MARSHALL MCLUHAN: THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE AND MASSAGE

<< SPIRAL OF SILENCE:Fear of isolation, Assessing public opinion, Micro-level

KNOWLEDGE GAP THEORY:Criticism on Marshal McLuhan >>

Theories of Communication MCM 511

LESSON 36

MARSHALL MCLUHAN: THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE AND MASSAGE

During the 1960s a Canadian literary scholar m Marshall McLuhan , gained world-wide prominence as

someone who had a profound understanding of electronic media and its impact on both culture and

society .McLuhan was highly trained in literary criticism but also read widely in communication theory

and history. He based much of his understanding of media's historical role on the work of Harold Innis,

a Canadian political economist.

We should study him for two reasons. One because his work is important to the development of cultural

theory because his work did much to inspire and legitimize macroscopic theories of media, culture and

society in North America. He wrote at a time when the limited effects paradigm had reached the peak of

its popularity among academics, a time when most American communication researchers regarded

macroscopic theory with suspicion if not outright hostility. The second reason for our attention to

McLuhan is that he and his ideas are again in vogue.

His theory is actually a collection of lots of intriguing ideas bound together by some common

assumptions. The most central of these assumptions is that changes in communication technology

inevitably produce profound changes in both culture and social order.

McLuhan had no links to any political or social movements; he seemed ready to accept whatever

changes were dictated by and inherent in communications technology. McLuhan is said to be a

technological determinist. Because he argued that technology inevitably causes specific changes in how

people think, in how society is structured, and he forms of culture that are created, Harold Innis : the

bias of communication. Harold Innis was one of the first scholars to systematically speculate at length

about the possible linkages between communications media and the various forms of social structure

found at certain points in history.

He argued that the early empires of Egypt, Greece, and Rome were based on the elite control for the

written work. He contrasted these empires with earlier social orders dependent on the spoken work.

Innis maintained that before elite discovery of the written word, dialogue was the dominant mode of

public discourse and political authority was much more diffused. Gradually, the written work became

the dominant mode of elite communication, and its power was magnified enormously by the inventing

of new writing materials that is paper that made writhing portable yet enduring. With paper and pen,

small, centrally located elite were able to gain control over and govern vast regions, thus, new

communications media made it possible to create empires. Innis argued that written work-based empires

expanded to the limits imposed by communication technology, thus, expansion did not depend as much

on the skills of military generals as it did on the communication media used to disseminate orders from

the capital city.

Similarly, the structure of later social orders also depended on the media technology available at a

certain point in time. For example, the telephone and telegraph permitted even more effective control

over larger geographic areas thus the development of media technology had gradually given centralized

elites increased power over space and time.

Innis traces the way Canadian elites used various technologies, including the railroad and telegraph, to

extend their control across the continent. As a political economist, he harbored a deep suspicion of

centralized power and believed that newer forms of communication technology would make even

greater centralization inevitable. He referred to this as the inherent bias of communication.

Because of this bias, the people and the resources of outlying regions that he called the periphery are

inevitably exploited to serve the interests of elites at the center.

113

Theories of Communication MCM 511

Bias of communication

Innis' idea that communication technology makes centralization of power inevitable.

McLuhan: understanding media

Although he borrowed freely from Innis, McLuhan didn't dwell on issues of exploitation or centralized

control. He was fascinated by the implications of Innis' arguments concerning the transformative power

of media technology.

If media could create empires what else could they do?

Was it possible that media could transform our sensory experiences as well as our social order?

After all the acts of reading a book and viewing a movie or television program employ different sensory

organs.

During the 1960s, we were clearly moving from an era grounded in print technology to one based on

electronic media. McLuhan asked if communication technology plays such a critical role in the

emergence of new social orders and new forms of culture, what were the implications of abandoning

print media in favor of electronic media?

