The Medium And Its Impact On The Society - Essay Example

The Medium And Its Impact On The Society “In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology” (McLuhan, 2003, p.203). These words Marshall McLuhan begins his famous work “The Medium Is the Message” that is a matter of heated discussion of thinkers since 1964, when it was published. There are a lot of serious defenders and critics of McLuhan’s ideas, and, in my opinion, all of them are right to a greater or lesser extent, although after my reading of McLuhan’s works and of some discussions around it, I should confess that I could agree with his aphorism: “The Medium Is the Message”. In this essay I give several points to explain my opinion. First of all, I would not adjoin those people who understand the meaning of the McLuhan’s work too literally, focusing mostly on the conventional significance of term “medium” in relation to mass-media communications and the meaning of “message” only as information. Such understanding, in my opinion, leads to misapprehension or, at least, to a superficial comprehension of McLuhan’s ideas – it does not allow to go beyond simple conclusions that communication technologies are more important (in some miraculous way) than information or content, which technologies transmit, and hence information can be disregarded. In this sense I agree with McLuhan who expresses his harsh opinion as follows: “Our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot” (McLuhan, 2003, p.207). I consider, that according to McLuhan, the “media” should be understood in more broad, complex meaning – as “extension of man”, as any phenomenon (social or technological) that can cause structural changes influencing man’s mode of existence. Fishman (2006) also emphasizes that McLuhan treats media as “extensions of an individual's capabilities and attributes … [and] extension of the mind. These media create perceptual environments, and these environments influence what kind of facts are privileged as important, and what type of stimuli are ignored or overlooked” (p.2). McLuhan (2003) corroborates it: “The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance” (p.207). All human inventions, innovations and ideas are media, according to McLuhan. But it is important to understand that often people, inventing a new idea or creating an innovation, do not realize or do not pay sufficient attention to possible unanticipated consequences, which can be serious and even dangerous for the society. Many of these consequences occur imperceptibly, without any “content”, while changing the world around us at the same time. That’s why, I think, McLuhan notifies: “…the “message” of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs” (Ibid. p.203). Today, when innovations became an essential part of human life, McLuhan meaning of the message is extremely important, it impels people to look beyond obvious things, in search of unexpected changes and impacts that are related to or caused by innovations. Alan Kay, a famous American computer scientist and interface designer, discussing McLuhan’s “The Medium Is the Message”, offers a quite interesting opinion (1990, p.192): “…the most important thing about any communications medium is that message receipt is really message recovery; anyone who wishes to receive a message embedded in a medium must first have internalized the medium so it can be “subtracted” out to leave the message behind. When [McLuhan] said “the medium is the message” he meant that you have to become the medium if you use it”. As a consequence of this thoughts Kay made a conclusion that in contrast to general opinion that “humans are the animals that shape tools”, it is in nature of tools to force humans to reshape ways of doing. We can find a confirmation of this reflection in all history of the scientific and technological progress, where innovations were the dominant force that transformed the thought patterns and social relations of those who studied or used them. In his other works McLuhan also gives convincing examples of how media transformations have influenced changes in the society. In “Gutenberg Galaxy” (1962) he speaks about the evolution in communication technologies from oral (alphabetic writing) to print (the printing press), and then to the electronic media; and about the role of this evolution in society’s transformation. Further, in “The Medium is the Massage” (1967) he reveals that the advent of printing, which is based on the principle of “segmentation of actions and functions and principle of visual quantification” (p.154), caused such social phenomena of the Western world as individualism, Protestantism, capitalism, democracy and nationalism. Keeping in mind that according to McLuhan all innovations are media, I share his opinion entirely. There are many researchers who followed McLuhan in describing the effect of the advent of print on the humans’ minds and society. One of the most famous and outstanding ones is Elizabeth Eisenstein. In her book “The printing press as an agent of change” she defines the advent of printing as “the establishment of presses in urban centers beyond the Rhineland during an interval that begins in the 1460s and coincides, very roughly, with the era of incunabula” (Eisenstein, 1997, p.44). This historical event, according to Eisenstein, should be considered as a shift from script to print. A comprehensive overview of the shift to printed communication Eisenstein gives in her another book “The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe”, where she introduces three historical developments as the most significant effects of the shift: the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the rise of scientific thought. As for the Renaissance, the shift from manuscript to print culture was of great importance and brought “the most radical transformation in the conditions of intellectual life in the history of Western civilization” (Eisenstein, 1983, p.115). Eisenstein describes a number of these transformational effects, among which are: increased quantity of published books; reproduction of identical copies of books; simultaneous publication of books’ copies by scattered publishers; increased availability of books; new versatile skills development; literary rights development; new library classification development; etc. In a complete accordance with the McLuhan ideas about unforeseen consequences of innovation, Eisenstein (1997) tells about “the highly competitive commercial character of the new mode of