Communication in Evolution Timeline

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McLuhan Believes

It is impossible to understand social and cultural changes without a knowledge of the workings of media.

---Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage

McLuhan’s contribution to communication & philosophy

The Medium is the Massage

The Medium is the Message

The Medium is the Massage?

According to McLuhan, societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which people communicate than by the content of the communication.

The alphabet and print technology fostered and encouraged a fragmenting process, a process of specialism and detachment.

In The Gutenberg Galaxy McLuhan stated that 'print is the technology of individualism.'

Electronic technology fosters and encourages unification and involvement.

Similarly electric modes of communication reshape civilization in the 20th century.

"Electricity does not centralise, but decentralises." (from Understanding Media)

McLuhan argued that technology is an extension of the human nervous system and that technological changes create new environments of sense and feeling gradually altering patterns of perception.

Summary

Questions

Connections

Doubts

Conflicts

Other Notions

Art, or the translation of a culture, is shaped by

the way space is perceived.Primitive and pre-alphabet people integrate time and space as one and live in an acoustic, horizonless, boundless, olfactory space, rather than in visual space.

Their graphic presentation is

like an x-ray. They put in everything they know, rather

than only what they see.

Acoustic Time

Until writing was inventedman lived in acoustic space:

boundless directionless horizonless

in the dark of the mindin the world of emotion by primordial intuition

by terror --Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage

The Ear was the Earliest

The dominant organ of sensory and social orientation in pre-alphabet societies was the ear—

hearing was believing The phonetic alphabet forced the magic world of the ear to yield to the neutral world of the eye.

Man was given an eye for an ear. ---Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage

Writing is a technology, too!

What happened when

we humans began to write?…when new technologies are introduced

there are always those who are skeptical…

One skeptic about writing was the philosopher, Socrates

Socrates Cautions Against Literacy in “Phaedrus”

“The discovery of the alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories;

They will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves…

You give your disciples not truth but only the semblance of truth;

They will be heroes of many things, and will have learned nothing;

They will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing.”

created the portable book, which people could read in privacy

and in isolation from others. People could now

inspire—and conspire…Literacy conferred

the power of detachment, non-involvement.

Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage

Summary

Questions

Connections

Doubts

Conflicts

Other Notions

Enter

Television

E.B. WhiteJuly, 1938

“…I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television—of that I am quite sure.”

E.B. White, “Removal”

July, 1938

“Clearly the race today is between loud speaking and soft, between the things that are and the things that seem to be, between the chemist of RCA and the angel of God. Radio has already given sound a wide currency, and sound “effects” are taking the place once enjoyed by sound itself. Television will enormously enlarge the eye’s range, and like radio, will advertise the Elsewhere.”

E.B. White, “Removal”

July, 1938“Together with the tabs, the mags, and the

movies, television will insist that we forget the primary and the near in favor of the secondary and the remote.

More hours in every twenty-four will be spent digesting ideas, sounds, images—distant and concocted.

In sufficient accumulation, radio sounds and television sights may become more familiar to us than their originals.”

E.B. White, “Removal”

July, 1938

“When I was a child people simply looked about them and were moderately happy; today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad.”

E.B. White, “Removal”

McLuhan’s contribution to communication & philosophy

The Global Village

Global Village

“Ours is a brand-new world of

Allatonceness.

“Time” has ceased, “space” has vanished.We now live in a global village…a

simultaneous happening. We are back in acoustic space. We have begun again to structure the primordial feeling, the tribal emotions from which a few centuries of literacy divorced us.” ---Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage

“We have had to shift our stress of attention from action to reaction.

We must now know in advance the consequences of any policy or action, since the results are experienced without delay. Because of electric speed, we can no longer wait and see…

The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.” ---Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage

Television completes the cycle of the human sensorium.

With the omnipresent ear and the moving eye, we have abolished writing…

…In television there occurs an extension of the sense of active, exploratory touch which involves all the senses simultaneously, rather than that of sight alone…

…electric technology has meant for Western people a considerable drop in the visual component, in their experience, and a corresponding increase in the activity of their other senses…

…In television, images are projected at you. You are the screen. The images wrap around you. You are the vanishing point. ---Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage

Communication in Evolution Timeline

• http://www.johnkyrk.com/evolution.swf

McLuhan’s ideas on how technology affected people during three eras:

Pre Literate Era: Literate Era: Electronic Era:(pre-alphabet, oral, tribal)

Dominant organ of sensory and social orientation was the ear.

McLuhan’s ideas on how technology affected people during three eras:

Pre Literate Era: Literate Era: Electronic Era:(pre-alphabet, oral, tribal)

Dominant organ of sensory and social orientation was the ear.

Integration of time and space as one.Live in an acoustic, boundless olfactory space.

McLuhan’s ideas on how technology affected people during three eras:

Pre Literate Era: Literate Era: Electronic Era:(pre-alphabet, oral, tribal)

Dominant organ of sensory and social orientation was the ear.

Integration of time and space as one.Live in an acoustic, boundless olfactory space.

Their art shows everything they know, rather than only what they see.Other: (global village)

McLuhan’s ideas on how technology affected people during three eras:

Pre Literate Era: Literate Era: Electronic Era:(pre-alphabet, oral, tribal)

Dominant organ of sensory and social orientation was the ear.

Integration of time and space as one.Live in an acoustic, boundless olfactory space.

Their art shows everything they know, rather than only what they see.Other: (global village)

Phonetic alphabet forced magic world of ear to yield to neutral world of the eye.

