In 1964 Marshall McLuhan identified a new phenomenon in Modern society. That year, McLuhan published Understanding Media, a book of essays that focus on the pervasive effects of new media on our lives. McLuhan predicted that the microchip would change how we conduct business, communicate, entertain ourselves, and how we learn.
He condensed the world-shaking prophecies into the dictum ‘The Medium is the Message.’ We are just now beginning to understand the implications of his words.
This phrase referred to the fact that media (as extensions of the human mind and body) are inextricable but independent from their content (human thought). While the words are esoteric, it has shaped my studies and practice of educational technology at San Diego State University.
As my studies progress and my skills grow, I have realized that the idea that “the medium is the message” is essential to instructional design. The constantly emerging media that educational technologists must adopt requires that we understand the full range of potential cognitive benefits and pitfalls associated with each medium.
We must now closely examine the ‘affordances’ (or unique, beneficial properties of a medium) and constraints (or limitations) inherent in each new technology that we use.
This secondary reading of McLuhan’s phrase leads me to a design process that I call ‘Conversion.’
Conversion, as a metaphor for design, describes the movement of content across media in a way that takes advantage of a new medium’s affordances and overcomes its constraints. It is a philosophy that requires an intense study of how individual mediums work, and how we can utilize media to achieve our goals.
Conversion is also grounded in contemporary research on cognitive science,...
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...cess of converting existing design into theoretical structure helped me to grasp the power of incidental learning.
Finally, the portfolio’s look and feel resulted from Conversion. When I began, I attempted to make the portfolio from scratch using a standard website layout. Technical problems and compatibility issues plagued the page.
At this point, I tried co-opting a WordPress.com blog to add a more effective structure to the site. I set about using the affordances of blogs (a clear hierarchy and structure, dozens of pre-made layouts, and customizable interfaces) to enhance my portfolio. This conversion of a blog into a portfolio solved not only my technological problems, but also a number of design issues.
These projects tell of the transformations that occurred in my design process even as I guessed, gambled, and discovered my way through the Master’s program.
The third and final media text I chose to create for my portfolio is a concept map. This is because it will allow me to draw out all the connections and characteristics of characters throughout the text and help me prove my thesis statement. Using a concept will help me as well as the reader to easily identify all the ideas within the map.
Marketing Tip: Create a gorgeous portfolio on 500PX and you may experience referrals from other photographers who appreciate your work.
In conclusion in the first chapter Neil Postman is trying to say that some people think that if they do not see it on TV then it did not happen nor will it happen. People believe that things that are worthy of paying attention to are on TV.Postman also argues that whether we see it or not in every piece of technology and medium we use an unseen quality. Postman concludes the chapter by saying that our languages are our media. Our media are our metaphors. Our metaphors create the content of our culture.
If only but an insignificant counter argument may be made that reading remains to be an everyday activity. However, this requires one to slowly consider the litteratre’s argument and construct thoughts, a sophisticated approved that seems too ancient now. Postman can easily defend himself by assuring that, “...[A] reader must come armed, in a serious state of intellectual readiness” (50). Just as Postman begins with Huxley’s warning, he also ends saying that, “What Huxley teaches is that in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicious and hate” (155). Getting everyone to stop watching television remains hopeless, but to educate people about the dreadful effects could help with understanding what television does. And eventually, the entertainment society of disorited discourse may find the lost culture in which more intelligent discourse is common
think that the media of an artwork contributes to the way the audience sees and feels about the
An adequate understanding of this argument requires clarity regarding the terms discussed. These terms will be defined according to Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, both pioneering critics in New Media, who closely examined the relations and functions of such concepts in their book, Remediation: Understanding New Media. Both immediacy and hypermediacy are terms referring to logic, the imperative on which the relationship between the engager and the medium rests. Immediacy refers to the producer’s goal of the text’s mediation being rendered transparent. Immediacy is associated with simultaneity, intuition and invisibility, and attempts to erase its representative qualities to provide ‘immediate’ a...
