This document summarizes Shannon Mattern's presentation on how media ecologists viewed the history of architecture through the lens of media history. It discusses how figures like McLuhan, Giedion, Innis, and Mumford characterized the concurrent evolutions of architecture and communications media. It also examines the concept of media biases and how different media have biases toward aspects like time, space, sensory experience, social structures, and content.
1) Technological determinism argues that technology radically shapes human thought, culture, and society through new communication mediums.
2) McLuhan analyzed how different eras like oral, literate, print, and electronic ages relied on different dominant communication mediums that changed human existence.
3) McLuhan believed each new medium supersedes the previous one and has wide-ranging effects beyond the messages or content it conveys, with the "medium is the message."
Lecture slides on McLuhan lecture for ARIN2600 Technocultures at the University of Sydney. This explores McLuhan's probing approach to media, which positions technology as an extension of human faculties. By implication, changes in media / technology change what it is to be human. McLuhan remains a controversial, but influential figure in media and new media studies.
The document provides an overview of media ecology theory. Some key points:
1) Media ecology theory studies how media environments influence society and individuals. It asserts that media profoundly shapes culture, attitudes, and behaviors.
2) The theory was first conceptualized by Marshall McLuhan, who coined the phrase "the medium is the message" to describe how the medium used to deliver a message influences how the message is received.
3) Media ecology theory examines how different eras or "ages" of media like oral, print, and electronic media have impacted communication and culture over time.
Technological determinism, media ecology and medium theory are all interrelated and make sense together. This paper will define those three terms and explain their purposes, as well as their relation to each other. Understanding technological determinism, media ecology, as well as medium theory is particularly crucial today in our modernized society. It allows one to better perceive the evolution of technologies and its impacts on societies and on people.
This document discusses cultural globalization at the beginning of the 21st century. It defines cultural globalization as the proliferation of global cultural trends, generated by new technologies and powerful non-state actors. Cultural globalization represents various forms of connecting cultures globally and establishing different types of relationships between world cultures. The document examines concepts of culture, civilization, and values in understanding cultural globalization.
Jonathan Beller, Digital Ideology PresentationJonathanBeller
The document provides a summary and critique of digital ideology and media from several perspectives. McLuhan argued that new media technologies alter human senses and agency in ways that are not easily recognized. Enzensberger criticized the bourgeois media as being ideologically sterile and aimed only at control. Baudrillard saw media as preventing response and communication through "the terrorism of the code." The document then discusses how media functions as capital through advertising and data extraction, transforming the nature of value and exploitation in capitalist society.
The document discusses various theories about how technology and cyberspace impact human experience and society. It describes perspectives ranging from technology being a totalizing force that fundamentally changes humans, to technology augmenting rather than replacing the embodied human experience. The author, Daniel Downes, proposes an "interactive realism" perspective, arguing that cyberspace can be viewed as a socially constructed "iconic landscape" rather than a virtual world detached from physical reality. He believes digitization recalibrates rather than replaces the body in communication, and that innovation rather than structures of thought defines technological societies.
This document discusses forms of global culture at the beginning of the 21st century. It analyzes mass media culture and corporatist culture that have emerged from globalized cultural phenomena. It describes how mass media like television and the internet have created a global communication society and mass culture. It also discusses how multinational corporations have influenced the development of a corporate and consumerist culture connected to the global economy. The mass media are seen as actively shaping social reality and manipulating audiences on a global scale.
1) Technological determinism argues that technology radically shapes human thought, culture, and society through new communication mediums.
2) McLuhan analyzed how different eras like oral, literate, print, and electronic ages relied on different dominant communication mediums that changed human existence.
3) McLuhan believed each new medium supersedes the previous one and has wide-ranging effects beyond the messages or content it conveys, with the "medium is the message."
Lecture slides on McLuhan lecture for ARIN2600 Technocultures at the University of Sydney. This explores McLuhan's probing approach to media, which positions technology as an extension of human faculties. By implication, changes in media / technology change what it is to be human. McLuhan remains a controversial, but influential figure in media and new media studies.
The document provides an overview of media ecology theory. Some key points:
1) Media ecology theory studies how media environments influence society and individuals. It asserts that media profoundly shapes culture, attitudes, and behaviors.
2) The theory was first conceptualized by Marshall McLuhan, who coined the phrase "the medium is the message" to describe how the medium used to deliver a message influences how the message is received.
3) Media ecology theory examines how different eras or "ages" of media like oral, print, and electronic media have impacted communication and culture over time.
Technological determinism, media ecology and medium theory are all interrelated and make sense together. This paper will define those three terms and explain their purposes, as well as their relation to each other. Understanding technological determinism, media ecology, as well as medium theory is particularly crucial today in our modernized society. It allows one to better perceive the evolution of technologies and its impacts on societies and on people.
This document discusses cultural globalization at the beginning of the 21st century. It defines cultural globalization as the proliferation of global cultural trends, generated by new technologies and powerful non-state actors. Cultural globalization represents various forms of connecting cultures globally and establishing different types of relationships between world cultures. The document examines concepts of culture, civilization, and values in understanding cultural globalization.
