Week  04:  The  Medium  And  The  Message

Marshall  McLuhan  (1911-­‐1980)

Ambient  touchscreen  appsBrian  Eno’s  iPhone/iPad  apps:  soothing  music  for  children  too

Connec;ons  from  Eno  to  the  iPad

Brian  Eno:  pioneer  ofambient  music  and  artstudent  in  1964

Roy  AscoH:  developed  ideasabout  interacJvity  andfeedback  in  the  visual  artsfrom  late  1950s

Surrounded  by  digital  media  from  birth?Toddler  using  iPad  -­‐  an  “early  adopter”?

Computers  simple  enough  for  children

Images  from  Alan  Kay’s  1968  paper  on  the  DynabookhHp://www.edibleapple.com/2010/04/30/from-­‐alan-­‐kays-­‐dynabook-­‐to-­‐the-­‐apple-­‐ipad/  

Developing  a  computer  for  Third  Worldchildren:  the  OLPC

The  One  Laptop  Per  Child  project,  developed  by  NicholasNegroponte  at  MIT  Media  Lab  from  2005.  Strong  input  fromcomputer  language  and  interface  pioneer  Seymour  Papert  (1970sLOGO  turtle  on  the  right)

Development  of  the  brain  in  atechnological  environment

One area where the research is particularlystrong is what is popularly known asmultitasking. Plugged-in kids have gaineda reputation for being masters at togglingbetween, say, a homework assignmentand instant-messaging classmates,downloading music and texting on the cellphone, surfing the Internet while updatingFacebook pages, and so on.

A 2006 survey by the Kaiser FamilyFoundation1 found that middle and highschool students spend an average of 6.5hours a day hooked up to computers orotherwise using electronic devices, andmore than a quarter of them are routinelyusing several types of media at once. Italso found that when teens are “studying”at the computer, two-thirds of the time theyare also doing something else.http://www.dana.org/media/detail.aspx?id=13126

Image fromhttp://neuroanthropology.net/2008/08/30/culture-on-the-teen-brain/

Possible  cogni;ve  benefits  of  gaming

One of the earliest and most noted studies in the field was conducted back in 1992 byneuroscientist Richard Haier at the University of California at Irvine, who looked at howfrequent sessions with the Tetris video game changed the players' brains. The gamerequires players to fit colorful puzzle pieces together at a quickening pace as they fall fromthe top of the screen.

Back then, Haier used brain scans to discover that some parts of the brain actually usedless glucose as the players became more skilled at the game. The "Tetris effect"illustrated how video-game training could make brains work more efficiently - an idea thateventually led to a whole host of brain-training games.From http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2009/09/01/4350065-how-games-change-your-brain

The  Medium  And  The  Message

Marshall McLuhan is perhaps one of the bestknown media theorists and critics of this era. Aliterary scholar from Canada, Marshall McLuhanbecame entrenched in American popular culturewhen he felt this was the only way to understandhis students at the University of Wisconsin.

[His] best known and most popular works [are] TheGutenberg Galaxy: the Making of Typographic Man(1962) and Understanding Media: the Extensions ofMan (1964)

[…] McLuhan's outspoken and often outrageousphilosophies of the "electric media" roused apopular discourse about the mass media, societyand culture. The pop culture mottoes "the mediumis the message (and the massage)" and "the globalvillage" are remnants of what is affectionately (andotherwise) known as McLuhanism.[From http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=mcluhanmars ]

Understanding  Media  (1964)

"In a culture like ours, long accustomed tosplitting and dividing all things as ameans of control, it is sometimes a bit ofa shock to be reminded that, inoperational and practical fact, themedium is the message. This is merely tosay that the personal and socialconsequences of any medium - that is, ofany extension of ourselves - result fromthe new scale that is introduced into ouraffairs by each extension of ourselves, orby any new technology.”

