NOTE: From last week's reading.
Communication and the Media
Communication and the Media
In a media culture, it is sometimes hard to distinguish fictional from factual reality.
Goal: To understand how living in a media culture affects the ways we communicate; to explore the extent to which media messages have power over our lives and to consider ethical responsibilities of media communicators; to examine the uses and formats of traditional media and to explore how new media are affecting our lives.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
1). Identify the four characteristics of traditional media messages.
2). List and explain the four classic functions of mass media.
3). Give examples of ways in which the traditional media set agendas, create hegemonic messages, cultivate world views, and change expectations. Give examples of ways audiences resist media influence.
4). Describe how consumers use newspapers, magazines, radio, and television and understand how the formats used by these media affect information processing.
5). Identify the characteristics of new media.
6). Be able to discuss the ways old and new media are converging and how convergence is making audiences more active.
7). Understand how computer mediated communication is used and how it enhances social interaction.
8). Discuss how advances in cell phone technology are changing face-to-face communication.
9). Be aware of ethical issues associated with computer mediated communication.
There are many great sections to this chapter. As some of you may or may not know, I teach Comm 131P - New Media/You Media at SJSU. It is a wonderful class focusing on how New Media has evolved over the last century, but mainly focuses on New Media of today.
Chapter 11 in our text opens with a few definitions (page 283). Trenholm notes:
Old Media: refers to traditional one-to-many forms of mediated communication such as TV, radio, newspapers, and books.
New Media: is used to describe digital information and telecommunication systems, including networked computing and mobile telecommunication.
Trenholm also notes that, '...old media and new media are rapidly converging, and that it won't take long for what we now consider new media to become old and for old media to take on new forms." In this same chapter, Trenholm offers a brief introduction to the organization of the chapter, which includes starting with traditional media of mass communication, the chapter then moves onto the ways computer mediated communication and mobile technologies are altering lives, and finally the chapter focuses on how old media and new media are already converging.
As always, there is a chapter outline uploaded to D2L if you'd like that. However, I would strongly encourage you to skip the uploaded chapter outline, and focus on reading the text itself. Now, I may be a communication geek, admittedly so, but this chapter is f.a.b.u.l.o.u.s.! Here is a brief outline to whet your appetite:
1). Traditional mass media have unique characteristics that make them powerful communicative sources.
2). Each of the traditional mass media has its own uses, formats, and logics.
3). Networked computing and mobile telecommunication, referred to as new media, are joining traditional mass media as influential forms of communication.
4). Whether media are traditional or new, their production and consumption raise ethical questions.
In case you are interested, I uploaded Marshall McLuhan's piece titled The Medium Is the Message to D2L under "Content", then under "Optional Readings". Since one of our discussion questions pertains to this very piece, I thought it would be interesting for you to skim, and/or read the entire piece.
You are more than welcome to stop reading here, but below, I have included a post about Marshall McLuhan. This part of the post relates directly to the 'optional reading' from McLuhan. It's also a copy of a post I use for Comm 131P. So if you've taken that class with me, it will look familiar:
Although I am not a big fan of Wikipedia because of it's current lack of internal and external control, THIS page talks a bit about McLuhan, and may help to clarify the reading.
First off, let me mention that McLuhan was criticized a bit for his ideas. You can easily search the internet for some opinions about McLuhan, but let's skip over the for now, and focus on who McLuhan was, and his ideas as presented in the present piece.
The article starts on page 203 with an explanation of how and why McLuhan thinks the medium really IS the message. The rest of the article goes on to support this idea by bringing up a number of examples. He also throws in some other ideas here and there, but he is pretty succinct in asserting his idea throughout the writing. Here are some excerpts that stood out to me:
*pg. 203 - "This is merely to say that the persona and social consequence 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". After this statement, the author goes on to explain job elimination and a creation of roles, etc.... After this, McLuhan states, "Many people would be disposed to say that it was not the machine, but what one did with the machine, that was its meaning or message".
