SILS - Spring 2020

HI307

MEDIA HISTORY

Graham Law

Introduction

Two Theorists of Change in Media Systems:

Habermas & McLuhan

Structure of today’s presentation

The contexts: Habermas & McLuhan

– Life & Works

– Points of similarity & difference

The texts: Structural Transformation of the Public

Sphere & Understanding Media

– periodization

– concepts

Questions & Discussion

Contexts: Life & Works (1):

Jürgen Habermas Life (1929-date)

– Düsseldorf & era of National Socialism

– Frankfurt School (under Adorno/Horkheimer)

– history and social theory

– writings on modernity, communication, democracy

Key Works – Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962; 1989)

– Toward a Rational Society (1968; 1970)

– Communication and the Evolution of Society (1976; 1979)

– Theory of Communicative Action (1981; 1984-7)

Contexts: Life & Works (2):

Marshall McLuhan Life (1911-1980)

– Toronto School (technology & culture)

– from modern literature

to postmodern media

– media ecology

Early Works – The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man (1951)

– The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1962)

– Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964)

– The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects (1967)

Contexts: Points of similarity

combination of Continental theory &

Anglo-American pragmatism

intellectual heroes of the 1960s & 1990s

long historical perspective

concern with process of change

Contexts: Points of difference

How is social change viewed?

– Habermas: modernist, rationalist perspective

– McLuhan: postmodernist, relativist perspective

What are the effects of media transformations? – Habermas: socio-political

– McLuhan: socio-psychological

What causes the changes? – Habermas: underlying economic structures

– McLuhan: technological innovation

Are the changes inevitable? – Habermas: No (less deterministic)

– McLuhan: Yes (more deterministic)

Texts Habermas McLuhan

Texts: Periodization

Habermas

– pre-capitalist era

– early capitalist era

– late capitalist era

McLuhan

– manuscript era

– print era

– electric (electronic) era

Texts: Concepts

Habermas

– the public sphere

– structural transformation

McLuhan

– extensions of man

– the medium is the message

Habermas: Transformation of the Public Sphere “the public sphere” = “a realm of our social life in which something

approaching public opinion can be formed” [PSEA 49]

“public opinion” = “the tasks of criticism and control which a public

body of citizens … practices vis-à-vis the ruling structure organized in

the form of a state” [PSEA 49]

“In England, France, and the United States the transformation from a

journalism of conviction to one of commerce began … at approximately

the same time.” [PSEA 53]

“When the laws of the market governing the sphere of commodity exchange

and of social labor also pervaded the sphere reserved for private people as a

public, rational-critical debate had a tendency to be replaced by

consumption, and the web of public communication unraveled into acts

of individuated reception ...” [STPS 161]

Jürgen Habermas, “The Public Sphere: an Encyclopedia Article (1964)”,

trans. S. & F. Lennox, New German Critique 3 (Autumn 1974): 49-55

Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere,

trans. T. Burger & F. Lawrence (1962; Boston, MA: MIT Press, 1989)

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McLuhan: From Typographic to Electric Man

“Technological environments are not merely passive containers of

people but are active processes that reshape people … Printing

from movable types created a quite unexpected new environment

… Manuscript technology did not have the intensity or power of

extension necessary to create publics on a national scale. What we

have called “nations” in recent centuries did not, and could not,

precede the advent of Gutenberg technology any more than they

can survive the advent of electric circuitry with its power of

totally involving all people in all other people. ”

The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), Intro.

“After 3,000 years of explosion, by means of fragmentary and

mechanical technologies, the Western World is imploding. During

the mechanical ages we had extended our bodies in space. Today,

after more than a century of electric technology, we have

extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace,

abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned.

Rapidly, we approach the final phase of the extensions of man –

the technological simulation of consciousness …”

Understanding Media (1964), Intro.

Further Reading

On Habermas CALHOUN, Craig, ed,. Habermas and the Public Sphere.

Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1993.

ROSENFELD, M., & A. Arato, eds. Habermas on Law and Democracy.

Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1998.

WHITE, Stephen K., ed. Cambridge Companion to Habermas.

Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995.

On McLuhan GORDON, W. Terrence. Marshall McLuhan: Escape into Understanding.

NY: Basic Books, 1997.

MARCHAND, Philip. Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger.

Boston: MIT Press, 1998.

THEALL, Donald F, ed. The Virtual Marshall McLuhan.

Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP, 2001.

Discussion Session

Over to You