We’ve gone through two parts now to understand Marshall McLuhan’s “the medium is the message”. I have explained that a hammer makes us see a world of nails by subtly changing our perception; that our technologies may be morally neutral but they influence the decisions and actions we make individually, and collectively by changing our environment. I now want to explain that the hammer mentioned earlier is actually your fist. I touched on this briefly in Part 1 explaining how the hammer is an extension of our fist. It’s a relatively easy analogy to imagine the hammer as a closed fist that becomes attached as you grip its handle. For McLuhan “technology could do anything but add itself on to what we already are” (p. 11). That is all that technology can do is enhance an already existing function. It becomes an extension of Self as you animate the hammer by giving it purpose. We often limit our notion of Self to the visual boundaries of our body. During the process of using the hammer we detach ourselves through language. We might say something like “I am using a hammer.” However, it also makes sense to say that “I am the hammer.” It may sound goofy but really there is no separation in the moment of use. For McLuhan “we become what we behold” (p. x). “A study published recently in the journal Current Biology shows that when you use a tool, your brain incorporates it into your body-plan. The idea of tools being part of your body (especially an expert) is not a new idea.” It tricks your brain into thinking your arm is longer & you will start to behave as such (McCormick, 2009). Our brain treats tools as actual extensions of ourselves for proficient use. The brain does this through the idea of “functional plasticity”. It a phenomenon we experience subconsciously daily. The reason humans can use tools with such high proficiency is because they become part of our body schema. Let’s jump to another analogy of the telephone. The same logic of extension can be used with a phone. During the act of conversing I can say that my mouth becomes your earpiece and my ear becomes your mouthpiece, and vice versa. Through this extension I increase the efficiency of my voice, which can now travel vast differences to whomever I wish to speak to. To me the message of the telephone was the removal of space & time to maintain relationships my parents (albeit limited to audio). The phone changes how I form community as it’s no longer limited to physical proximity. What does this mean? Here we can begin to see how technology reshapes society. Telephones allow us to maintain communities by collapsing time & space. The telephone, like new mediums today (ie social media) have personal & social consequences when introduced, especially on large scales. Very simply communication technology allows us to expands our tribe while removing space & time from the equation. It’s the process of cause & effect. Technologies enlarge “the scale of previous human functions” (p. 8). The hammer enlarged our ability to construct and put together, or to deconstruct with the example of the jackhammer. The telephone increased our ability to reach our community expanding the distance to which we can maintain our relationships. These two different types of mediums have two different effects when it comes to space-time. The hammer is a physical medium that causes an outward explosion, while the telephone as an electronic media causes an implosion. I’ll be exploring that notion in later posts. Part 4 is currently understand written construction. You can read Part 1 or Part 2 if you missed it our check out our blog. Reference: Marshall McLuhan - Understanding Media: The extensions of man
2 Comments
Scott
9/3/2017 01:11:09 am
The best explanation I could find this topic.
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Robin GagneWhat is technology? Marshall Mcluhan answers that question with a pithy saying that "the medium is the message." His philosophical understanding of technology is that they are the extensions of man. In the following series on Marshall McLuhan I use a hammer as a simple analogy to explain why the medium is the message. ArchivesCategories |
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