The Medium is the Message. Media Ecology by Marshal McLuhan I

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From the course by National Research University Higher School of Economics

Communication theory: bridging academia and practice

1 оценка

National Research University Higher School of Economics

Communication theory: bridging academia and practice

1 оценка

This course is about communication on various levels. Over these 9 weeks we will cover a number of theories, cases and applications in the field of communication science. We will start with the foundational concepts of communication theory, defining what the theory is and going through a number of approaches to communication itself. Each week you will have a test to check on your progress and understanding. We also have a final text in the end of the course and a little bit of writing. As Oscar Wilde said, if you cannot write, you cannot think. If you cannot think, others will do thinking for you. So we find writing and reflecting pretty important for our classes. Along the course we provide you with in-class materials: lecture presentations, articles and additional readings. If you really want to get into the topic, don’t avoid this extra work. Although a substantial part of this course is theory-based, communication theory has a very practical application. Communication is an underlying process which creates and develops relationships, communities, societies. We communicative on a daily basis via a variety of means and channels. In our globalised and increasingly interconnected world, communication skills are essential in both the personal and professional spheres. It is our goal to leave you with a contextualisation and conceptualisation of communicative processes that will poise you to hone your own communicative skills — in other words, to put theory into practice.

From the lesson

Mass communication and media effects

In this lecture student will be provided with the brief history of media effects theories and further in-depth explanation of various traditions in media effects. Why some people are being more influenced, how do we select and process the information and what is the role of media in society? All these questions will be addressed in this class along with the case study in the end.

The Medium is the Message. Media Ecology by Marshal McLuhan I9:05

Meet the Instructors

Olga Solovyeva
Lecturer
Integrated Communications Department, Faculty of Communication, Media and Design
Maria Mordvinova
Head of BA Program in PR and Advertising
Integrated Communications Department, Faculty of Communication, Media and Design

[SOUND] In the previous part of our lecture,

we were talking about agenda setting and

second level agenda setting theory, which refer to framing.

And we realized that agenda of different media is directly reflecting and

kind of influencing what do we think about.

As well as the way how do we frame the use are influencing

our attitudes to what is happening in real life.

Right now, let's focus at the media ecology perspective which was

brought up by Marshal McLuhan, famous for his very interesting quote and

sometimes pretty confusing, the medium is the message.

So how did it happen?

This theory was outlined by Marshal McLuhan in 1960s.

But the term and the media ecology concept itself was

coined by Neil Postman, kind of his student,

the person he met at the university there in Canada later in 1968.

So the group of scholars was working towards the new understanding of

the media.

And they stemmed it at the point the media should be understood ecologically.

Ecologically referring to, what do we have in nature?

So there were different medias, and

they are in some sort of relationship with each other.

And everything is evolving and everything is changing within the media perspective.

Their main point was that symbolic environment is determined by

the technology.

Later, we will discuss the approach of technological determinates within social

media and understanding of social media.

But here, McLuhan was the pioneer.

And we can't speak about him being a little bit ahead of his

time in this point as he understood that, the medium and

the outlet is somehow changing our understanding of what the content is.

The message for McLuhan and this school of media

ecology is secondary as the medium is the message.

But let's first of all understand what is the media?

The media refers to generic term for all human-invented technology that extends

the range, speed, or channels of communication.

So media is everything,

all the means of communication which we use in order to disseminate information.

The medium would be a specific type of media.

For example, it is a book, newspaper, radio, television, telephone, film,

website or email.

So here, he says that the medium is the message,

which basically means that for our message the most

important is the structure within the message is created.

User is the one who has the power to determine the message at the same time.

So basically, the user is the content.

Okay, it sounds really, really confusing, and we will go through it.

But as we already discussed what person would understand,

is the information received might be quite different from

the information which was sent originally by the sender.

This is what the user, and user's interpretation of

what he received is the most important.

So the content in this case is user and

his own perception, his or her own perception.

That's why the user is the content.

So how did the evolution of media happen?

As the world was evolving, as the species were developing,

the same attitude mediachology carries for the species as the media.

And as McLuhan outlines, there was first tribal age.

When the news and everything was going on, all the fairy tales,

all the information was transmitted only orally.

And people will come to the fireplace and they will see each other, they would rely

on their senses, they would listen to the story and they would get it.

And those who have the information were very important as they were

the only ones who had the access for this information.

And that first change occurs with the alphabet, and

now we can actually write down something and information can be stored.

And now people become a little bit more distracted from each other.

We don't come back to the fireplace as we can read something in the book.

Well, though books were highly difficult to find,

they still existed and the information became stored and

the more understanding of what's going on can be provided.

But the main thing here is people getting a little bit far away from each other.

It's not a tribe anymore.

The next to have of this people living their own life instead of negotiating,

discussing all the time happens with the invention of the printing press,

which was the revolution and we moving to the print age,

when the news can be disseminated immediately.

And many, many people, mass audience actually can receive this news.

And this is when we start talking about mass communication itself.

And the very dramatic change happens with the invention of the telegraph.

It happened in 1850 and that was the beginning of the electronic age.

People become closer and

all the information became very easily transmitted.

So the whole media influence were changing, and with this electronic

age McLuhan says, we're moving towards the global village.

And we are kind of going back to the tribal age as now we can see others and

they're very easily accessible.

And we can communicate different news and

we can see different events there as it is, as we are present there.

Yet nowadays, scholars talk about us living in the digital age,

which makes the communication even faster and more instant.

We definitely do have all the mobile devices which are very different from

the telegraph and it makes us living in the even more global village.

So now as we understood how media were evolving due to the time, and

how the dominating sword of media within the society was influenced in the society,

let's take a look at the definitions of McLuhan's hot and cool media.

So he provides us with the distinction on two different types.

Hot media extends single sense in high definition and

provides solid involvement with little stimulus.

On the contrary, cool media requires the user to fill the gaps

in provided information and participate actively with significant stimulus.

As there are recent examples of print, book, radio, photography,

movie, and lecture for the hot media, on the contrary, we see telephone,

speech, cartoon, TV, and seminar as a sort of cool media.

And you obviously have the question how TV appears to be cooler than a book,

for example.

Let's take a look then.

If we bring an example of a photograph which has a very high definition

as it said here on the slide, we can see all the details of this photograph.

We can even zoom it and we have a very clear picture of

what the author or an artist wanted to show us.

On the contrary with the cartoon, we only see the symbols for hair, for

the clothes, and we can put an additional effort to understand what was the meaning.

So in case of the hot media, of the whole idea of

the message is quite clear without rather more

involvement of the one who is consuming this content.

And in terms of the cool media, additional effort is required.

A very good example between lecture and seminar, at the lecture,

you just listen to what the lecture is telling you.

And at the seminar, you need to participate,

your feedback is very important and you're very much involved.

So now we know what all the hot and cool media is about and

that the medium is the message.

And let's move on to the global village in the next part.

[SOUND]

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