THEORIZING ABOUT MEDIA :

1. MARSHALL MACLUHAN : (1911-1980)

• The Mechanical Bride1951

• Understanding Media : the extensions of man 1964

• “The Medium is the Massage” (Massage not message)

Terms coined by him:

“The medium is the message”

“The Global Village”

Marshall is a Canadian, a pioneer of Media studies, his ideas continue to be

discussed today. In The Mechanical Bride, he engaged in discussing the effects of
advertising on society and culture.

Second Book: Understanding Media: what’s important is the media itself and not
the content, he used an analogy, electric light, Content in and of itself (per see=
in and of itself) has no particular value. But the kind of the “electric light” or
rather the media used to transfer the media and the way it is presented changes
the act, or the effect of the news.

Response is different between visual and audio media, the visual effect makes a
difference.

A deliberate play of words, Macluhan called the media in his book the Massage
rather than message, he believed that, what he called visual individualistic print
culture will come to an end by what he called the electronic means. Example: the
replacement of the physical book by the electronic book.

Quote: “The arrival of the print technology ((which came by the 19th century))
contributes to the importance of certain trends in the modern world.” It
contributed in spreading individualism, democracy, capitalism, nationalism and
protestanism.

Protestant reformation, 1517-1534, a revolt against the teachings of the catholic

church and the authority of the Pope began when King Henry removed the Pope
from the ruling. Martin Luther from Germany started the reformations, he
translated the bible into German. Before, it was written only in Greek, Latin and
Hebrew, languages only available for for educated people from the Aristocratic
class. Ordinary people could not read it and had to conform to th Pope’s sayings.

2. Albert Bondura: 1925

 • 1961 The Bobo Doll Experiment: 36 boys and 36 girls between the age of 3
and 6.

Half of the children watched an adult treating a doll with violence and the rest
watched the adult treating the doll gently. The children who observed the
violence treated the doll aggressively as well.

Conclusion: The media presenting violence to children (like in video games)

grows violence into them.

3. John Fiske 1939: British

He disagrees with the idea that mass audiences consume products without
thinking. There is no such audience which is not thinking in critical
situations.

He thinks that the audiences have different levels of education, the

reaction varies according to the audience’s media literacy (Media literacy
is an adjective, we never say “ A media literate” , say “A media literate
person”_ the noun_ )

4. Vance Peckard (1914-1996)

• The Hidden Persuaders (1957)  Subliminal Influences

• The Waste Makers (1960) planned obsolescence

• The Naked Society (1964)  Loss of Privacy

Obsolete: Outdate, and needs to be replaced

When you promote consumerism you harm citizenry. The new electronic
technology makes a loss of privacy for consumers

Subliminal Influences are subliminal messages that are passed quickly in images
and sounds that people do not consciously see but unconsciously are influenced
by such.

5. Neil Postman: (1931-2003)

“information has become a form of garbage, not only incapable of answering

most fundamental human questions, but barely useful in providing coherent
direction to the solution of even mundane problems”

Technology- Information Overload.