mas também como fonte e combustível para as informações que vemos e ajudamos a circular diariamente. O excesso de informações e a velocidade na qual elas trafegam é tão grande e tão superior às barreiras geográficas que somente um meio definitivamente global como a internet se faz suficientemente forte e ágil para suportá-las.

Quantas vezes não nos sentimos deslocados quando ouvimos um assunto entre um grupo de amigos e não sabemos do que se trata? Em um tempo onde tudo está disponível a todos – salvas devidas proporções de exclusão digital e de acesso a informações específicas -, sentimo-nos impotentes quando vemos um assunto que está fora de nosso alcance. E isso influencia, como dito antes, a própria relação entre as pessoas. É mais difícil estabelecer uma conversa com alguém que não tem esse acesso do que com alguém que acompanha esse fluxo volumoso de informação.

No âmbito profissional, quando falamos de capital intelectual, vemos nitidamente que os profissionais mais bem informados são os profissionais mais bem reconhecidos, pagos e visados desse novo cenário. Se queremos mostrarmo-nos bem informados à sociedade e competitivos ao mercado, precisamos ter acesso e saber lidar com essa nova realidade da informação – inclusive selecionando, filtrando e compartilhando as informações às que temos acesso.

Os bens intelectuais (providos pelo rádio, internet e outros meios) serem tão importantes quanto os bens essenciais (como o petróleo e o algodão) é sintomático de uma sociedade transformada. Transformada por um sistema tecnológico tão eficiente e dinâmico que pode, para o bem e para o mal, julgar pessoas e modificar comportamentos a ponto de criar uma “nova lei de seleção natural” entre seus membros.

Just take a look at the TV schedule for this weekend.

Media imperialism refers to the one-way, non-reciprocal flow of information and cultural influence in the international media environment, which embodies cultural domination of the ‘Third World’ by the West [Wang, 1997, p.15].  It was argued that the expansion of US media economy and culture to other countries resulted in the imposition of US values onto other cultures and the displacement of local tradition. Such a trend is especially rapid with the proliferation of modern communications technologies [Wang, 1997, p.16].

World’s Most Extreme Homes. Simply Delicioso. The Doctors. The Rachael Ray Show. Air Buddies. So You Think You Can Dance. Ocean’s Thirteen.

What do they all have in common? They’re all “imported” shows! Just looking across the board, how many locally produced shows are on? Other than the usual prime time news and a single Sports@SG, our media have been monopolised by external influences and its dominance, especially from the US.

However, the government is concerned about how these American products may affect our own Singaporean culture. Singapore is a multicultural society, which has resulted in a mass media that have to represent a variety of ethnic cultures and languages, already balancing on such a thin line between the myriad of cultures, another external influence may result in conflicts in the society.

Why this cause for concern?

Marshall McLuhan developed the theory that the medium is the message. He focused on how we perceive media messages by looking not only at the content of the message itself, but at how the message was delivered, or its form. For media, people often only notice the content of the media (a speech on radio, a comedy on television, etc.), but not the media that transmit the messages. McLuhan believed that the medium itself influences how we perceive that medium’s messages. And our government belief that whatever is shown on television will be taken up entirely by the audience through the hypodermic needle (Powerful Effects Theory: Believe that the audience is passive, and that the media is injecting information and rules about desired behaviour into a mass audience who would react in the appropriate manner), hence this fear of it being culturally dangerous. Thus, the government have set up barriers to filter and censor what comes on our televisions.

In a capitalistic country such as Singapore, what is the real purpose of the media in the society? Is its role to inform and for enjoyment, or is there a hidden underlying agenda such as to make a profit? Why the shrinking number of media providers through mergers and cross ownership? Is the liberalisation of Singapore’s media the result of relaxing morality or again, for economic reasons?

And with that, I bid you all farewell, I hope you have enjoyed this blog the last couple of weeks. Tis the end. thetonguegetssharper.

Sources:

Channel 5: MediaCorp TV ~ http://5.mediacorptv.sg/default.aspx

Research Paper: Film & Television In Singapore – Economic Development & Media Policies ~ http://www.geocities.com/adeylim/research.html

Wang, J (1997) ‘Global Media and Cultural Change’. Media Asia. Vol 24 No 1

Is technology appropriate for incorporating into worship? If so, how much and toward what end?

This is a loaded question. First of all, technology connotes ‘electronic media’ in most contemporary church circles. One immediately thinks of presentational technologies – anything that can be projected on a screen, for instance video, song lyrics, still images, etc. However, technology in the purest sense refers to those methods or ‘techniques’ we utilize for accomplishing something. In this truer sense, printed books are technology. At the advent of the printing press, it is certain that these compact, hand-held, widely available, compendiums of an author’s thoughts were considered ‘technological’ more in the modern sense – as we consider computers today.