*pg. 203 - "For the "message" of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs".
(I'm backtracking a bit here)
McLuhan is brilliant in explaining the electric light. You might be thinking, "I already read that, and he lost me pretty quickly". that is understandable. Go back and read the parts on page 203 about the electric light - just those parts, and see what you can extrapolate from his explanation. This short description of the meaning of the electric light, or lack thereof, is the essence of the reading. McLuhan states, "The instance of the electric light may prove illuminating in this connection. The electric light is pure information. It is a medium without a message, as it were, unless it is used to spell out some verbal ad or name. This fact, characteristic of all media, means that the 'content' of any medium is always another medium". Brilliant! (am I geeking out again - sorry!). :) But then if you keep reading he comes back to the electric light and explains, "Let us return to the electric light. Whether the light is being used for brain surgery or night baseball is a matter of indifference. It could be argued that these activities are in some way the "content" of the electric light, since they could not exist without the electric light. This fact merely underlines the point that "the medium is the message" because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action". If you keep reading a couple of sentences beyond this excerpt, it says, "...it is only too typical that the "content" of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium".
As an aside - I am looking through my notes on the McLuhan article, and if you can get past some of the wording, the meaning is incredible!
Here are some other brief quotes. I will try to limit my commentary so that you can simply absorb what McLuhan is saying, and the implications it has for us today in our current 'media state'. I suggest that you read these in context, that is, have your book/the reading close by so that you can follow along and really absorb what is being said and implied. It may take a second to simply sit there and think about the concept for a few seconds before the light bulb (pun intended) flashes on and you 'get' what he is saying.
*pg. 205 "In other words, cubism, by giving the inside and outside, the top, bottom, back, and front and the rest, in two dimensions, drops the illusion of perspectives in favor of instant sensory awareness of the whole. Cubism, by seizing on instant total awareness, suddenly announced that the medium is the message."
*pg. 205 "Before the electric speed and total field, it was not obvious that the medium is the message. The message, it seemed, was the "content", as people used to as what a painting was about. Yet they never thought to ask what a melody was about, nor what a house or a dress was about. In such matters, people retained some sense of the whole pattern, of form and function as a unity".
*pg. 205 "...He understood the grammar of gunpowder". Think about this for a second. I mean, really think about this statement. What does this statement say to you? Does it not explain in 6 words what McLuhan is trying to convey?
*pg. 206-207 "But with electric media Western man himself experiences exactly the same inundation as the remote native. We are no more prepared to encounter radio and TV in our literate milieu than the native of Ghana is able to cope with the literacy that takes him out of his collective tribal world and beaches him in individual isolation. We are as numb to our new electric world as the native involved in our literate and mechanical culture".
*pg. 207 "Our conventional response to all media, namely that is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot. For the "content" of a medium is like the juicy piece of mean carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind".
*pg. 208 "Today when we want to get our bearings in our own culture, and have need to stand aside from the bias and pressure exerted by any technical form of human expression, we have only to visit a society where that particular form has not been felt, or a historical period in which it was unknown".
I can go on with quotes from this piece that would be great conversation starters, especially the last couple of pages, but I will stop here. As I mentioned earlier in the post, many folks did not agree with McLuhan's assertions, and if you do not agree, explain your position in your post. You certainly do not have to agree with the folks who have written the articles we will be reading throughout the semester. I simply ask that if you do not agree, or even if you do agree for that matter, that you state your position clearly.
I hope you enjoyed this article as much as I did, and I hope this post helped to clarify some of the ideas from McLuhan.
First off, let me mention that McLuhan was criticized a bit for his ideas. You can easily search the internet for some opinions about McLuhan, but let's skip over the for now, and focus on who McLuhan was, and his ideas as presented in the present piece.
