The Final Countdown (Do do do dooo, do do do do dooo)

For my final blog, I think it's time to put things in perspective a bit. Rather than linking to this or that, I think it's time to just take time to speak my mind. I think we might have been a bit too kind to McLuhan. Yes, he had the imagination to foresee where the media world was headed, but the idea of hot vs. cold has become antiquated. I don't think the whole idea of media you spend more time with vs. media you don't spend as much time with really applies anymore. To me, there is the Internet vs. everything else at this point. The Internet has so many different sources at the user's disposal-- it's not as cut and dry as the written in paper articles of your newspaper or the broadcasts on your tv or radio, but instead you have both of those incorporated to the net, and literally thousands of news sites to choose from. If I use hot and cold in the sense that I imagine them, the information that is simply fed to you (tv, newspaper) is cold in that it solely relays the message, and there really are a limited number of options-- local stations/papers or the major global ones. The hot media form is obviously the Internet, because not only are you in control of which site you choose to be informed by, but the user can actually participate in the news media just as much. Whether through blogging, tweeting traffic updates (which can be used to update this ct.gov traffic site apparently), or in the real life example we saw of someone updating a Facebook status to mourn the loss of Patrick Swayze, there is nothing so live, so immediate, and so easy that remotely compares to the Internet. I am not blaming McLuhan for anything, or saying that his incredible foresight should be mocked, but to me, everything we've seen in the class through examples of social networking and even wikipedia, this interactivity and almost overload of accessibility and information brings us beyond examples of hot and cold media.

Trying to be Nice

I agree with much of the praise that is showered upon McLuhan-- he wrote way before his time, predicted much of what actually came to pass in the advances in media and technology, and (for the most part) has a cohesive and understandable book here. However, I find myself harping on little things here and there. I'm with Courtney on the whole lightbulb thing, because I honestly feel like you can apply this overstretched theory to pretty much anything. I took a look over at TIME's 50 best inventions of 2009 to try and prove a point, and I don't know that it worked. Many of the inventions like the content-less Spiderweb Silk and Electric Eye correspond with his theory, both providing a new environment (incredibly durable silk that will have a plethora of uses and vision for people who previously would have no hopes of ever seeing anything ever), and their uses will probably be symmetric across all societies. But what if they aren't? In the case of Teleportation (and how the hell is that not #1??), everyone has their own ideas of how the item should be used. Military uses, personal uses for convenience in moving around, super fast/safe computers-- the possibilities are endless. And honestly, I think it makes a huge difference in what society you are in, as the world stresses different aspects of life depending on the region. While the light bulb has no content, its purpose is plain and simple. Something like moving atoms from point a to point b is very muddled, but clearly creates its own space. I think what that space is depends entirely on the use.

I tend to link the use of a content-less invention to the content of a form of media in that I think the content can definitely have varying impacts on different societies. Plato and his homeboys wanted nothing to do with the written word, fearing that it would cause the breakdown of society. However, Plato did say that the medium had value solely for singing songs of praise. If Aristotle and the other nonbelievers shrugged and went along with what Plato said, and the written medium never amounted to more than just songs praising heroes, politicians, rhetoricians, etc., do you honestly think that the effect would be the same? We have propaganda, information, fictional stories, biographies, songs lamenting people instead. I think content obviously matters. Sorry for taking so long to post this.

Don't call it a comeback?

I'm still reading the book, didn't get it til late this week. But there is a definite need for some "head-wrapping-around" time for this metaphor-laden piece of work. When reading through though, while I am impressed with some of the explanations McLuhan puts forth, I am a bit puzzled as to why he is popping back up. I googled "McLuhan blog" and for the most part, found some pretty recent posts asking about his message/massage, criticizing the book, and this pretty neat website which hasn't been updated in a year or so. I don't think I found a single reference to McLuhan in the links, but I feel like he would like the general setup and intent. But apparently this isn't all too new-- McLuhan was brought back into the public's view with a book about his life published in 1992. I found an interview with his son and the other authors of that book as they discussed in detail both some of the predictions that came true and for some reason Canada's ignoring of McLuhan. I like hearing about "how advanced" things were in '92-- it's crazy to think how far technologically we've come, and how small we've made the world with these advances. But anyways, McLuhan has been a hot topic of discussion for 17 years despite his passing; this "resurgence of awareness" that I've found on some sites really doesn't exist. Instead, I think it's just the fact that more people have access to his ideas now that we are so connected through the Internet, social networking, etc.