A medieval scribe.

So, technique or technology is really just the idea that humans develop and are constantly developing new ways to accomplish tasks.

The task we are discussing is gathered worship. So, what techniques ought to be considered for use in the service of worship?

The general answer is, ‘all of them’. But, more specifically, I think each technology must be run through an ideological grid before it is employed toward the leading of the praise of God. The first, and most important question of the grid should be: What is worship? (Or, you might ask: What is the goal of worship?)

Simply put, worship is the dialogue between God and humans, in which God initiates the conversation and humans respond in cyclical fashion. The goal, then, would be to facilitate this dialogue (to the extent to which we can).

Once we have agreed upon our goal or definition of worship, there are more questions to ask that are specifically relevant to evaluating the technology in question. For instance, we might ask:

How will this technology help us ‘hear’ what God is saying to us?

Traditionally, we hear what God is saying in numerous ways: the reading aloud of the Word, words given by the Holy Spirit through individual worshipers, the Spirit again speaking through the preacher of the Word, etc. These all have to do with speaking and listening. What other techniques might we use for ‘hearing the Word of God’?

In the Middle Ages, most church goers were illiterate. On top of that, the Mass was said in Latin, which was not understood by most present for the Eucharist. The common people spoke whichever vulgar language they spoke. How did these worshipers ‘hear’ the Word of God?

In fact, they ’saw’ the Word, to ‘hear’ the Word.

Bas relief stone carvings – which can be seen today in cathedrals all over Europe – depicted vignettes from the Gospels. Stained glass windows also depicted scenes from the life of Jesus, or Old Testament stories. Statues of saints reminded worshipers of the faithful ones who came before. The shape of the cathedral interior, the placement of the altar, and the seating arrangements (all technologies by the way) ’spoke’ of the holiness of God, the reverence of the Meal, and God’s relationship to his people. These technologies ought to be – and have been – critiqued for their effectiveness toward hearing the Word of God.

A final interesting point here is that a really good and true evaluation of one techniques effectiveness is not eternal. While the images in a Roman cathedral may have been duly effective, by the time the Reformation had come and changed many hearts and minds regarding the uses (or abuses) of images, these became less and less helpful and perhaps more distracting to Protestants who assigned negative feelings to such non-verbal communication.

And, yet again, in our present age, images are familiar and prevalent. In fact, our culture is ‘image saturated’. Once again, it is necessary to judge the credibility and effectiveness of images. And, this must be done from one culture to another, and every time major cultural shifts take place.

Other important questions include:

How will this technology in question help us respond to God?

In the case of images, these can be viewed and reflected upon toward the offering of prayers. If practical, worshipers might even create their own images as prayer-offerings to God from their hearts. Negatively speaking, images tend to be limited in conveying complex ideas. In this sense, images may not always work as a communication tool for responding to God.

What are the possibilities for distraction?

Images that are offensive to some are not offensive to others. Those who plan worship must be well-versed in the values and sensitivities of their congregational body. Also, images that are displayed poorly or just wrought with a lack of skill can deter people from either hearing God or responding to Him.

Does the chosen technology/media change the message that is being communicated in a destructive way?

Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.” In other words, all media take an intended message and alter it in some way before it reaches the receiver’s ear. In the case of images, the question becomes, how does a picture of something differ from a verbal description of it? What is gained or missed when a picture is employed instead of actual words?

We could go on listing these questions for there are many. But perhaps now we can better answer our initial questions posed here:

Is technology appropriate for incorporating into worship? Yes, in fact it is likely impossible not to employ some technique in worship.

If so, how much technology? This depends on which technologies are attempted and also what cultural sensitivities are at work in the society in which the worship will take place.

And toward what end? The end is worship -dialogue with God. We must always determine whether or not our technologies are promoting dialogue with God, or instead promoting entertainment and distraction.

il direttore del Corriere della Sera, Ferruccio de Bortoli

Riassunto delle puntate precedenti

10 ottobre: Rispondendo alle critiche del capo del governo Silvio Berlusconi, che aveva attaccato il Corriere della Sera, il direttore Ferruccio de Bortoli critica il gruppo editoriale Repubblica-L’Espresso e la manifestazione sulla libertà di stampa del 3 ottobre:

“Il Corriere non veste alcuna divisa e non indossa nessun elmetto. Si è ben guardato, in questi mesi, dall’assecondare la campagna scatenata contro il premier, con vasta eco all’estero, dai suoi nemici, politici ed editoriali, e da tutti quelli che hanno ridotto l’opposizione allo sguardo insistito nella sua vita privata. Dimenticando tutto il resto. (…) Sbaglierò, ma non ho mai pensato minimamente che per difendere la mia libertà d’espressione fosse necessario scendere in piazza.”

