Thoughts on McLuhan

Intro
Martin Bangemann was, according to some, the first to use and define the term information society in '93 when he, together with a group of others, wrote the recommendations to the European Council on the measure that should be taken into consideration for the infrastructure of information. "Europe and the global information society". I would like to start this essay by quoting a short paragraph from the report: "The information infrastructure can prove an extraordinary instrument for serving the people of Europe and improving our society by fully reflecting the original and often unique values which underpin and give meaning to our lives."

Marshall McLuhan would not be too pleased with these statements. In the thinking of McLuhan, we surround ourselves with various tools in our life. We wear clothing, use glasses, use tools to perform work etc. etc. McLuhan believes that these tools fundamentally are extensions of ourselves, e.g. that the glasses are an extension of our eyes or our sight. However, these tools are not entities without context or impact; we create and shape the tools that in turn shape us; we er influenced by the inventions that we create, as in this case the technology. Parallel to this, we distance ourselves from the tools we create according to McLuhan. The story of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own image, however without knowing that it was his own image, is used as an analogy of how we distance us from our actions and become numb to the impacts of the very tools we create ourselves. McLuhan says we create this distance fundamentally to protect ourselves.

"We have to understand to be able to be opposed" and McLuhan suggest the four everlasting laws of media as a tool to analyze and understand. These are the four fundamental questions we need to ask when confronted with new media. We need to do this to be able to get involved and to control what is happening to our society and our lives, as opposed to be numb, distance ourselves from the tools we create and the consequences. As McLuhan says: "Nothing is inevitable as long as we are prepared to pay attention"

To be able to analyze the expected changes from the future information society, I will, to stay within the page limit of the assignment, focus specifically on the changes I believe will occur on the internet and specifically on the image of the future web sites, as shown short assignment.The end of human interaction as we know it?

I will analyze this scenario by using the four laws of media by McLuhan, and assume that this text is know to the reader.

Enhance
To be able to interact virtually through the internet of the information society, will enhance mobility, not in the physical sense as that is no longer "needed", but much more in the virtual sense. It could enhance learning (potential) as it would be possible not only to visit, i.e. to see, foreign web sites as today, but really visit the sites, meaning travelling virtually to the places or sites and interacting in a much more advanced way compared to today. By breaking down physical boundaries such as distance, time, cost, and maybe even language, this would be the enabler of a virtual learning space.

Obsolete
Unfortunately, the picture of virtual life on line makes me very sad. The technology is interesting and can certainly enable powerfull and interesting changes into our society. However, much is made obsolte by introducing this virtual life. What happens to books, i.e. the written word? I fear the technology could make it obsolete. Furthermore, as described in the web site story, the need for physical social interaction could potentially be obsolte (or decreased). Taking that thought to the extreme, one could have an on-line marriage with a wife or husband, that in physical reality could be somewhere else in the world.

Retrieve
In the words of McLuhan, "you don't need to be anywhere to do everything and know everything" in the global village, because information now comes from all directions at once and we live in the accoustic world. He is arguing that the electric media retrieves the old, dark age. To a large extent, the experience of the old days is retrieved, when you knew everything about everybody and news travlled fast.

Reverse
In effect, the move toward having more experiences online though virtual web sites, would lead to having less real experiences.