He outlined his vision of the changes that were taking place as a result of the spread of radio and

television. He proclaimed that medium is the message (and the Massage). In other words, new forms of

media transform (message) our experience of ourselves and our society and this influence is ultimately

more important than the content that is transmitted in its specific messages. He coined several phrases

and terms that have become part of the common vocabulary we use to talk about media and society.

He suggested the term Global village to refer to the new form of social organization that would

inevitably emerge as instantaneous, electronic media tied the entire world into one great social,

political and cultural system.

Unlike Innis, McLuhan didn't bother to concern himself with questions about control over this village or

whether village members world be exploited, to him these questions didn't matter, he was more

concerned with microscopic issues, with the impact of media on our senses. He proclaimed media to be

the extensions of man and argued that media quite literally extend sight, hearing, and touch through time

and space. Electronic media would open up new vistas for average people and enable us to be

everywhere, instantaneously.

But was this an egalitarian and democratic vision?

What would ordinary people do when their senses were extended in this way?

Would they succumb to information overload? Would they be stimulated to greater participation in

politics?

Would they flee into the virtual worlds that were opened up to them by their extend senses?

In a series of books, he tossed out cryptic and frequently contradictory ideas that addressed such

questions. Occasionally, his ideas were profound (deep, thoughtful) and prophetic, more often they were

arcane (mysterious), mundane,(common) or just confusing.

His observations concerning the global village and the role of electronic media in it continue to be

prophetic. At a time when satellite communication was just being developed, he seemed to foretell the

rise of the cable news network with its ability to seemingly make us eyewitnesses to history as it's made

on the battlefield or at the barricade. At a time when mainframe computers filled entire floors of office

buildings, he seemed to envision a time when personal computers world be everywhere and the internet

would give everyone instant access to immense stores of information. But as one media critic

Meyrowitz noted, to be everywhere is to be nowhere- to have no sense of place, to have access to

information is not the same thing as being able to select and use information effectively. The global

village isn't situated in space or time. Is it possible to adjust to living in such a formless, ambiguous

social structure? Or will the global village merely be a façade used by cynical elites to exploit people?

Among the most popular of McLuhan's ideas was his conception of hot and cool media.

114

Theories of Communication MCM 511

He argued that during the 1960s the United States was emerging from an era dominated by hot print

media, in the future, the new, cool medium of television would prevail. According to him, the television

is cool because it presents us with vague, shadowy images (remember this was 1960, reception was

often bad, and sets were black and white).

To make sense of these electronic images, people must work hard to fill in missing sensory information;

they must literally participate in creating fully formed images for themselves. He argued that this gets us

involved and so we find the images very compelling and meaningful- this is the secret to the television's

ability to attract vast audiences.

Print on the other hand, is hot. It supplies us with all the information we need to make sense of things. It

does the work for us, offering predigested descriptions of the social world. We can't participate in

creating meaning. So, according to him, hot media are out and cool media are in. He carried this notion

a step further and argued that some forms of content are naturally suited to cool media whereas others

are best communicate by hot media.

His most famous interpretation was that John F Kennedy had a cool image that was ideally suited to

television. Richard Nixon, on the other hand, had a hot image. Thus, in their famous presidential debates

of 1960 the attractiveness of Kennedy's image was greatly enhanced by television while Nixon's hot

image was impaired, this assessment was widely accepted by political consultants and has become an

important basis for selecting candidates and molding their public personae.

Initially his ideas achieved enormous public popularity. He became the darling of the media industries-

their prophet with honor. For a brief period he commanded huge fees as a consultant and seminar leader

for large companies. His ideas were used to rationalize rapid expansion of electronic media with little

concern for their negative consequences. So what if children spend most of their free time in front of

television sets and become functionally illiterate? Reading is doomed anyway, why prolong its demise?

Eventually we will all live in a global village where literacy is an unnecessary as it was in preliterate

tribal villages. He propounded that linear, logical thinking is far too restrictive. If the triumph of

electronic is inevitable why not get on with it? No need for government regulation of media. No need to

complain to about television violence adopt McLuhan's long-term global perspective.

115

Table of Contents: