Marshall McLuhan: Theories and Contemporary Relevance - Essay Example

Marshall McLuhan: Theories and Contemporary Relevance Number Introduction The ideas of Marshall McLuhan have had a lasting effect on how we understand the social and cultural effects of communication media especially in the twentieth century. The continued reverberation of McLuhan’s time-defying statement, ‘the medium is the message’, has found its way into conventional language and present-day media awareness. The significance of this reasoning continues to influence how our thinking of the media, perception of its impacts, and the contemporary consciousness of potential consequences. McLuhan’s main contribution to media theory studies was the establishment of boundaries to define the discipline, which have facilitated the creation of a framework for perceiving media as communication (Griffin, 2002). McLuhan made media and mediation the focal point of his consideration and concentrated on points of overlap between various media systems. This way, he was able to delineate and effectively ground the media field in a theoretical foundation, creating models and mechanisms for exploring media as demonstrations of cultural communication. Several of McLuhan’s thoughts have continued to be developed especially his projects on media studies (Chun and Keenan, 2006). The novel suggestions made by McLuhan formed the foundation for exploring media studies and a lot of attention is still given to the field. The indistinctness of the relationship between middles and their boundaries concerning media as a concept has been the greatest hindrance to establishing and advancing media studies as a discipline. However, the writings of McLuhan have led to establishment of a connection between media studies and closely related areas including rhetoric, visual arts and cultural studies (Chun and Keenan, 2006). This has consequently led to systematization of the interrelations, making media studies increasingly acknowledged and distinct. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the key aspects of McLuhan’s ideas by examining his various works and highlighting the core concepts that he formulated. The paper looks at how McLuhan’ thinking has been important in studying media and communication. Moreover, the paper gives an analysis of the relevance of his ideas and thinking in the twenty first century, particularly concerning the advent of the electronic media. Particular attention is given to the relevance of his thinking has been important in understanding the intertwine between media and globalization, and the invention of digital games which act as an illuminating illustration of McLuhan’s notion of a new, inclusive, acoustic space. In this regard, closer attention is put on reflecting on McLuhan’s thought about media environment for a better understanding of the nature of his rhetoric as constituted by electronic digital games. Media and Technology The starting point of the key concepts of McLuhan’s theory on media lies in his definition of media as appendages of human social life. In his book Understanding the Media, the author asserts that communication technologies are extensions of the human systems aimed at increasing speed and power by affecting the entire social complex (McLuhan, 1994). It is therefore from this assertion that McLuhan forms the basis of his notions and thinking of media, or communication technology as either important extensions of the physical, social or the psychological functions of humankind. Another important basic aspect of McLuhan’s theory on media is that language is in itself a medium or technology since it is acts to extend our individual opinions and perceptions (Strate and Edward, 2006). Throughout his writings, McLuhan maintained that a significant transformation of the communication technologies in predominantly used in the society is the most important force that drives social changes. McLuhan argues that a shift technology of communications has the potential to initiate significant changes not only in the structure of the society but human sensibilities. He outlines his arguments in his book The Gutenberg Galaxy by suggesting that the culture of Western Europe was largely shaped by the mass production of printed materials, which consequently fuelled nationalistic feelings in societies (Tomlinson, 2003; Lule, 2012). This was because of the more rapid and broadening of the extent of information that was hitherto not permitted by hand-written communication. As suggested by McLuhan, the introduction of print greatly influenced music to alter the structure of repetition into that of linear development as exhibited in symphony (Bogdan, 2008). Another key aspect of McLuhan’s philosophies on media theory is the suggestion that electronic modes of media such as radio, telephone, television, and computers among others continue to reshape civilization in the twentieth century. McLuhan argued that such advances in communication technology changed the way man experienced things from a linear perspective to experiencing several forces of communication at the same time, mostly using more than of his senses (Cavell, 2003; Siapera, 2010). Using the experience of reading a newspaper as an example, the author explains that man only gathered information not through a deep analysis of the text but rather through assimilation of headlines and sub-headlines, which he likened to jumping into a hot bath. With the introduction of