Marshal McLuhan – Charlatan or Visionary? Marshal McLuhan has been described as both a “media prophet” and a “pop professor” (Wilcox). Although his book The Medium is the Massage was rejected by some academics (Wilcox), it became a popular success outside the academic world. His ability to coin such phrases as the “global village” and his ideas on how media influences culture allowed McLuhan to become an icon of the counterculture movement of the 1960’s. Some scholars argue that McLuhan’s voice was even “swallowed up in the popular cultural movement” (Surette). The word macluhanisme has been adopted into the French language as “a synonym for the world of pop culture” (Playboy). But was McLuhan truly a pioneering scholar? It surely depends on how one defines “pioneering scholar”. I believe that many of McLuhan’s ideas, even if they have become their own clichés and are not wholly understood, are valuable contributions to our academic and cultural heritage by the fact that they are still discussed today. McLuhan’s writings have opened up a forum for much discussion and academic study, and have laid the foundation for an area of study on communication mediums. In an interview with Playboy magazine, McLuhan argues that “man must, as a simple survival strategy, become aware of what is happening to him, despite the attendant pain of such comprehension” (Playboy). McLuhan states that his work has the “purpose of trying to understand our technological environment and its psychic and social consequences” (Playboy). Many of McLuhan’s ideas concerning media can be classified as technologically deterministic. He argued that several technologies, alphabetic writing and movable type, were responsible for the “detribilization” of society. By “detribilization” he was referring to the creation of the individual who is responsible for his/her own ideas. He then argued that in recent times, a “retribilization” was occurring because of the introduction of electricity-based communications technologies such as radio and television. As Playboy writes, this is the “electronics revolution that will ultimately retribalize man by restoring his sensory balance”. As critic Tom Wolfe asked: "Suppose [McLuhan] is what he sounds like: the most important thinker since Newton, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and Pavlov - what if he is right?
...ysterious technology. When referencing the new technology he states, “They supply the stuff for thought, but they also shape the process of thought” (6). Carr’s main point is the effect of technology, especially the Internet, is changing the programming of the brain.
Throughout the book, McKibben compares the two experiences, contrasting the amount of useful information he received from nature, as opposed to the amount of useless, hollow information the television provided. He goes on in the book to make several very important observations about how the television has fundamentally changed our culture and lifestyle, from the local to the global level. Locally, McKibben argues, television has a detrimental effect on communities.
Griffin, E., Ledbetter, A., & Sparks, G. (2015). A first look at communication theory. New York:
Dan O'Hair, Mary Wiemann, Dorothy Imrich Mullen, Jason J. Taven. (2012). Dan O'Hair, Mary Wiemann, Dorothy Imrich Mullen, Jason J. Taven. In M. W. Dan O'Hair, Real Communication: An Introduction (pp. 35-64). Boston, New York: Bedford / St. Martin's.
Percy Bysse Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind is a dramatization of man’s useless and “dead thoughts” (63) and Shelley’s desire from the Autumn wind to drive these “over the universe” (65) so that not only he but man can start anew. The thoughts are first compared to the leaves of trees but as the poem progresses the thoughts are paralleled with the clouds and finally the “sapless foliage of the ocean” (40). Shelley personifies himself with the seasons of the Earth and begs the West Wind to drive him away thus allowing him to lost and become the very seasons. In the end Shelley’s metamorphosis is realized and he becomes the very wind and the power with which he humanized throughout the poem.
Aldous Huxley, a renowned English writer, once said “Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.” The advancements that we have made in the recent years are astronomical. However, people of the present time are becoming increasingly dependent on technology and adversely influenced by the portrayal of the media. Initially media and technology were designed to facilitate a person’s life but as generations pass, it has become a liability rather than an asset.
McLuhan believed in technological determinism, which is “an approach that identifies technology, or technological developments, as the central causal element in processes of change” (Croteau, Hoynes, and Milan 290). In other words, McLuhan believed that new technology drives the way cultural values and social structures develop. He was interested in the cultural effects produced by electronic media; he was especially interested in the effects of televisions. McLuhan’s The Medium is the Massage argued that technology has changed the way humans
Emily Dickinson was one of the greatest woman poets. She left us with numerous works that show us her secluded world. Like other major artists of nineteenth-century American introspection such as Emerson, Thoreau, and Melville, Dickinson makes poetic use of her vacillations between doubt and faith. The style of her first efforts was fairly conventional, but after years of practice she began to give room for experiments. Often written in the meter of hymns, her poems dealt not only with issues of death, faith and immortality, but with nature, domesticity, and the power and limits of language.
The Internet is now our primary source of information. Evolution doesn’t only just occur in nature. Nonetheless, The Medium is the Massage was published in 1967, and several of McLuhan’s points were ahead of their time and remain relevant today. The most notable of points was made within the first few pages of the book where McLuhan delves into the fact that from the moment we are born to the moment we die we are under constant surveillance and that privacy essentially no
McLuhan’s work with literature and culture produced the revolutionary thought that “the medium is the message.” In other words, cultures are changed not only by the “content” of technology, but also by the technology itself.
There are several different ways in which McLuhan’s words can be interpreted. So what does “the medium is the message,” really mean? One of the simplest explanation that can be given is this; the very medium in which the message is sent through, can shape the way the receiver interprets it. But even this example can...
In this part of the assignment I am firstly going to explain the effectiveness of Wireless Communication, its advantages and disadvantages. This will include the different types of Wireless technologies and how they will make transmitting data easier or harder than ever. Also I will talk about Wired communication which is one of the older technologies but now we have several different types of media forms on wired communications and they all do a different job. Wireless Technologies could be satellite links or Radio communication. They all have good and bad points to discuss. Wired Technology could include twisted pair, Fibre optic or broadband over power lines.
Wi-Fi (Wireless Network) or 802.11 networking is a phenomenal way of providing Internet wirelessly at a low cost. Using radio waves, a wireless network connects a PC, mobile phone or just about anything that connects to the internet wirelessly by a router. By transmitting signals at 2.4 or 5 GHz it allows the waves to transmit more data at a faster rate. Typical Wi-Fi standards are 802.11a, b, g, n, or ac and they can switch up the frequency depending on the model (Brain). Families can create their own wireless network that can be shared between family members without the use of hooking all their devices up to the modem and can also protect their home network from potential hackers with the use of a TKIP or AES encryption. Businesses can also create a “hotspot” which is an area that has wireless networks for free or at a set fee. This is extremely convenient for commuters that need internet access while they are at work, waiting on a plane, or just sitting at a coffee spot without the need for wires(Cox).
The propose research will address a problem confronting many two year institutions in the present-day (i.e. how to best plan, design, and implement WLAN technologies). While WLAN technologies offer the benefits of mobility, reduced installation time, and decreased cost, many challenges must be met by institutions deploying them (Geier, 2005). These issues are related to security, speed, interoperability, and equipment selection, ease of use, reliability, signal interference, installation, and health risks.
What popular culture and mass culture are, their significance to society and how they are consumed are very multifaceted questions that have been subject to wide debate is the fields of Sociology and Cultural Studies. Many theorists have chimed in on the debate to answer these questions. Two notable theories on this topic are that of Dwight MacDonald in his work “A Theory of Mass Culture” and John Fiske in his work “Popular Culture”. MacDonald argues that mass culture is a phenomenon that is detrimental to society. He believes that although mass culture is something that produced “by and for human beings” that is ultimately is what leads to the loss of individuality and individual thought and expression in favor