globalization & new media: theoretical context and macro trends
Fontys - FHJ - Internetjournalistiek - WG1
theo

!2
ploeg, @theoploeg
understanding the impact of media
marshall mcluhan (1911-1980)
!7
toronto, 1930
McLuhan’s cycle of change
The new media
technology
alters our sense
ratios

We invent a new
media
technology

New models of
reality give rise to
new inventions

The altered
sense ratio
alters our
perception

‘we shape our tools
and tools shape us’,

!

Marshall McLuhan

The altered
perception
changes the way
we think

With a new way of
thinking we
create new models
of reality

cycle of change
mcluhan's main thought #1: media are extensions of some human faculty
mcluhan’s main thought #2: the medium is the message
mcluhan’s main thought #3: walking backwards !12 the future
into
‘history is bunk’, henry ford
‘History

is more or less bunk. It’s
tradition. We don’t want
tradition. We want to live in the
present, and the only history
that is worth a tinker’s damn is
the history that we make today.’

henry ford in chicago tribune, 1916
adam smith (1723-1790)
‘The

value of any commodity is
equal to the quantity of labour
which it enables him to purchase
or command. Labour, therefore,
is the real measure of the
exchangeable value of
commodities.’

adam smith in ‘the wealth of nations’, 1776
surroundings of manchester 1780
9
early 20th century: capitalists!1as benefactor
fordism (1910 - 1965)
fordism: shopping as capitalist action
max weber: ’entzauberung der welt’
back to marshall mcluhan
‘societies have always been shapes
more by the nature of the media by
which men communicate than by the
content of the communication’

mcluhan as ‚technologal determinist’
tribal man living in acoustic space

in between: man becoming more symbolic

literate man living in the gutenberg galaxy

network man living in the global village
historical fases according to mcluhan
!26
acoustic space
• ear is dominant organ (sense)
• community as powerful structure
• hearing is believing
• truth is fluid and non-lineair
• time and place don’t exist
• involvement and equality
• myths

characteristics of acoustic space
!28
liquid truth at the agora in athens
!29
gutenberg galaxy
around 1500
• eye as dominant organ (sense)
• truth becomes universal
• individual replaces community
• hierarchy and centralization
• privacy, distance and isolation
• time and place becoming important
• objectivity and rationality
• sound becomes vision
• seeing is believing
• becoming as central human idea
characteristics of gutenberg galaxy
books are vehicles for objectivity!31
and rationality
2
the!3global village
newspaper as hot medium: they feel like a hot bath
!34
tv as cool, electric medium
!35
1960: US elections broadcast on tv
in Playboy (1969)
‘The

computer thus holds out the
promise of a technologically
engendered state of universal
understanding and unity, a state
of absorption in the logos that
could knit mankind into one
family and create a perpetuity of
collective harmony and peace.’
the electronic age
macluhan’s advice: don’t drown in the media mahlström
observe, take distance, find patterns
so, what macro trends do we see?
trend #1: news isn’t relevant anymore
hierarchies implode, subjectivity, experience, emotions, involvement, liquidity
trend #2: storytelling is back
subjectivity, experience, emotions, involvement, liquidity
trend #3: curating instead of classic journalism
hierarchies implode, subjectivity, experience, emotions, involvement, liquidity
trend #4: mass is defragments in niches
hierarchies implode, subjectivity, involvement, liquidity, being, networks
trend #5: local and global
hierarchies implode, subjectivity, involvement, liquidity, being, networks
trend #6: the network is everything
hierarchies implode, subjectivity, involvement, liquidity, being, networks
trend #7: just be
subjectivity, involvement, liquidity, being
a few examples
thank you!

Cmdmglnm13