Media studies key glossary - Assignment Example

Medium (McLuhan) – McLuhan briefly explains the meaning of medium as "any extension of ourselves" (McLuhan 1964, 7). The medium allows us to do morewhat our own body could do. He likened it to the wheel that extends the function of our feet in the same manner that he described the medium of a language that convey our thoughts to others. Our thoughts being the end result of our collective experience as a human being, this is transmitted through the medium of a speech which conveys the senses perceived by our minds.

Medium is therefore an extension of our minds and senses. McLuhan elaborated that medium grows and being such, it is also an agent of change that includes everything we think of, create, think and conceive. There are several terms used which critically relates to the text which are senses, mind and change. Senses relate to the text as it is the agent that collects experience to be stored in the mind which in turn becomes the medium that will facilitate change. This is important in media studies because it clarifies the use of the term not as a vehicle but rather as the dynamics and the agent of change.

Medium is the message (McLuhan) - McLuhan earlier defined medium as the extension of our minds and senses. Being an extension of our minds and senses, it could change anything we can think of, create or conceive. Message on the other hand is the pattern or scale of the change that an idea introduces in human affairs (McLuhan 1964, 8). The message is not the content but rather the dynamics that change brings with it. Thus, the “medium is the message” meant that we could know the dynamics of anything (medium) that we conceive due to the changes that they effect (message) and should not be confused with the content of the message ((McLuhan 1964, 9).

These terms are important to the study of media because it again put the usage of the word “medium is the message” in proper perspective. Message does not necessarily mean the content but rather the extent of the change that the medium or the dynamics of change can facilitate.Print-capitalism (Anderson) – refers to the use of the printing press that facilitated discourse of which eventually emerges a common language that facilitated common understanding. Capitalists printed their works in the vernacular (Anderson 1991, 39) to have an optimum circulation that cause people to understand each other and brought common discourse.

This common language wrought by the discourse of print capitalism brought about the idea and notion of Imagined Community, the perception of kinship and affinity towards a bigger group of which an individual has not came in contact with its members. Print capitalism is therefore the main reason why people have the imagined community of nations. In the study of media, print-capitalism meant the written literature that facilitated discourse and understanding where people can think about themselves and also to relate to others (Anderson 1991, 36).

This relates to the text as the source of imagined community (Anderson 1991, 163). Imagined Community (Anderson) – Benedict Anderson defined Imagined Community to be different from the community that we are familiar of, that is, people who belongs in a community know each other as they have come in contact with them face to face. Anderson, believed that an Imagined Community is just an imagination that there is a world inside and there is a world outside (Anderson 1991, 30). Anderson elaborated that this is a product of print capitalism that facilitated discourse and in the process, resulted to a common mental image of affinity which is the root of nationalism (Anderson 1991, 10).

He cited the example or synonymous with the concept of a nation (Anderson 1991, 3) which is really just an imagined community because its members “will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion" (Anderson 1991, 6).The term is important in the study of media because it puts into proper perspective the notion about nations, and other groups that their aggrupation is just a product of their minds. Their affinity is just facilitated by a common discourse although they do not know each other and in fact just a product of print capitalism or written literature purported by capitalists.

ReferencesAnderson, Benedict R. O. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. and Extended ed. London: Verso, 1991. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw Hill, 1964.