McLuhan Essay

Personally, I found the McLuhan tetrad as an interesting tool. I will not write about it, though, since I believe many of my classmates will focus on it, and also because I think the tetrad’s dialectical and epistemological foundations are questionable, to say the least.

There are some other aspects of McLuhan thought that I would like to comment, instead. For instance, I found somewhat strange the argument that the medium is the message. Furthermore, how can a medium shape and control the scale and form of human association and action? But then if you think that, according to McLuhan, the personal and social consequences of any medium result from the new scale that is introduced in our affairs by new technologies—then it becomes a little clearer.

Think of the Internet. It is starting to shape, and in some cases control, the level and nature of interaction between human beings. The same can be said about a number of previous disrupting technologies (the motorcar, radio, etc.). I am not sure, though, if this phenomenon is heralded by art, because that’s something I think that McLuhan is trying to say. For instance, he gives the example of cubism:

“Cubism drops inside and outside, top, bottom, back and front in two dimensions; drops the illusion of perspective in favor of instant sensory awareness of the whole. By seizing instant total awareness, cubism announced that the medium is the message.”

Following the argument, does this mean that artistic expressions that favor “instant sensory awareness of the whole” –as opposed to fragmentary representations of the world—are an indication of what is going to happen with the information society? It’s a very interesting proposition. McLuhan goes further, saying that only the serious artist is able to encounter technology with impunity, because he is an expert aware of the changes in sense perception brought about by technology. I can think of a few names of great artists who might fit into this conception—Leonardo da Vinci and Jules Verne come immediately into mind. Some others, such as Richard Wagner, even intended to unite all forms of art into a single super work, the “total work of art of the future.” But in any case, contemporary art is so ambiguous to the average mortal human being, it seems to focus so heavily on isolating things from the context, that I am not sure if it gives us an idea of things to come for the information society, as it relates to the so-called sensory awareness of the whole. In my opinion, it’s quite the contrary: if anything, contemporary art reflects the obsession with customization that is so much in vogue right now. Anybody can a have different interpretation a work of art, just as database technology can tailor anyone’s needs.

Nevertheless, I would say that the moment artists start experimenting with online media, trying to achieve an integration of this sensory experience, then we will need to be vigilant and not disregard them as crazy people.

I found another point that interested me. McLuhan argues that all technologies are extensions of our senses. But then he claims that by putting our physical bodies inside our extended nervous systems, by means of electric media, “we set up a dynamic by which all previous technologies that are mere extensions of our bodies will be translated into information systems.”

Is there a clue we can pick up from here for the future of the information society? To me, it looks like a scenario similar to that of Spielberg’s Minority Report. I am not talking about the intrusive marketing that pervades all society in the motion picture; I’m talking about technologies that can archive, retrieve, and reproduce our emotions and senses, creating a sensory whole that by definition is total and inclusive. Would this in the future be virtual reality to an extent we can only begin to imagine right now?

We need to contrast any ideas about the future against the shape of any and all societies. A future that is feasible for a society is not viable for another. Here McLuhan points not only to hot and cold media but also to the different effects they have in hot and cool cultures. He claims that a hot technology succeeding a cold one can disrupt a society—particularly a tribal one. But at higher speeds (electric speeds), it may serve to restore a pattern of intense participation such as in the U.S. with TV and, previously, radio in Europe. This sounds a bit awkward. What I found interesting, however, is that it lead me to a reflection about the level of involvement of consumers in different cultures, and the implications of this in electronic media. In other words, how cold or hot is the Internet right now, and how will people from all over the world react in the future to changes in the level of hotness and coldness of this medium?

In this regard, the Internet as we know it demands a lot of involvement—the user needs to fill many blanks, retrieve many concepts, and so on. It is a cold medium, as far as I’m concerned. But involvement does not mean knowledge. So, for societies that are interested in acquiring real knowledge, i.e. knowledge through the senses and not only through the eye, is the Internet the right medium to achieve that? Will it ever be?

For the most part, the Internet is visual in nature. It’s sequential and somewhat superficial. We can argue that is even tangible, to the extent that it can be used to get things in your hands. In an information society, where individuals will be interested in learning presumably—McLuhan dixit—through their senses, then the Internet might move to what our controversial author calls the acoustic space, which is integral, simultaneous and inclusive of all senses. It becomes intangible.

Which societies are prepared for this?

Are we in the verge of the emergence of new networking and information technologies, which can be either hot or cold in nature, that will address the knowledge requirements of specific cultures, depending on their level of literacy?

I don’t know. But if that were the case, then I would be inclined to believe that the Internet as we know it will either evolved into something totally different, or will fade leaving room to new media reflecting the realities of different societies.

A final note. If McLuhan is right about the disrupting effects of hot media in cool societies, then an obscure thought comes into mind: political leaders could heighten their ambitions—and possibilities—by the use of electronic media. This is already happening, some might say, because anybody can use the web to express their opinions. But the issue here is control of the web, or any other networking or wireless technologies that have massive outreach. If we think about the implications of using hot electronic media to disrupt social patterns, then the screams for controlling bizarre pornography in the web will certainly dwarf against the necessity to regulate (own?) the web. Imagine Hitler orchestrating his campaigns with hot, electronic, online media.