electronic means of communication, McLuhan hold the view that the way man perceives information changes especially in the distribution of sensory consciousness, in what the author refers to as ‘sensory ratios’ (Taylor and Harris, 2007). He explains that whereas man only uses one sense in print media, electronic media such as television and the computer allows us to experience information both visually and aurally. The emergence of new media has therefore inculcated participation of the consumers through this multisensory existence and gradually replaced the primary sense of touch with other senses. It is in this regard that McLuhan thought that new media was responsible for the transformation of the world by bringing people close together through information sharing, coining the term ‘global village’ to explain the changes in human life where all ends of the earth are in direct contact with one another (Berger, 2003). McLuhan philosophies and thinking did were not however constrained to media theories alone but rather touched also on the overall view of human history. The author pointed to four phases including the stage of total oral, preliterate tribalism as the first stage in media ecology, this is followed by the codification by script that originated in ancient Greece and lasted for nearly two thousand years. The third stage, he proposes, is the print-age and lastly the electronic era starting from 1900 to the present. McLuhan main line of thinking here is that human life has generally been shaped more by the type of medium through which man communicates than by the content of such communication. Relevance in Contemporary Media Environment The deep intertwine between globalization and communication, and the continuous escalation of this interlink over the years is indisputable. Through the combination of two concepts that he developed that is ‘the medium is the message ’and‘ global village McLuhan was able to make a connection between globalization and media before many of his contemporaries. Other media theorists who agree that indeed the interconnection between globalization and media and communications is inevitable, as the former would practically not exist without the latter (Rantanen, 2005) have supported his ideas. Several theorists who contend that the process of globalization has become increasingly mediated across time and space have highlighted the role of media and communication in globalization (Morely and Robins, 1995). According to McLuhan, media and communications have a central role to play in globalization firstly because media corporations have increased the globalization of their operations. Other reasons why media is central to globalization are, the infrastructure of media communication enables rapid flow and ease of access to information, and lastly global media shape human perception of events across the world as we continue to have shared meanings. McLuhan argued that the proliferation of electronic media would lead to the break-up of space and time has made individuals able to interact with one another within frameworks of mediated interaction despite other boundaries that might exist. McLuhan further argues that the breaking up of space and time in media communication has led to such novel phenomena as interactive journalism, online communities, and other methods of interactions that were hitherto not permitted by the older forms of media communication technologies. This effect of media growth on human life has been recently manifested with the emergence of Information Communication Technology (ICT). The recent ICT revolution has contributed to drastic transformations in the media environment leading to a rise in ‘new media’, such as digital technologies and the advancement of the internet (Lievrouw and Livingstone, 2006). In particular, the growth of digital technologies and networked environments has led to expansion of the traditional concerns of media theorists who mainly focused on media production and audience. The transformation has seen that media and communications studies now mainly focus on the technologies and devices of communication and the social structures that develop around these devices (Lievrouw and Livingstone, 2006). The relevance of McLuhan’s thinking in contemporary world can also be viewed from the aspect of the expansion of communication flows and global online networks. As envisioned by McLuhan, these expansions have led to increase in possibilities of new dimension of globalization, and novel forms of both global and local media flows. In a broader sense, emergence of new media technologies has permitted easy flow of content across borders. This has enabled users to become producers, and has consequently led to the growth of hybrid media forms. For example, the convergence of media technologies that were hitherto distinct has led to the convergence of the role played by journalists. Journalists have been made to come into contact and interact with the audiences, leading to new phenomena of participatory journalism (Gillmor, 2006). The advent new technology and the worldwide spread of the internet has allowed people to develop or contribute to the news, and point out new sources and forms of news (Wahl-Jorgensen and Hanitzsch, 2008). Through his works, it is evident that McLuhan’s interest in media was not to view them as channels or vehicles of transmitting information from the producer to the audience but rather as environments. McLuhan argues