Mind, Media and Society II: Applied McLuhanistics

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Mind, Media and Society IIApplied
McLuhanistics

• Course Introduction and
• McLuhans Language
• (language.doc)

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Applied McLuhanistics

• Instructor Mark FedermanChief Strategist,
  McLuhan Programfederman_at_sympatico.ca
• Course notes and weekly discussion posted to the
  course weblog
• http//www.mcluhan.utoronto.ca/academy/mms2/
• Register for a Blogger account at
  http//www.blogger.com

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Course Objective Outline

• Fluency with McLuhan vocabulary
• Five cognitive constructs
• Application to explain complex dynamics and
  effects
• Critically probe conventional teachings
• Discover new avenues of inquiry and awareness

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Course Objective Outline, contd.

• Highly participatory
• Seminars, playshops, self-facilitated groups will
  explore applications of the thinking tools
• Beginnings
• McLuhans Language figure, ground, medium,
  message, etc., use of metaphors and probes,
  humour and satire
• Laws of Media and Media Temperature
• Explorations

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Possible Exploration Topics

• Communication and Conversations
• Future of Politics
• Mass Media Personal Media for the Masses?
• What is Reality?
• The Future of Culture and Telling Stories to
  Ourselves
• The Future of Ideas and Innovation
• Or other topics that merit attention

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Course Evaluation
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The medium is the message
The ignorance of how to usenew
knowledgestockpiles exponentially
There is absolutely no inevitabilityas long as
there is a willingnessto contemplate what is
happening.
Art is anything you can get away with
We now live in a global village
The medium is the message
Invention is the mother of necessity
Ads are not meantfor conscious consumption
Man never intendsthe cultural consequencesof
any extensionof himself
Nothing exceeds like excess
All advertising advertises advertising
To the blind, all thingsare unexpected
The future of the future is the present
In retrospect, all great discoveries are obvious
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McLuhan Says

• The artist is the man in any field, scientific
  or humanistic, who grasps the implications of his
  actions and of new knowledge in his own time. He
  is the man of integral awareness.
• Understanding Media, p. 65

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What Havent You Noticed Lately?
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Schopenhauer Says

• An independent mind will think things that no
  one else can think about those things which
  everyone else already sees.
• Arthur Schopenhauer

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McLuhan Says

• No medium has its meaning or existence alone,
  but only in constant interplay with other media.
• Understanding Media, p. l26

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McLuhan Says

• Most people are quite unable to perceive the
  effects of the ordinary cultural media around
  them because their theories about change prevent
  them from perceiving change itself.
• The Medium and the Light Reflections on
  Religion, p.83

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McLuhan Says

• Environments are not passive wrappings but
  dynamic processes.
• Understanding Media, p. viii

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Who Discovered Water?
One thing about which fish know exactly nothing
is water
since they have no anti-environment which would
enable them to perceive the element they live in.
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McLuhan Says

• And it is only on those terms, standing aside
  from any structure or medium, that its principles
  and lines of force can be discerned. For any
  medium has the power of imposing its own
  assumption on the unwary
• Understanding Media, p. 15

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McLuhan Says

• Prediction and control consist in avoiding this
  subliminal state of lack of awareness. But the
  greatest aid to this end is simply in knowing
  that the spell can occur immediately upon
  contact
• Understanding Media, p. 15

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The McLuhan Equation

• The Medium is the Message

The instance of the electric lightmay prove
illuminating in this connection.
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McLuhan Says

• It is this continuous embrace of our own
  technology in daily use that puts us in the
  Narcissus role of subliminal awareness and
  numbness in relation to these images of
  ourselves.
• Understanding Media, p. 44

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For Next Time

• Respond to Blogger invitation, sign-up and logon.
• Download readings
• Understanding Media, Excerpts from Ch 1 4.
• Select one paragraph or passage, and probe its
  applicability to your ground
• Bring your favourite non-McLuhan saying, aphorism
  or cliché.