11 ottobre: Eugenio Scalfari risponde a de Bortoli con un editoriale stizzito su Repubblica:

Sono amico di Ferruccio De Bortoli anche se spesso in questi ultimi mesi ho dissentito dalla sua linea giornalistica. Ma in casa propria ciascuno decide liberamente a quale lampione e con quale corda impiccarsi. L’articolo di ieri va però assai al di là del prevedibile.

il fondatore di Repubblica, Eugenio Scalfari

Dopo aver rivendicato la patente di liberalismo – “Noi siamo liberali, caro Ferruccio. Liberali veri” – il fondatore di Repubblica parte alla carica contro il Corriere e il suo direttore, ricordando l’esperienza vergognosa di quel giornale agli albori del Fascismo e trovando anche lo spazio per una critica impietosa contro Indro Montanelli:

Ad Indro Montanelli è accaduto altrettanto, ma lui almeno se n’è accorto prima. Difese per vent’anni dalle colonne del “Giornale” le ragioni del Berlusconi imprenditore d’assalto. Si accorse nel 1994 di quale pasta fosse fatto il suo editore e lo lasciò con una drammatica rottura. Ma era tardi anche per lui. Se c’è un aldilà, la sua pena sarà quella di vedere Vittorio Feltri alla guida del giornale da lui fondato. Al “Corriere della Sera” quest’esperienza d’un giornalista di razza al quale dedicano un santino al giorno dovrebbero farla propria per capire qual è il gusto e il valore della libertà liberale.

La “libertà liberale” è tipica di chi crede nel liberalismo delle patenti e degli aggettivi e Scalfari si è sempre distinto per questa mania di dare lezioni di liberalismo, piu’ a parole che nei fatti.

12 ottobre: il direttore del Corriere della Sera, Ferruccio de Bortoli, risponde a Eugenio Scalfari e Marco Travaglio (anche Travaglio aveva criticato de Bortoli sul nuovo quotidiano il Fatto):

E veniamo all’editoriale di Eugenio Scalfari sulla Repubblica che ho trovato ingiusto e insultante. Mi dispiace molto. Scalfari ha letto la mia risposta di venerdì alle accuse del premier, manipolando le mie parole a suo uso e consumo. Lo considero profondamente scorretto. Il paradosso di tutta questa vicenda è che Repubblica ha fatto la sua campagna contro il premier con le notizie pubblicate… dal Corriere . Scalfari tenta di delegittimarmi moralmente perché non abbiamo seguito il suo giornale, querelato dal premier, e non siamo scesi in piazza sotto le bandiere di un partito o di un sindacato.

Il direttore de Bortoli rivendica per lui e per il Corriere indipendenza e correttezza, ricordando il lavoro del suo giornale e accusando implicitamente Scalfari e Repubblica di ipocrisia:

E dov’erano lui e il suo giornale quando D’Alema, allora al potere, se la prese con noi fino a proporre la mia cacciata dall’Ordine dei giornalisti? Li ho forse accusati, in quelle occasioni, di essersi accucciati al potere di turno? No, rispettai il loro ruolo, anche se di spettatori. Interessati. Devo andare avanti?

La puntata di oggi, martedi’ 13 ottobre

Scalfari pubblica su Repubblica Il coraggio della stampa. Dopo aver ricordato gli altri protagonisti che intanto si stanno aggiungendo a questa saga della “libera stampa” italiana:

Aggiungo che ieri il Tg1 è anch’esso intervenuto a suo modo e a supporto di un resoconto di genere minzoliniano ha intervistato Belpietro e Antonio Polito i quali non hanno trovato di meglio che dichiarare la loro non appartenenza al mio partito e la loro solidarietà con il direttore del Corriere della Sera. Questi due colleghi fanno da tempo parte organica del club di Bruno Vespa ed è evidente che prendano da me tutte le distanze possibili.

Scalfari torna all’insulto personale:

Io mi guardo bene dall’augurarmi che de Bortoli condivida le nostre idee e capisco anche che – come scriveva il Manzoni – “il coraggio chi non ce l’ha non se lo può dare”.

