The limitation of McLuhan medium theory-assignment代写

下面为大家整理的一篇优秀assignment范文- The limitation of McLuhan medium theory，供大家参考学习，这篇论文讨论了麦克卢汉媒介理论的局限性。在麦克卢汉的著作《理解媒介》中，作者认为媒介对信息、内容等有反作用，决定信息的结构和清晰度。还有媒介对人的感知有强烈的影响，好比书籍媒介影响人们的视觉，视听媒介影响人们的触觉。

“The medium is the message” was concluded by McLuhan (1964:8). It is a famous but controversial statement in the medium theory. McLuhan believed that basically the exchange of information among different bodies constitutes the workflow of medium. He said that “.most people…as still blissfully ignorant of what the media do to them; unaware that because of their pervasive effects on man, it is the medium itself that is the message, not the content…”. (McLuhan, 1995:237) Furthermore, McLuhan (1995:239) defined the media as “the inclusion of technology whatever that creates extensions of the human body and senses, from clothing to the computer.” He proposed a television example to explain. “Television is the most significant of the electric media because it permeates nearly every home in the country, extending the central nervous system of every viewer as it works over and molds the entire sensorium with the ultimate message.” (McLuhan, 1995:245) In his definition and example, he illustrated the basic meaning of media and how the media works and evolves in society.

However, his explanation stays at a superficial level, which touches upon only the content and the carrier of the message, for example, television. As a matter of fact, he neglects the factors which are underlying but influencing the message contents and exchanging forms. McLuhan (1964:8) also expressed the significance of any new medium which was “the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.” From the definitions and statements proposed by McLuhan, it is easy to conclude that his medium theory concentrates on the content of message and on the broadcast channels and approaches, especially in aspect of technological evolvement. However, McLuhan fails to consider the significance of the contents and suffering from technological determinism, which limits his medium theory. In the message broadcasting process, it is undeniable that the advancement of the technology highly accelerates the speed of the message broadcasting, however, what really attract and influence the audiences is the message contents themselves.

In the process of passing information, the message contents and the exchange channels are not the only factors involved. The form, the nature and the effects generated by message distributing should also be taken into consideration (McLuhan, 1964). To some extent, the effects brought about by messages overwhelm the message contents themselves. The effects of the messages could exert a strong influence over the recipients, meanwhile, the messages contents themselves are just stories, which leaves no marks on human life or mind.

First, in the real world, medium matter is because of the significance of the words which reflect the reality or the truth. People acquaint and understand the society through receiving useful and meaningful information. If the messages delivered contain no popular or significant contents, it could be easily ignored by the recipients. Therefore, medium not just matters the messages themselves, but also matters the significance of the contents. Whether the contents could touch the life and social network of one person decides the usefulness of the messages. From this perspective, we can conclude that the message contents play a key role in the medium rather than the messages.

Second, in the message distributing process, the broadcasting channels serve as an irreplaceable link. However, on the other hand, the channels are only links in the distribution chains and should not be put as a priority. McLuhan (1964:8) introduced that the formation of any new form of medium involves the changes scale or pace or pattern of message broadcast. Actually, in practice, the introduction of any new form of new medium involves many more factors rather than the above-mentioned factors. The nature of the new medium, the form taken by the new medium, the effects brought about by the new medium all influence the emergence of new medium formation. Technological advancement, in this case, only plays a small portion in medium progress. However, McLuhan neglected the soft factors, but only focused on the seeable hard factors, which flawed his theory over medium.

In a nutshell, it is obvious that McLuhan fails to take the messages contents and invisible influencing factors into consideration, which limits his theory from further development. Therefore, it is not only the messages that matter, but also the significance of the contents.

Reference

McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: the extensions of man. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

McLuhan, M. & McLuhan, E. Zingrone, F. (1995). Essential McLuhan. New York, NY: Perseus Books.

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