ENGL 680M: New Media

I was looking at my undergrad sysllabus and we are reading Marshall McLuhan in rhetoric class. However, the piece we are reading is the medium is the MESSAGE. Its a bit more "traditional" in that sense. I've attached a copy if you are interested.

in understanding new media, marshall mcluhan discusses hot/cold media...those which are close to us and those which are separate from us...do we think of our media in these terms? will it help us better understand new media?

"mechanical bride..."
"gutenburg galaxy"

the shift from message to massage...how does the message change because of the technological error--?

wilson bryan key: a colleague of mcluhan? studied subliminal messages--how are the two connected? tom suggests key took mcluhan's discussion of the subtlety of persuasion to "the next level..."

So, here's the deal. I wrote a fabulously witty entry last night. My computer shut down on me and now won't load at all, so don't judge me, I'm trying to write something in a short amount of time.

Reading McLuhan was an eerie experience; it seemed as though it couldn't have been written prior to the 1990s. His ideas are so entirely relevant that they border on precognition. Since I know the text was published in 1967 but then reissued, I wanted to be sure that he hadn't added to it when it was republshed. I did a little research and located some interesting information on McLuhan (including a musical written about him). I also learned that he died in 1980, so he probably didn't add to it during the 90s.

As I continue to study identity in the online world, I am becoming more interested in the idea of fragmentation of online identities as well as the reconstitution of these identities via technological means. McLuhan speaks to not only this fragmentation, but also to irrational rationalism and (I think) even borrows heavily from some Marxist notions.

The Dance of Death

The Theater of the Absurd

Audre Lorde

Marshall McLuhan

discuss.

It’s funny to think about Grandpa Socrates scoffing over the young kids with their fancy alphabets and words and written texts. Back in his day they had a thing called "memorization" - and it worked just fine for him. I don’t feel so bad that I can remember the days when floppy disks were actually floppy – or disks at all, for that matter. But the alphabet, literacy, is a technology. It’s handy to be reminded of that.

I think we can all agree that technology moves forward at such a remarkable pace that people respond in one of two ways: either they embrace (some or all) new technological developments, or they experience increasing resistance to learning the technology. The first group implicitly accepts the rationale behind each new edition, version, model, etc., agreeing that the latest x increases the speed/availability with which they can accomplish tasks and eases the stress of accomplishing those tasks.

McLuhan’s discussion of amateurism versus professionalism connects to a lot of stuff I’ve been thinking about academia lately. He writes that, “Professionalism is environmental. Amateurism is anti-environmental. Professionalism merges the individual into patterns of total environment. Amateurism seeks the development of the total awareness of the individual and the critical awareness of the groundrules of society” (93). It seems, then, that to be a professional in something by definition means to cut yourself off from other areas of thought, practice, and of, well, life.

In "The Medium is the Massage" McLuhan argues that media is subtly persuasive. My first question is whether or not this is something new or this is the way things have always been, perhaps we're just more aware of it now. On the other hand, maybe we're less aware of it, and that's the point.

In the late 60's Columbia Records put out an album based on McLuhan's book. Haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but it's definetely interesting.

You can find mp3 of the album here: http://www.ubu.com/sound/mcluhan.html