E’ evidente che l’Ego – sempre abbondante tra i giornalisti italiani, che forse hanno preso troppo alla lettera il famoso motto di McLuhan, il mezzo e’ il messaggio – sta straripando e che ormai la saga è resa antipatica e difficile da seguire, infarcita com’e’ di insulti e attacchi personali che nulla aggiungono al dibattito, che pure avrebbe potuto essere importante e salutare. A questo punto non sappiamo come i poveri lettori italiani possano giovarsi di questa saga avvelenata; quei lettori già vivono in una società assai povera di liberal-democrazia, dove ogni tema viene ideologizzato e invece di costruire ponti si ereggono muri.

L’Italia, lo sappiamo tutti, non è certamente la patria della libertà di stampa ne’ di sua madre, la libertà d’espressione, ne’ di sua nonna, la libertà. Ne abbiamo scritto spesso su questo blog e crediamo il tema sia fin troppo serio per ridurlo ad una saga dove i rancori, gli attacchi personali, la lotta politica e gli interessi economici rischiano di deformare i punti di vista, creare il muro contro muro e lasciare sul campo solo macerie.

La saga continua…

AGGIORNAMENTO MERCOLEDI’ 14 OTTOBRE 2009: Scalfari – de Bortoli: un altro episodio della saga avvelenata

Sullo stesso tema leggi anche:

Scalfari e de Bortoli vanno alla guerra

Sulla libertà di stampa leggi anche:

Orwell, la libertà di stampa e il paese dei gattopardi

Oltre il melodramma. Come prepararsi alla manifestazione per la libertà d’informazione di sabato 3 ottobre

Povera Patria

3 ottobre 2009: l’Italia scopre la libertà di stampa e nasce la Terza Repubblica

L’inganno, l’ipocrisia e i guinzagli d’oro

Hey kids! Wanna watch more videos in class! Want to learn how to critically analyze media! Tell your teachers Media Literacy Week is coming in November.

Popular media, which are comprised of news

reporting agencies, magazines, films, music, television,

and the Internet are, for most people, the major

source of information about their world. Kellner

(1995) argues that media culture is now the dominant

culture which socializes us and provides material for

identity in terms of both social reproduction and

change. The uncritical consumption of media texts

that frame citizens as consumers or, worse, as criminals

or objects of commodification in the service of

dominant interests can facilitate alienation and disempowerment.

Kellner, in response to the dangerous

potential of dominant media narratives, calls for a

critical cultural studies that:

…conceptualizes society as a terrain of domination

and resistance and engages in a critique

of domination and of the ways that media culture

engages in reproducing relationships of

domination and oppression (4).

No group is more impacted by the dominant narratives

of media culture than urban youth of color

(Goodman, 2003). Giroux (1996) examines how

working class youth are both commodified and

criminalized by media culture. At the same time,

however, he and other cultural theorists acknowledge

that youth have created their own forms of media

expression that simultaneously serve as sites of resistance

and sites of cooptation by the culture industries

(Lipsitz, 1994).

Ok. I got it. Newspapers are going to disappear from the face of Earth sooner or later, because, as Shirky says, their business model is flawed. More over, it was able to work for a century  just by an accident that had been corrected with the emergency of the digital era.

And I also understand that nobody knows what is it going to replace the role the newspapers played, especially in gathering and distributing what we still call “news” and its more sophisticated form, the Investigative Journalism.

Shirky believes that society ought to save Journalism not Newspapers and propose that we need to try different models. Most of them would failed but some would succeed.

A handful of experiments are in place already. From the Mark Cuban model, that propose to fund difficult and long-pieces of journalism throwing through the window the ethical standards journalists are suppose to hold, to the idealistic citizen journalism models that count on the free work and will of good people to get the information out, to the still-to-be-tried-in-the-journalistic field model of the 1,000 True Fans.

I have not doubt that some of that is going to work and that an important group or journalists are going to survive this revolution, but I think the decay of Mass Media (Not just Newspapers. TV channels are based in the same advertising model that is falling apart) is leaving blank a bigger space -a more important one, than just where or how to get the news.

Mass Media, especially newspapers, collect, process and distribute information. But just a service they provide. That’s not what they are. Mass Media are the forum -or should be, the place where social debate happens. It is where a named society sees its identity reflected. It is where a regular citizen finds what’s going on in the life of his or her fellow citizens, what matter -or should matter, to people beyond the limits of their neighborhoods, what music is becoming popular, who are the raising starts, who are the ones falling down. Mass Media is the place -or should be the place, where anybody, without the need to be a geek, can understand the revolution of the digital era. It is where people see the whole picture, not necessarily, not just what they like.