book production” and “serving the convenience of the reader” (p.52), emergence of advertisement and book traders. These consequences were not planned or designed by Gutenberg, who made the first printing press in 1450; however, they changed patterns of thinking and inter-personal relations in the middle-aged Europe drastically. In relation to Protestant Reformation, Eisenstein claims that it was a “movement that was shaped at the very outset (and in large part ushered in) by the new powers of the press” (1983, p.148). Only from 1517 to 1520 (during three years) about 300 000 copies of Martin Luther’s books were spread across Europe. The printing press became undoubtedly “an agent of changes”. Intention to bring the Bible to everyman led to paradoxical effect, “the communication revolution” – “everyman spoke in many tongues, and the Christian scriptures had to be nationalized to be placed within his reach” (Eisenstein, 1983, p.363), so the Protestant Bible was translated in many languages, what contributed, by implication, to the Church division process. The change of scientific thought after the advent of printing is the third historical development, which Eisenstein investigates in her works. She points out that the more significant changes in this area were: creation of scepticism; increased tendency to study of the natural world; increased tendency to compare different knowledge and thoughts, and as a consequence a growth of new scientific ideas; emerging of a “process of feedback” (Ibid. p.200), creation and publications of scientific observations. Eisenstein agrees with McLuhan’s ideas that print strengthened tendency to political uniformity, individualism and nationalism, through the production of maps, scientific works and translated books. She says that after the advent of print people did not have to come together to hear an address, they could read it separately from each other. The brief overview of Eisenstein’s research reveals a total accuracy of McLuhan judgements. Her works and works of numerous other researchers in the area of history of innovations convince that any medium (innovation) is the message (regarding its effects and consequences). The whole world, in which we live now, was formed by past innovations and changes concerned. In this sense, the thesis “Print produced Modernity” does not seem absurd or preposterous to me. Of course, I don’t mean that our current world came from one technology, but nevertheless, I consider the advent of print (and the shift from manuscript to printing) was a great turning-point in a history of Europe and of the whole world as well. The following shift from printing to digital media seems to me even more significant, as it has even greater effect on social, economical and political life of today's world society. With advent of computers and Internet people started acting and thinking as never before. It is worth to note that McLuhan predicted many things that happened today. In early 1960 he did not know about computers, but he spoke about “the electric light”, foretelling an appearance of large, but easy manageable, fast and precise means of storing and moving information; patterns of decentralism and diversity in the work; rising of independent thoughts; self-employment and social autonomy – much of all we have today. McLuhan could read the message of the new medium even in the stage of its origin. Today Internet connects people around the world; together with mobile technologies they are essential part of life; people can communicate freely, without borders, without restrictions. But like in the 15th century, a specific message is brought by each new medium, and people should remember about that. I would define a meaning of the message as Responsibility. If a medium is used by responsible people, changes and their consequences will be positive and developmental for the most part. People say: “Who possesses the information, possesses the world”. So, the shift in technologies is clearly a shift in power, and, paraphrasing the previous sentence, who controls the flow of information, possesses the power. As Murray (2000) says: “While this many-to-many technology may have the potential to empower, it also has the potential to maintain the status quo or replace one hierarchy with another, depending on who has access to the technology and who controls both information content and information flow”. I want to finish my essay by two citations: “The Medium Is the Message” tells us that noticing change in our societal or cultural ground conditions indicates the presence of a new message, that is, the effects of a new medium. And if we discover that the new medium brings along effects that might be detrimental to our society or culture, we have the opportunity to influence the development and evolution of the new innovation before the effects becomes pervasive” (Federman, 2004, p.2). And as McLuhan (1964) reminds us: “Control over change would seem to consist in moving not with it but ahead of it. Anticipation gives the power to deflect and control force” (p.199). References Eisenstein, E.L. (1983) The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Eisenstein, E.L. (1997) The printing press as an agent of change. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Federman, M. (2004) What is the Meaning of the Medium is the Message? University of Toronto. Available from: http://individual.utoronto.ca/markfederman/MeaningTheMediumistheMessage.pdf [Accessed 24 May 2010]. Fishman, D.A. (2006) Rethinking Marshall McLuhan: reflections on a media theorist. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, September. Available from: http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/157946579_1.html [Accessed 24 May 2010]. Kay, A. C. (1990). User interface: A personal view. In: Laurel, B. (Ed.), The art of human-computer interface design. Reading, Addison-Wesley Publishing, pp. 191-207. McLuhan, M. (1962) The Gutenberg Galaxy. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul. McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York, McGraw Hill. McLuhan, M. (1967) The Medium is the Massage. New York, Bantam Books. McLuhan, M. (2003) The Medium Is the Message. In: Wardrip-Fruin, N., and Montfort, N. (Eds.) The New Media Reader. Cambridge, The MIT Press, pp.203-209. Murray, D.E. (2000) Changing technologies, changing literacy. Language Learning & Technology, 4 (2), pp. 43-58. Available from: http://llt.msu.edu/vol4num2/murray/default.html [Accessed 24 May 2010]. Read More