The article starts on page 203 with an explanation of how and why McLuhan thinks the medium really IS the message. The rest of the article goes on to support this idea by bringing up a number of examples. He also throws in some other ideas here and there, but he is pretty succinct in asserting his idea throughout the writing. Here are some excerpts that stood out to me:
*pg. 203 - "This is merely to say that the persona and social consequence 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". After this statement, the author goes on to explain job elimination and a creation of roles, etc.... After this, McLuhan states, "Many people would be disposed to say that it was not the machine, but what one did with the machine, that was its meaning or message".
*pg. 203 - "For the "message" of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs".
(I'm backtracking a bit here)
McLuhan is brilliant in explaining the electric light. You might be thinking, "I already read that, and he lost me pretty quickly". that is understandable. Go back and read the parts on page 203 about the electric light - just those parts, and see what you can extrapolate from his explanation. This short description of the meaning of the electric light, or lack thereof, is the essence of the reading. McLuhan states, "The instance of the electric light may prove illuminating in this connection. The electric light is pure information. It is a medium without a message, as it were, unless it is used to spell out some verbal ad or name. This fact, characteristic of all media, means that the 'content' of any medium is always another medium". Brilliant! (am I geeking out again - sorry!). :) But then if you keep reading he comes back to the electric light and explains, "Let us return to the electric light. Whether the light is being used for brain surgery or night baseball is a matter of indifference. It could be argued that these activities are in some way the "content" of the electric light, since they could not exist without the electric light. This fact merely underlines the point that "the medium is the message" because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action". If you keep reading a couple of sentences beyond this excerpt, it says, "...it is only too typical that the "content" of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium".
As an aside - I am looking through my notes on the McLuhan article, and if you can get past some of the wording, the meaning is incredible!
Here are some other brief quotes. I will try to limit my commentary so that you can simply absorb what McLuhan is saying, and the implications it has for us today in our current 'media state'. I suggest that you read these in context, that is, have your book/the reading close by so that you can follow along and really absorb what is being said and implied. It may take a second to simply sit there and think about the concept for a few seconds before the light bulb (pun intended) flashes on and you 'get' what he is saying.
*pg. 205 "In other words, cubism, by giving the inside and outside, the top, bottom, back, and front and the rest, in two dimensions, drops the illusion of perspectives in favor of instant sensory awareness of the whole. Cubism, by seizing on instant total awareness, suddenly announced that the medium is the message."
*pg. 205 "Before the electric speed and total field, it was not obvious that the medium is the message. The message, it seemed, was the "content", as people used to as what a painting was about. Yet they never thought to ask what a melody was about, nor what a house or a dress was about. In such matters, people retained some sense of the whole pattern, of form and function as a unity".
*pg. 205 "...He understood the grammar of gunpowder". Think about this for a second. I mean, really think about this statement. What does this statement say to you? Does it not explain in 6 words what McLuhan is trying to convey?
*pg. 206-207 "But with electric media Western man himself experiences exactly the same inundation as the remote native. We are no more prepared to encounter radio and TV in our literate milieu than the native of Ghana is able to cope with the literacy that takes him out of his collective tribal world and beaches him in individual isolation. We are as numb to our new electric world as the native involved in our literate and mechanical culture".
*pg. 207 "Our conventional response to all media, namely that is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot. For the "content" of a medium is like the juicy piece of mean carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind".
*pg. 208 "Today when we want to get our bearings in our own culture, and have need to stand aside from the bias and pressure exerted by any technical form of human expression, we have only to visit a society where that particular form has not been felt, or a historical period in which it was unknown".
I can go on with quotes from this piece that would be great conversation starters, especially the last couple of pages, but I will stop here. As I mentioned earlier in the post, many folks did not agree with McLuhan's assertions, and if you do not agree, explain your position in your post. You certainly do not have to agree with the folks who have written the articles we will be reading throughout the semester. I simply ask that if you do not agree, or even if you do agree for that matter, that you state your position clearly.
I hope you enjoyed this article as much as I did, and I hope this post helped to clarify some of the ideas from McLuhan.
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