Mass Media, particularly newspapers, promote or  derail change. That’s why they place such a big role during the print revolution. They are  -or should be, the place where people compare themselves to what others are thinking, doing, feeling. It is where the audiences measure themselves in the social scale. It is where people of the past century found what to love, what to reject.

We can argue that the Mass media stopped playing that role at some point, that they got too committed to the status quo, the same way the Catholic Church was tied with Aristocracy previous to the Print Revolution. Possible. The fact is that soon, they are not going to be around. It seems what we will still have some forms of journalism. But my question is: where are we going to find the meaning of being part of a “society”?

Marshall McLuhan said The Media is the Message. I wonder what would he be thinking today.

Well, hooray for me, I actually understood McLuhan’s text a lot better than I did the Watts/Wacker text from last week.  It’s either because all four chapters (Editor’s Intro, Intro to the First Edition/Second Edition, and Chapter 1) helped break the context down without losing any of the text’s essence, or I’m not as lost and helpless as I think I am (the jury may still be out, though).

I found one point interesting as it relates to prior discussions.  In the Editor’s Introduction, W. Terrence Gordon stated:

“McLuhan teaches that a new medium typically does not displace or replace another as much as it complicates its operation.” (xv)

As we’ve talked about in class, as digital technology has progressed, so have the mediums in which such technology is accessible.  The accessibility of music has gone from records (LPs) and 8-tracks (both of which my mother still has) to cassette tapes, to CDs, to digital .mp3s on a computer program.  In the past, with Napster and Limewire, the availability of music for free download caused bands (looking at you, Metallica) and their record labels to pitch a fit and claim that these programs and the people supplying the content would deal a crushing blow to the music industry and that the offenders should have to answer for their copyright infringement with outrageous fines and even jail time.  A little extreme?  Maybe, but I’m not looking to spark a raging debate on the matter.  I would argue that such programs as iTunes and Rhapsody, which are pay-for-music programs, still haven’t replaced CDs, because artists and record labels still produce them for mass consumption.  But they do offer alternatives that are more appealing to today’s technogeeks.  For one, a consumer doesn’t have to leave the comfort of his or her own home in order to purchase a CD, and most (if not all) don’t have to pay sales tax on it either.  And for two, if a consumer only likes a couple songs off a particular album, they can download those select songs and only spend a few dollars instead of spending $10+ on the entire CD.

The artists who choose to make their catalogs accessible on these programs still get a royalty percentage for each sale.  But they also bank on there being consumers who reject the digital mediums that provide music and who would prefer to have an actual, tangible CD in their possession.  From personal experience, I can say that I’m not that way when it comes to CDs.  But for me, DVDs are a different story.  More and more movie companies and TV broadcasting companies are now making their products available for download and purchase through the same vehicles that the record companies are.  So one can download Season 1 of Mad Men and see “Medium in the Message” come to life on the “small screen.”

As long as there are indie record stores, I don’t foresee LP records completely going out of style, even with the new technology that keeps being produced.  Sure, no record label makes LPs anymore, but there are ways of procuring them.  Even if one has to go on the Internet instead of using word of mouth or print advertisements in newspapers or magazines to communicate need.

The form of digital narrative as participatory, interactive, and multisensory, dates back to ancient times.  Storytelling through other media we are familiar with—television, radio, print, video—involves a limited number of senses and limited involvement.  Digital narratives impart a level of participation and interaction that we have not encountered in some time, and it is engaging us in fascinating new ways.  McLuhan states, “the new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of the global village.”  Digital storytelling engages  participation and involvement among people of very different cultures and backgrounds.

It seems we are naturally moving towards a dependence on the digital form.  We, as a culture, are favoring a more active form of entertainment, information sharing, reading, and storytelling.  We are active participants in these activities, instead of just experiencing them.  McLuhan asserted “the aspiration of our time for wholeness, empathy and depth of awareness is a natural adjunct of electrical technology.”  Because digital narrative creates interaction and involvement that is different from what we are used to, it is hard for us to fully embrace it.  However, there must have been a need for greater connection and interaction—or wholeness and depth of awareness—that served as motivation for these advancements.  Technology just evolved to fill that need we  had developed.

We are aware that technology is changing the way we interact, the way that we share our stories with others.  This new interaction moves us closer towards the concept of a “global village.”  Neither geography nor language serves as a barrier among us.  New technology enables storytelling to become more widespread and mutisensory—affecting us in more passionate and active ways.  McLuhan stated, “any technology gradually creates a totally new human environment” and “environments are not passive wrappings but active processes.”  It does feel as though a new environment is forming, and we are actively engaging in it through our day-to-day activities and interactions that seem to centered around these new, digital technologies.