MECO1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Technological Determinism, Raymond Williams, Supersaturation
20 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
MECO1001
SEM 1 2018
MECO1001
Week 1
Points
●“We do not live with, but in, media….media are to us as water is to fish.” - Mark
Deuze, 2012, Media Life
Week 2 - Mediation & New Media
Key Theories/Theorists/Readings
● ‘The Medium is the Message’ - Marshall McLuhan
●‘The Texture of Experience’ – Silverstone
●‘What exactly is media and what is 'new' in new media?’ – Cinque
●Nick Couldry
●‘The Public Sphere’ - Jurgen Habermas
Points
●Media: (→ TO BE NOTED: outdated definition) The main means of mass
communication, esp. newspapers, radio, and television, regarded collectively; the
reporters, journalists, etc., working for organizations engaged in such communication.
Also, as a count noun: a particular means of mass communication.’ (Oxford English
Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989)
oNo longer merely mass communication
oConsumers are also producers, not just journalists
oCan’t be fixed in time
oMissing the point of convergence
oConcentrating about news media → reporting, journalism → ignored
entertainment, advertising etc.
●Computing: A physical object (as a disk, tape cartridge, etc.) used for the storage of
data.’
●Changing meaning (definition) of media:
oused since 16th Century
oearly 17th Century: “sense of intervening or immediate agency or substance”
(Williams, 1985)
o18th Century: used in relation to newspapers
oWidely used when broadcasting due to the rising importance of the press in
communications
o19th Century: used in relation to not only quick spreading of news stories to a
large audience, but taking into account advertising, entertainment etc.
= definition
= quote
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
MECO1001
SEM 1 2018
oUnpacking → emphasis on the one-way transmission model of media in
previous definitions, doesn’t take into account the effect of the mediation
between sender and receiver
oIn media there is a ‘convergence of three senses’ → gives media technological
as well as social and cultural meaning
▪Intervening substance - ‘intervening or intermediate agency or
substance’
▪Technical differentiation - conscious technical sense, as in the
distinction between print and sound and vision as media’
▪Economic player in the marketplace - ‘specialized capitalist sense, in
which a newspaper or broadcasting service ... is a medium for
something else, such as advertising’
o“The technical sense of medium, as something with its own specific and
determining properties ... has been in practice compatible with a social sense
of media in which the practices and institutions are seen as agencies for quite
other than their primary purposes” (Williams, 1985) → medium can refer to
the specific platform (i.e. newspapers) in tandem with its use in society, and
how it is received and used
●The Medium is the Message → Marshall McLuhan
oMcLuhan was a technological determinist
▪Technological Determinism: technology-driven behaviour
oDeliberately paradoxical message, argues that rather than the encoded
message, one must also consider the form that the message is encoded into
o“information and perception which forms our thoughts, structures our
experience, and determines our views of the world about us” (McLuhan, 1975)
oThe form rather than the content
oThroughout history, what has been communicated has been less important
than the particular medium through which people communicate → the
technology that transfers the message changes society
oShift from oral to print → print encourages emphasis on visual, from dominant
sense organ being the ear
oTelegraph, television, radio, telephone → encourages participation by
consumers → creating a global village → would later develop into the internet
community
oPrior to McLuhan, general understanding suggested that a medium acts as a
container for its message, which is embedded or otherwise encoded within.
This message is subsequently propagated via a channel, or channels, within
the chosen medium to a receiver who is then able to decode the message. This
sort of simplistic communications model can be traced back to Shannon and
Weaver.7 McLuhan’s Zen-like statement forced a radical re-thinking of this
impersonal model that naively supposed the medium to have no great impact
upon the nature of the message. If now we are to treat the message and the
= definition
= quote
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
We do not live with, but in, media . media are to us as water is to fish. - mark. The medium is the message" - marshall mcluhan. What exactly is media and what is "new" in new media?" cinque. Media: ( to be noted: outdated definition) the main means of mass communication, esp. newspapers, radio, and television, regarded collectively; the reporters, journalists, etc. , working for organizations engaged in such communication. Also, as a count noun: a particular means of mass communication. " (oxford english. Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989: no longer merely mass communication, consumers are also producers, not just journalists, can"t be fixed in time, missing the point of convergence, concentrating about news media reporting, journalism ignored entertainment, advertising etc. Computing: a physical object (as a disk, tape cartridge, etc. ) used for the storage of data. ". This message is subsequently propagated via a channel, or channels, within the chosen medium to a receiver who is then able to decode the message.