Marshall McLuhan, introduction toUnderstanding Media

The  Medium  And  The  Message

Many  people  presume  the  convenJonalmeaning  for  "medium"  that  refers  to  themass-­‐media  of  communicaJons  -­‐  radio,television,  the  press,  the  Internet.  And  mostapply  our  convenJonal  understanding  of"message"  as  content  or  informaJon.Puang  the  two  together  allows  people  tojump  to  the  mistaken  conclusion  that,somehow,  the  channel  supersedes  thecontent  in  importance,  or  that  McLuhan  wassaying  that  the  informaJon  content  shouldbe  ignored  as  inconsequenJal.http://individual.utoronto.ca/markfederman/article_mediumisthemessage.htm

Innova;on  and  its  consequences

Whenever we create a new innovation -be it an invention or a new idea - many ofits properties are fairly obvious to us. Wegenerally know what it will nominally do,or at least what it is intended to do, andwhat it might replace. We often knowwhat its advantages and disadvantagesmight be. But it is also often the casethat, after a long period of time andexperience with the new innovation, welook backward and realize that therewere some effects of which we wereentirely unaware at the outset. Wesometimes call these effects "unintendedconsequences," although "unanticipatedconsequences" might be a more accuratedescription.http://individual.utoronto.ca/markfederman/article_mediumisthemessage.htm

Innova;on  and  its  consequences

McLuhan  tells  us  that  a  "message"is,  "the  change  of  scale  or  pace  orpaHern"  that  a  new  invenJon  orinnovaJon  "introduces  intohuman  affairs."

Note  that  it  is  not  the  content  oruse  of  the  innovaJon,  but  thechange  in  inter-­‐personal  dynamicsthat  the  innovaJon  brings  with  it.http://individual.utoronto.ca/markfederman/article_mediumisthemessage.htm

Motorola  DynaTAC  8000TX,  firstcommercial  handheld  cellphone,launched  in  1983  for  $3995  dollars  -­‐with  its  inventor  Dr  MarJn  Cooper

The  meaning  of  “medium”

A  3D  snapshot  of  30%  of  the  Internetfrom  2005,  tracing  connecJons  andmajor  sites.From  http://opte.org/maps/

At the beginning of Understanding Media,[McLuhan] tells us that a medium is "anyextension of ourselves." Classically, hesuggests that a hammer extends our armand that the wheel extends our legs andfeet. Each enables us to do more than ourbodies could do on their own. Similarly, themedium of language extends our thoughtsfrom within our mind out to others.

[…he] always thought of a medium in thesense of a growing medium, like the fertilepotting soil into which a seed is planted, orthe agar in a Petri dish. In other words, amedium - this extension of our body orsenses or mind - is anything from which achange emerges.http://individual.utoronto.ca/markfederman/article_mediumisthemessage.htm

“Hot”  and  “Cool”  media

"There is a basic principle that distinguishes ahot medium like radio from a cool one like thetelephone, or a hot medium like the movie froma cool one like TV. A hot medium is one thatextends one single sense in "high definition.'High definition is the state of being well-filledwith data. . . . Hot media are low inparticipation, and cool media are high inparticipation or completion by the audience. . .. The hot form excludes, and the cool oneincludes.” [from Understanding Media]

McLuhan associated "hot media" with specializedknowledge, industrial economies and individualisticsocieties, and "cool media" with oral traditions, agrariancultures and tribal societies. Which is precisely how hearrived at the ironic idea that TV, though ostensibly anadvanced technology, was also giving birth to a globalvillage. He didn't mean that it was bringing us all closertogether; he meant it was changing our urban, industrialWestern society into a culture that reproduces the tribalcharacteristics of a village on a global scale.

From http://www.wordyard.com/dmz/digicult/mcluhan-5-3-95.html

“Hot”

“Cool”

The  Internet:  “Hot”  or  “Cool”?

Where would the Internet fall on McLuhan'stemperature meter? It remains almostexclusively a medium that transmits andreproduces vast quantities of text at highspeeds. McLuhan interpreted the evolution ofwriting from ideograms and stone tablets toalphabetic characters and print reproductionas a "hotting up" "to repeatable printintensity." By that standard, the Net is boiling.

On the other hand, its functionalcharacteristics match those McLuhanidentified as cool. There's no question thatthe Internet is among the most participatorymedia ever invented, like the cool telephone.And its cultural patterns -- with its oral-tradition-style transmission of myth and itscollective anarchy -- match those ofMcLuhan's tribal global village.

From http://www.wordyard.com/dmz/digicult/mcluhan-5-3-95.html

“Hot”