Newspaper, radio, film, television. These are only a few of the various forms media can take. From the moment we open our eyes to the instant we shut them, we are surrounded by media and absorb the information it hurls at us in an osmosis-like manner. The news ranges from the latest terror attack and political scandals to supposed UFO sightings and scandals involving sandals. We as an audience tend to focus more on the message the media relays rather than on the medium in which it is presented to us. “What?” is asked more than “How?” The key claim Marshall McLuhan makes in his book, The Medium is the Massage, is that the form of media influences how the message is perceived. Let’s illustrate this with a scenario: it’s eight o’clock in the morning.
Carr discusses the effects that the Internet has on our minds and the way we think, as well as the way media has changed. Our minds no longer focus. When in conversation with people we are constantly distracted by the technological advances our era has brought. Text messages, emails, pop culture drama has all taken over thoughts.
In the video produced on TED “Embrace the Remix” by Kirby Ferguson, he discusses the importance of understanding that “creativity comes from without not from within and that we are not self made but dependent on each other” (Ferguson, 2012). Ferguson discusses how everything is a remix and defines remixing as copying, transforming, and combining. He makes a logical sound argument through the use of logical fallacies to convince his viewers. Ferguson argues how remixing helps creativity through the use of logos by providing cases of Steve Jobs building off ideas, appealing to ethos with poisioning the wall fallacy, and emotionally appeal to the viewers through pathos with appeal to tradition.
Rather than walking, we have cars to help us get to places quicker. Rather than talking with people face-to-face, we call on a telephone. New technology places value on doing things quicker and easier. McLuhan also believed that what changes people is the technology itself, not the content. In Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, he proposed that we focus on the way each medium changes cultures and traditions and reshapes social life, rather than the content. He describes the content of the medium as a “juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind.” (McLuhan 32). To him, focusing on the medium was important because he believed that different types of media changes the balance of our sense. We start isolating and highlighting different senses. For example, print technology highlights the visual aspect of the media, but isolates sound. However, electronic media, such as television, allows us to see and hear, and therefore, reconnects senses that have been isolated by previous media (e.g., print and radio). McLuhan expands on the effects of electronic media in War and Peach in the Global Village, arguing that electronic creates a “global village.” Because electronic media allows people
"Medium has become "more important" than message, says Sir Martin Sorrell."The Drum. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. .
The ideas put forth in Marshall McLuhan's Media Hot and Cold, present many theories regarding the effects of media on the world. What qualifies as media, in essence, is any experience or information, imparted on the awareness of an individual and/or societies. These can be physical or nonphysical influences. TV and radio are examples of physical media. Their effects and evolution can be easily observed. However, and perhaps more importantly, McLuhan examines those nonphysical influences which can be observed in the individual and society. It is not enough to merely identify these mediums as such. What is more crucial is the perpetual waxing and waning of influence of such ineffable phenomena, whose identity and existence rely upon their interdependency
...ated on the processes social designers follow in order to derive an outcome that satisfies a human need, while benefiting the community, not harming the environment and ultimately contributes positively to the local economy.
Oxman, R. (1997). Design by re-representation: a model of visual reasoning in design. Design studies, 18, 329-347.
For this reason, further advancement and integration of technology in every aspect of life is undoubtedly a critical element of the future of our society. Technologies that we; in the year 2014, cannot possibly imagine or comprehend, will be at the forefront of the next generation’s life; changing the way that they think, act, learn, and even feel. It is highly important that we take this inevitability into consideration when educating the children of today that will become the adults of tomorrow. As the world changes and job markets change, it is critical that we; as educators, teach children how to use the tools of today so that they might be better equipped to adapt to tomorrow’s technologies. Working with the technologies that have already been developed, educators are able to teach in new ways, with new tools, and students are able to begin working with computers and other devices from a young age and gain a high quality education that puts the student at the center of the learning process. Technology is now a fundamental facilitator in the learning process, and an important commodity in the field of education; enhancing learning in many ways f...