The Canadian Tradition - II -

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The Canadian Tradition - II -

• Marshall McLuhan
• 1911-1980

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Marshall McLuhan the Subjective Experience of
Technology Media

• Lecture Outline
• biographical information
• major influences
• other interests and project
• theoretical concepts
• brief discussion of McLuhans work.

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Marshall McLuhan
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I think of western skies as one of the
more beautiful things about the West, and
the western horizons. The Westerner doesnt have
a point of view. He has a vast panorama ... he
has at all times a total field of vision, and
since he can take this total field any time, he
doesnt have to worry about goals.
Marshall McLuhan Interview with Finkleman
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Major Influences

• Perspective and print
• New Criticism
• F.R. Leavis Culture and Environment
• Sigfried Giedions The Beginning of Architecture
• Harold A. Innis.

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The Mechanical Bride - 1951
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Other Interests and Projects

• Ford Foundation grant (1950)
• Carpenter experiment (1954)
• media consultant
• IBM Sensory Profile study (1965)
• encapsulating chamber.

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Applying McLuhans Ideas
Three rooms in MacLaren-McCann ad agency where
creative directors go to get the feel of the
demographic they want to address.
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Major Theoretical Concepts

• Orality versus literacy
• tribalization and the global village
• acoustic space versus visual space
• narcissus narcosis
• technologies as extensions of human sensorium
• effects of the media
• sense ratio
• medium is the message
• hot versus cool.

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Oral versus Literate Culture

• Oral communication employs all the senses
• no split between mind and body
• speech always carries meaning
• allows for notions of truth and wisdom
• mix of myth with fact.

• Extension of one sense is the reduction of
  another
• results in fragmented sensorium
• allows logical and sequential thinking/ acting
• allows segregation of knowledge.

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Post-Literate Culture

• Electric revolution
• light bulb as information
• extension of the nervous system
• speed -structure - volume allows
• possibility of return to oral culture
• a new blending of the senses.

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Tribalization and the Global Village

• Oral man is tribal
• oral culture ends with the printing press
• linked to nationalism, the Reformation, the
  industrial revolution, the assembly line,
  causality, perspective, etc
• primacy of visual bias
• electric age brings retribalization.

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Acoustic Space vs Visual Space

• Richest for the senses
• random information
• more connected to the nervous system
• two dimensional
• audio-tactile
• space of electric world.

• Separates visual objects
• linear and sequential
• post-phonetic and pre-electric
• where logic is applied
• three dimensional.

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Narcissus Narcosis

• The numbing of the senses through a
• shutting down of the central nervous
• system
• like a body under shock or the
• Freudian notion of repression
• a reaction to overstimulation by a
• particular medium.

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Technologies as Extensions of Human Sensorium
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Media Effects

• Sense ratio
• the medium is the message
• hot versus cool media.

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Sense Ratio

• Refers to a notion of balance between the senses
• media effect as structural impact on sensorium
• high definition vs low definition media and
  subjective completion
• definite social impact
• the tactility of vision.

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The Medium is the Message

• - Longstanding idea of McLuhans regarding the
• subliminal effect that any medium, as an
• extension of the sensorium, has on the
  subject
• - the content is almost incidental
• - the media reorganizes the way we can
  understand
• the world and how we participate in it.

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Hot Medium vs Cool Medium

• Extends single sense
• high definition
• excludes other senses
• low in participation
• technologies that are fragmented and
  exclusionary
• radio
• photograph
• lecture

• Audience participation
• active completion of message
• cartoon
• telephone
• television.

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A Brief Discussion of McLuhan
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A Short Bibliography
1951 - Mechanical Bride 1962 - The Guttenberg
Galaxy 1964 - Understanding Media - The
Extensions of Man
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