GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Title
Mirko Tobias Schäfer
Marshall McLuhan
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Introduction
Structuur
- M. McLuhan
- Cultuurpessimisme
- Technologie en cultuur
- Hoofdthesen van McLuhan
- Kritiek op McLuhan
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Pop Theory, Theory Pop
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan (1911 – 1980)
- studeerde Engels (Manitoba Univ., US; Cambridge,
UK); haalde een PhD aan Cambridge Univ.
- katholiek (docent aan katholieke universiteiten)
- doet onderzoek naar populaire cultuur:
The Mechanical Bride, 1951
McLuhan, Bio
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
„I am resolutely opposed to all innovation, all
change, but I am determined to understand
what’s happening. Because I don’t choose just
to sit and let the juggernaut roll over me.“
McLuhan, 1966; cit. naar Beneditti; de Hart, 1997
Anti-Technology 1
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
„Many people seem to think that if you talk about something recent, you’re in favor of it. The exact opposite is true in my case. Anything I talk about is almost certainly something I’m resolutely against. And it seems to me the best way to oppose it is to understand it. And then you know where to turn off the buttons.“
McLuhan, 1966; cit. naar Beneditti; de Hart, 1997
Anti-Technology 1
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
„Do you really want to know what I think of that
thing? If you want to save one shred of Hebrao-
Greco-Roman-Medieval-Renaissance-
Enlightenment-Modern-Western civilization,
you’d better get an ax and smash all the sets.“
McLuhan; cit. J.C. Morrison: Marshall McLuhan. No Prophet
without Honor.
Anti-Technology 2
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan, de moralist
- The Mechanical Bride. The Folklore of Industrial Man
- onderzoek naar reclame
- analyse en kritiek op de waarden die in reclame
gerepresenteerd worden
- vgl. Kulturindustrie (Adorno; Horkheimer, 1944/69) en
de Bewustseinsindustrie (Enzensberger, 1970)
The Mechanical Bride
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Crime does not pay
Crime does not pay
"To put the matter simply, we no longer
have a rational basis for defining virtue or
vice. And the slogan "Crime Does Not Pay" is
the expression of moral bankruptcy in more
senses than one. It implies that if crime could pay,
then the dividing line between virtue and vice
would disappear."
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
What makes a gal a good number
Love-Goddess Assembly Line
- interfusion of sex and technology
- mensen worden ononderscheidbaar
- vervangbaarheid; machinemetafoor
- Hollywood als verbeeldingsmachine
van de ‘ideale vrouw’.
- McLuhan eist mediacompetentie
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Harold Innis (1894 – 1952)
- Professor economie, Univ. Toronto
- doet onderzoek naar de spoorwegen,
kabeljauw en pelshandel
- these: de materialiteit van media determineert
de cultuur
-> voorbeeld schrijftechniek in het oude Egypte.
Harold Innis
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
The Gutenberg Galaxy (1.6.2, .75-76)
- oral culture; literate culture; printing
culture, electronic culture
The Gutenberg Galaxy
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Typografisch tijdperk
De typografische mens:
– Wetenschap– Rationalisme– Reproduceerbaarheid– Lineairiteit
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
These
– reorganisatie van de sociale wereld
– schrift is een “extension of the eye”
– het medium in tekst is taal
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Understanding Media
– Reflectie op de impact van media op de cultuur
– “Suspended Judgement”
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Suspended Judgement
“The technique of starting with the thing to be discovered and working back, step by step, as on an assembly line, to the point at which it is necessary to start in order to reach the desired object.” (McLuhan 1964, 62)
- Methode en effect
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Understanding Media
- Media: language, word, paper, printing
press, books, streets, railroads, gun
powder, clothing, light, stone, wheel,
money, games…
Understanding Media
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
The Extensions of Men
– media zijn uitbreidingen (extensions) van het menselijk lichaam en de psyche.
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
The Medium is the Message (p. 77-80)
(in Understanding Media, 1964)
“For the ‘message’ of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.” (p. 24)
The Medium is the Message
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
The Medium is the Message
"the medium is the message because it isthe medium that shapes and controls thescale and form of human association andaction.”
-> voorbeeld spoorwegen, auto, elektriciteit.
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
The Medium is the Message: Light
Light
The message of the electric light
is like the message of electric
power in industry. Totally radical,
pervasive, and decentralized.
-> het medium verandert de
sociale wereld, de omgeving en
de sociale relaties.
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Cultuur is het effect van techniek
Effect I
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
The Medium is the Massage (1967)
“All media work us completely over.
[…] Any understanding of social and
cultural change is impossible without
a knowledge of the way media work
as environment”
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Cultuur is het effect van techniek
“The railway radically altered the personal outlooks
and patterns of social interdependence. […] It
created totally new urban, social and family worlds.
New ways of work. New ways of management. New
legislation.” (The Medium is the Massage, p. 72)
-> voorbeeld interview; (filing cabinet)
Effect II
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Het effect van het spoor
"The technology of the railway created the
myth of a green pasture world of innocence.
It satisfied man's desire to withdraw from
society, symbolized by the city, to a rural
setting where he could recover his animal
and natural self. ...“
Effect III
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Suburbia
Cultuur is het effect van techniek
„It gave us the darkest suburbia and its lasting
symbol: the lawnmower.“
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Horseless Carriage Syndrom
Rear-view Mirror
„We look at the present through a rear-view mirror.
We march backwards into the future. Suburbia lives
imaginatively in Bonanza-land."
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
McLuhans stellingen (p. 80; 1.6.4, p. 84-85)
- technologie structureert en construeert samenleving
en cultuur. (anti-content thesis, p. 89-90)
- techniek is een uitbreiding van het lichaam en de
zintuigen. (extension thesis, p. 85-88)
- natuur is kunstmatig (environmental thesis, p. 88-89)
McLuhan, stellingen
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Wat is technologie?
(extension thesis)
- Aristotle, Marx, Kapp, Bergson
- techniek is een uitbreiding van het
lichaam en de zintuigen. (extension thesis,
p. 85-88)
Defining Technology
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Wat is natuur? (environmental thesis)
- self-augmentation of technology, (J. Ellul, p.88)
- qualitative shift; tools -> systems ->
technological nature
- media effects are new environments, (McLuhan)
Agency van mensen en dingen
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Wat is cultuur? (anti-content thesis)
- The Medium is the Massage
- de “constant sensory assault” van media op de
perceptie is belangrijker dan narrativiteit,
representatie, ideologie etc... (p.89)
- de content van een medium is een ander medium
Agency van mensen en dingen
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Conclusions
De betekenis van McLuhan (p. 90-91)
- Williams / McLuhan debat over het effect van technologie
- gebruik van technologie - techniek en leefmilieu (technologies are nature)
GTNM: Marshall McLuhan
Thank You!
Thank you for your attention !
Mirko Tobias Schäfer ( [email protected] )
http://www.mtschaefer.net