SMC219Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Instrumentalism, Communication Theory
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Major member of the toronto school of communication: central in the way of changing how we think about media and communication, does(cid:374)"t (cid:373)ea(cid:374) he (cid:449)as right a(cid:271)out e(cid:448)erythi(cid:374)g, (cid:271)ut he (cid:449)as a pioneer of communication theory. Definition of medium: something in the middle: a medium is anything that connects one thing to another thing. In terms of communication, that can mean anything that connects our senses to the world: mcluhan came up with the ground-breaking idea, that when we use media, we are extending our own human senses. E. g. it matters less what is being said, rather than you are saying something: the medium changes the message we deliver. And since the medium is an extension of ourselves, it also changes us. The way we send, receive, and interact, creates norms, standards, rules, assumptions, and expectations: these rules and expectations are more important than what the message is, sometimes, the medium creates the content.