Media Theory

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Media Theory Design 1

• Marshall McLuhan
• Media Cultural Theory Formalism

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• Scholarly and literary theory can be applied to
  the study of media and popular culture, and can
  result in social and cultural insights about the
  effects.
• All media are human extensions.

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• Laws of Media The Internet
• Enhances
• decentralization
• associative searches
• speed of access
• electronic communications
• access to information
• self-publishing
• media convergence
• networking
• immediacy
• virtual community
• e-trade

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• Laws of Media The Internet
• Obsoletes
• travel
• distance
• national borders
• face-to-face interaction
• single-source propaganda
• centralized censorship
• print monopolies
• retail outlets

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• Laws of Media The Internet
• Reverses (Into)
• obsession with data
• isolation
• loss of affect (feeling)
• information overload
• loss of private time
• nervous disorders

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• Laws of Media The Internet
• Retrieves
• writing and correspondence
• tribes and villages
• anarchy
• chaos
• rendezvous
• direct representation
• local activism

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• Laws of Media
• Enhances
• Obsoletes
• Reverses
• Retrieves
• Lets now apply these to other media . . . .

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The Medium is the message

• Controversial How, and the manner in which,
  content is delivered are paramount, even more
  important, than the content itself in how it is
  perceived.

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The Medium is the message
Telephone frequency range 250-5,000 Hz Human ear
frequency range 20-20,000 Hz
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The Medium is the message

• So, is McLuhan correct? Lets take 9/11 as an
  example . . . .

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The Global Village

• Not just shrinking the world, but the creation of
  a social cohesion and unity.
• Have the creation of new media and the evolution
  of media proven McLuhan correct? Why/why not? To
  what extent?

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The Global Village

• Again, 9/11 Differing reactions and
  interpretations

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Hot and Cool Media

• Hot high-definition, more information,
  requires little effort
• Cool low-definition, less information,requires
  greater effort

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Hot and Cool Media

• Hot radio, film, photographs, printed word,
  books, lectures
• Cool telephone, television, cartoons, speech,
  dialogues, seminars

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Hot and Cool Media

• So, how about games and the Internet?
• Are there two strict extremes?
• Can media shift as they evolve and new media
  emerge and create convergence?
• As in . . .

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Hot and Cool Media

• . . . High-definition television and VOD, and
  multimedia devices, such as cell phones and
  computers (meta-medium). Examples feature films
  on iPod, film/video on YouTube.

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Assignments

• Chapters 6 and 8, Making Sense of Media
• Examples of remediation
• Project 2 Due Week 10