The Medium Message

Marshall McLuhan is a Canadian Philosopher of Communication Theory who has a keen knowledge of media theory, of which he puts into practice in “The Medium Is The Message”. This phrase essentially means that the medium influences how the message is perceived and decoded. For example humans are the medium of technology, because technology is just an extension of the human brain.

McLuhan shows his point by giving an example of ‘electric light’ being a medium. He says, “The electric light is pure information. It is a medium without a message, as it were, unless it is used to spell out some verbal ad or name (McLuhan, 1964, p.7).” This alone is understandable, but he confuses the reader where he introduces this new idea of ‘content’ in his passage. He digresses away from his first point/argument by continuing the paragraph with, “This fact, characteristic of all media, means that the “content” of any medium is always another medium. The content of writing is speech, just as the written word is the content of print, and print is the content of the telegraph (McLuhan, 1964, p.8).” On their own, both concepts make a lot more sense, but so close together in the structure of his writing makes it harder to digest, and fades his rhetoric. He says, “Let us return to the electric light,” which gives us proof that he is taking the reader on sort of a roller coaster ride through his writings.

McLuhan gives his account for what he means by “the medium is the message” in the first two to three pages. After that, he keeps on repeating his main point, except with different examples, of which are not clear. For example, he goes into writings of Shakespeare, sifts through excerpts of the different novels and shows where the “medium is the message” theory is significant. Reading this chapter felt like McLuhan was a child who knows he has a good idea or point of view, but just does not know how to express it clearly so that many people understand. He really does touch on some good topics, but he did not lay them out properly.

 McLuhan, M. (1964). The medium is the message. In Understanding media: The extensions of man (chapter 1). Retrieved from http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/261714

 

Creative, Or Rubbish?

Eric Arthur Blair (who is widely known by his pen name, George Orwell) was a british novelist and journalist who has written some of the most well known novels, including Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is no stranger to the art of the english language. He shows off his knowledge and political views in the article “Politics and the English Language” in a very biased, snobby and offensive way towards anybody reading. 

Essentially, his main point is that people are bringing down the english language by being with dying metaphors, operators or verbal false limbs, pretentious diction and meaningless words. Although he is a credible journalist, it seems that he takes the creativity out of writing. He pays so much attention to technical components of the writing and language that he forgets about creativity and individuality all together. 

He insulted readers by making them feel that he is speaking directly to them about their poor use the english language. He says:

A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

He is basically just told us that our thoughts are foolish. His bias also leaves no room for debate, which can be a good thing because it makes him sound more believable, but it is like he gives no regard to anybody else’s thoughts. 

He does have some good points, however, when it comes to adding extra words to sentences, but I feel like he could have been a bit more subtle in stating how he felt about the language. In all fairness, English has declined a bit in terms formality, due to social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc., it is a lot more acceptable to write informally, but other than that, I don’t see much of a problem with it. I would have likes to see more leniencies on his part and more believable and understandable examples of his queries of the english language. 

 

Orwell, G. (1946, April). Politics and the english language. Retrieved from   
         http://orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit

The complete works of george orwell. (2003, May 15). Retrieved from http://www.george-orwell.org/l_biography.html

 

Podcast of Culture Shock With Technology

The first episode of CBC podcast ReCivilization talks about this new era of technology, and some of the challenges that we face, and will face in the future of the post-industrial digital age. This episode is led out by Don Tapscott (Canadian author and speaker), with features from Tim Berners-Lee (the creator of the world wide web), Sue Gardner (executive director of Wikimedia), Alan Rusbridger (editor in chief of The Guardian), Leo Laporte (founder of TWiT TV), and Anthony Williams (Tapscott’s longtime collaborator), who speak extensively about the media, and it’s current role, especially in collaborative journalism. They can all agree that journalism is in fact going back to its roots. There was talk about media no longer having an audience, but being equals in in the sense that the “audience”, in the new age of technology, have an equal hand in participation in media. One of the main examples of this idea was Wikipedia. 

These professors did have very valid points of new social networking, and (specifically) Wikipedia giving power to the audience, but their argument comes from a very biased voice because if people that are not necessarily credible, are posting information that will be used internationally for research, assignments, news, etc., the world will soon be full of uncertainty and bad sources. It is important for the audience to have a voice, but not to the point where they can be quoted.This is why University Professors don’t usually accept citations from Wikipedia, because it is unreliable in many ways. 

In hindsight, there could be some positive aspects to this idea of recivilization. This could empower individuals and influence them to do further research to be able to provide accurate information for the public as well as for personal use, but this is a very rare idea due to the fact that most people have grown lazy because of the convenience of the internet. Meaning, they will accept whatever the internet says as true. 

What do you think?

Retrieved from CBC Radio

 

Small Change – MALCOLM GLADWELL (Analysis)

Gladwell’s “Small Change” article had very good content as well as a well thought out theme. It touched on some very good points. He contrasts a modern day example of activism to an event in the 1960s. It is true that social networking sites are a new way to further social activism, and gives his main point on pg. 42, as follows:

“With Facebook and Twitter and the like, the traditional relationship between political authority and popular will has been upended, making it easier for the powerless to collaborate, coördinate, and give voice to their concerns.”

His view of the matter is quite good, but it is not clearly portrayed throughout the flow of article because he dives a little too deep into the specific stories of the Greensboro Sit-ins and others. For him to draw the connection of the social activism to this new age of social networking, he does not have to give specifics of the story. This complicates the reading and makes the thesis cloudy for the reader.

For example, Gladwell begins explaining the events at the lunch counter at the Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina, and then equates this information with that of his thesis, that Facebook & Twitter makes it easier for the powerless to voice their concerns. But he then goes back into the story and highlights other stories, whereas he could have spoke abou the stories first, and then wrapped up by correlating social activism with social networking.

This article is more of a history lesson rather than a technological writing because most of the information covers the history of what social activism is/was as apposed to directly portraying what it has to do with today’s technologies.

Read Gladwell’s article here.

#McDStoriesArticleReview

When reading an article, you would like to get as much useful information out of the article as possible. It does not make much sense to take the time out of a busy day to read something that you could have found out for yourself. Right? An article that has little known facts and interviews from those involved in the topic are how you really grasp the readers attention and leave them well-informed after reading. The article following the #McDStories failure was quite underwhelming for all of these reasons above.

Although the article did have some sample tweets from unsatisfied customers (which was quite informative), they did not dive into the issue at hand. The article is very vague and does not give little known facts or dig deep to find useful information. Forbes basically told the readers what I’m sure they saw on twitter the night that it happened. They could have added some words from the McDonalds marketing team or something of that nature to make us really understand what was going on from first-hand evidence. The reader needs to know certain details. For example, it would be nice to know exactly how much McDonalds paid to get their hashtag trending. That information brings the reader into the depth of the situation as opposed to just scratching the surface.

Retrieved from Forbes