McLuhan’s ideas on how technology affected people during three eras:

Pre Literate Era: Literate Era: Electronic Era:(pre-alphabet, oral, tribal)

Dominant organ of sensory and social orientation was the ear.

Integration of time and space as one.Live in an acoustic, boundless olfactory space.

Their art shows everything they know, rather than only what they see.Other: (global village)

Phonetic alphabet forced magic world of ear to yield to neutral world of the eye.

The alphabet and print fostered and encouraged a fragmenting process, specialism and detachment.

McLuhan’s ideas on how technology affected people during three eras:

Pre Literate Era: Literate Era: Electronic Era:(pre-alphabet, oral, tribal)

Dominant organ of sensory and social orientation was the ear.

Integration of time and space as one.Live in an acoustic, boundless olfactory space.

Their art shows everything they know, rather than only what they see.Other: (global village)

Phonetic alphabet forced magic world of ear to yield to neutral world of the eye.

The alphabet and print fostered and encouraged a fragmenting process, specialism and detachment.

Print is the technology of individualism.

McLuhan’s ideas on how technology affected people during three eras:

Pre Literate Era: Literate Era: Electronic Era:(pre-alphabet, oral, tribal)

Dominant organ of sensory and social orientation was the ear.

Integration of time and space as one.Live in an acoustic, boundless olfactory space.

Their art shows everything they know, rather than only what they see.Other: (global village)

Phonetic alphabet forced magic world of ear to yield to neutral world of the eye.

The alphabet and print fostered and encouraged a fragmenting process, specialism and detachment.

Print is the technology of individualism.

Books could be read in privacy, isolation. Literacy conferred the power of detachment non-involvement.

McLuhan’s ideas on how technology affected people during three eras:

Pre Literate Era: Literate Era: Electronic Era:(pre-alphabet, oral, tribal)

Dominant organ of sensory and social orientation was the ear.

Integration of time and space as one.Live in an acoustic, boundless olfactory space.

Their art shows everything they know, rather than only what they see.Other: (global village)

Phonetic alphabet forced magic world of ear to yield to neutral world of the eye.

The alphabet and print fostered and encouraged a fragmenting process, specialism and detachment.

Print is the technology of individualism.

Books could be read in privacy, isolation. Literacy conferred the power of detachment non-involvement.

In TV there is an extension of the sense of active touch which involves all the senses, rather than of sight alone.

McLuhan’s ideas on how technology affected people during three eras:

Pre Literate Era: Literate Era: Electronic Era:(pre-alphabet, oral, tribal)

Dominant organ of sensory and social orientation was the ear.

Integration of time and space as one.Live in an acoustic, boundless olfactory space.

Their art shows everything they know, rather than only what they see.Other: (global village)

Phonetic alphabet forced magic world of ear to yield to neutral world of the eye.

The alphabet and print fostered and encouraged a fragmenting process, specialism and detachment.

Print is the technology of individualism.

Books could be read in privacy, isolation. Literacy conferred the power of detachment non-involvement.

In TV there is an extension of the sense of active touch which involves all the senses, rather than of sight alone.

Electronic technology fosters unification and involvement.

McLuhan’s ideas on how technology affected people during three eras:

Pre Literate Era: Literate Era: Electronic Era:(pre-alphabet, oral, tribal)

Dominant organ of sensory and social orientation was the ear.

Integration of time and space as one.Live in an acoustic, boundless olfactory space.

Their art shows everything they know, rather than only what they see.Other: (global village)

Phonetic alphabet forced magic world of ear to yield to neutral world of the eye.

The alphabet and print fostered and encouraged a fragmenting process, specialism and detachment.

Print is the technology of individualism.

Books could be read in privacy, isolation. Literacy conferred the power of detachment non-involvement.

In TV there is an extension of the sense of active touch which involves all the senses, rather than of sight alone.

Electronic technology fosters unification and involvement.

Technology is an extension of the nervous system.

McLuhan’s ideas on how technology affected people during three eras:

Pre Literate Era: Literate Era: Electronic Era:(pre-alphabet, oral, tribal)

Dominant organ of sensory and social orientation was the ear.

Integration of time and space as one.Live in an acoustic, boundless olfactory space.

Their art shows everything they know, rather than only what they see.Other: (global village)

Phonetic alphabet forced magic world of ear to yield to neutral world of the eye.

The alphabet and print fostered and encouraged a fragmenting process, specialism and detachment.

Print is the technology of individualism.

Books could be read in privacy, isolation. Literacy conferred the power of detachment non-involvement.

In TV there is an extension of the sense of active touch which involves all the senses, rather than of sight alone.

Electronic technology fosters unification and involvement.

Technology is an extension of the nervous system.

Technological changes create new environments of sense and feeling gradually altering patterns of perception.

McLuhan’s ideas on how technology affected people during three eras:

Pre Literate Era: Literate Era: Electronic Era:(pre-alphabet, oral, tribal)Dominant organ of

sensory and social orientation was the ear.

Integration of time and space as one.Live in an acoustic, boundless olfactory space.

Their art shows everything they know, rather than only what they see.Other: (global village)

Phonetic alphabet forced magic world of ear to yield to neutral world of the eye.

The alphabet and print fostered and encouraged a fragmenting process, specialism and detachment.

Print is the technology of individualism.

Books could be read in privacy, isolation. Literacy conferred the power of detachment non-involvement.

In TV there is an extension of the sense of active touch which involves all the senses, rather than of sight alone.

Electronic technology fosters unification and involvement.

Technology is an extension of the nervous system.

Technological changes create new environments of sense and feeling gradually altering patterns of perception.

Global village: restructuring of tribal emotions.

End of Slide Show