that the impact of media is not limited to the content of the message being conveyed but rather incorporates the particular material and social changes it stimulates. For example, the telephone has had a greater impact on human social life more than the how it has been specifically used. Media, which according to McLuhan includes an extensive range of technological advances, has continued to impact on the life of man especially in the 21st century. By saying that the ‘medium is the message’, McLuhan was able to find a rhetoric import and impact within the media itself rather than the content or the message the media is trying to pass on to the audience (Gronbeck, 1981). In the contemporary world, media increasingly continue to shape and alter us from a political, personal, and psychological perspective. The media is persuasively and pervasively able to shape up by the environments they create. The relevance of McLuhan’s thinking concerning the environmental rhetoric created by the media is evident in digital games (Gee, 2003). Digital games offer a chance for exploration of the utility of McLuhan’s ideas of new acoustic space particularly regarding the contemporary relevance of his understanding of the rhetorical impacts of new media (Lister et al., 2003). There are numerous varieties of digital games; however, each creates a distinctive kind of environment that participants must inhabit given their technological modes of operations. Participation players get immersed within an engaging environment making the experience qualitatively different from other forms of media such as reading texts or even watching television. McLuhan observed that new media increased the participation of the audiences, and were more acoustically involving than they are visually. This observation is very much evident in digital games, which requires the players to engage and connect with the medium. Furthermore, online gaming provides the most obvious, decentralized nature of new media that McLuhan talked about. The contemporary relevance of McLuhan’s notion of a novel, interactive acoustic space is best illustrated by digital games including online gaming, which engages players in an interactive, decentralized electronic environment. If his notions are to be taken on stricter terms, then such digital games invoke at a diminutive scale the broader acoustic space of which the media as a whole forms a part. According to the concepts of McLuhan, digital games encompass one contributing aspect of the distinct acoustic environment that has come to existence following the introduction of electronic media such as the radio, telegraph, television and computers since the beginning of the 19th century. Therefore, the ideas of McLuhan form a basis for a useful exploration of digital games. Moreover, they offer an opportunity for a closer investigation of this specific electronic medium that will eventually aid in clarifying our understanding of the new acoustic space to which he draws our attention. However, it should be noted that the inclusivity and immersion that this new acoustic space has been characterized with should not be taken to mean that the environment created assimilates or absorbs individual subjects into that space. In as much as these new media is inclusive and greatly immerses the participant into the space, the players in digital games, just like the denizens of the broader acoustic space, remain active participants in that environment. Conclusion The thinking and ideas of McLuhan continue to be remaining as either he accurately able to anticipate their implications when he viewed media as unconscious extensions of the functions of the human system physically, socially, or psychologically (Danesi, 2008). In addition, McLuhan’s observations on how media structures influence human life in the twentieth century is evident in how the internet continue to shape language, culture, and human cognition which are all aspects of the general human life (Genosko, 2005). McLuhan emphasized the complicated relations associated with the visual and the acoustic, and this in essence forms the basis of utility of his writings that lie within the context of environmental rhetoric. Players might be tempted to conceive digital games as a primary visual medium; however, this temptation is challenged by the irresistibility, inclusivity, immersive, decentralized acoustic qualities that these games present. There is a sensory interplay that the digital, acoustic space presents to participants by engaging and implicating them in the persuasive, rhetoric media environment created which not only touches but leads to their alteration and transformation. The rhetoric of McLuhan has stood the test of time, and will continue to remain relevant especially in this ‘new media’ age since he left open productive doors through which it is possible to progress the investigation of acoustic and visual aspects of the media as an environment. References Berger, A. A. 2003. Media and society: a critical perspective. Lanham, Md, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Bogdan, D. 2008. Music, McLuhan, Modality: Musical Experience from "Extreme Occasion" to "Alchemy". MediaTropes; Vol 1 (2008); 71-101. Cavell, R. 2003. McLuhan in space: a cultural geography. Toronto [u.a.], Univ. of Toronto Press. Chun, W. H. K., & Keenan, T. 2006. New media, old media: a history and theory reader. New York, Routledge. 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