Jonathan Beller, Digital Ideology PresentationJonathanBeller
The document provides a summary and critique of digital ideology and media from several perspectives. McLuhan argued that new media technologies alter human senses and agency in ways that are not easily recognized. Enzensberger criticized the bourgeois media as being ideologically sterile and aimed only at control. Baudrillard saw media as preventing response and communication through "the terrorism of the code." The document then discusses how media functions as capital through advertising and data extraction, transforming the nature of value and exploitation in capitalist society.
The document discusses various theories about how technology and cyberspace impact human experience and society. It describes perspectives ranging from technology being a totalizing force that fundamentally changes humans, to technology augmenting rather than replacing the embodied human experience. The author, Daniel Downes, proposes an "interactive realism" perspective, arguing that cyberspace can be viewed as a socially constructed "iconic landscape" rather than a virtual world detached from physical reality. He believes digitization recalibrates rather than replaces the body in communication, and that innovation rather than structures of thought defines technological societies.
This document discusses forms of global culture at the beginning of the 21st century. It analyzes mass media culture and corporatist culture that have emerged from globalized cultural phenomena. It describes how mass media like television and the internet have created a global communication society and mass culture. It also discusses how multinational corporations have influenced the development of a corporate and consumerist culture connected to the global economy. The mass media are seen as actively shaping social reality and manipulating audiences on a global scale.
McLuhan was a media theorist who believed that media are extensions of human senses and faculties. His most famous work explored how the characteristics of different media shape society. Technological determinism asserts that a society's technology drives cultural and social changes. The movie Inception depicts dreams as extensions of the subconscious mind. Advanced technology allows people to share and explore dreams on deeper levels. Totems help distinguish reality from dreams, while projections are extensions of the subconscious that respond violently if threatened. The film shows how technology can be used to overcome limitations like death but may also risk becoming trapped in endless dreams.
The document discusses Marshall McLuhan's theory of technological determinism. McLuhan believed that new communication technologies transform human experiences and society in fundamental ways. He argued that electronic media would tie the world into a global village. McLuhan focused on how media extend human senses across space and time, rather than issues like exploitation or centralized control. While influential in the 1960s, later research failed to empirically support McLuhan's assertions about the effects of new media.
PowerPoint prepared for a presentation at the “Sémiotiques et Rhétorique” workshop in Algeria in 2008, at which it was, in the end, unfortunately impossible to participate
This document summarizes and discusses the concept of "networked reenactments" which are experiments in communication across different fields of knowledge. It describes how various media like television documentaries, websites, museum exhibits, and academic works have used reenactments to help explain concepts to diverse audiences simultaneously. These reenactments became "epistemological melodramas" that tried to map connections between different knowledge domains and address many groups at once with limited control over how knowledge was presented. The document analyzes a TV program on Leonardo da Vinci as an example of using layered reenactments through simulation, narrative, and interactive elements to connect past and present understandings.
Technological determinism is a theory that technology drives social and cultural change in predictable ways. It argues that (1) technology develops along an inevitable path independent of human influence, and (2) the introduction of new technologies causes inherent social effects as societies reorganize around the new technologies. Individual interpretations vary but share the ideas that technology determines history and progress through its innovations, which societies cannot control and must adapt to.
The document discusses the dual existence dynamics of the informational society. Key parameters like economy, space, and state of existence exist through two coexisting dimensions: local/settlement and global/movement. These dimensions are experienced simultaneously. For example, time is experienced through both biological time (settlement) and timeless time (movement). The state of existence has shifted from a real perception of reality to a virtual one ("real virtuality") as symbols and codes are now shared globally online. This has created an imbalance with too much reliance on the virtual/movement dimension. For a stable informational society, there needs to be a rebalancing of the local/settlement and global/movement dimensions and a renewed value placed on the
The post modernity as ideology of neoliberalism and globalizationFernando Alcoforado
1. Postmodernity emerged as a cultural reaction to the failure of Modernity to realize human progress and happiness. It questions notions of truth, reason, and progress that characterized Modernity.
2. Jean-François Lyotard argued that Postmodernity results from the death of grand narratives of Modernity based on ideals of equality, liberty, and progress. Postmodernity is characterized by uncertainty and fragmentation.
3. Postmodernity can be seen as an ideological weapon of neoliberal capitalism to incorporate social imaginaries that benefit ruling classes and mitigate class conflict, silencing issues to prevent worker awareness of their true historical conditions.
This document summarizes Stuart Hall's critique of two paradigms in cultural studies - a "culturalist" strand and a "structuralist" strand. Hall sees both paradigms as having strengths and weaknesses. The author of this document then provides their own critique, arguing that both paradigms risk dualism by separating social consciousness from social conditions. The author proposes an alternative view that sees social structure as pre-existing for individuals but incarnate in human activity, avoiding dualism while recognizing the role of both social structures and human agency.
The post modernity as ideology of neoliberalism and globalizationFernando Alcoforado
The failure of the Enlightenment and Modernity in the realization of human progress and of happiness achievement for humans paved the way for the advent of Post-Modernity that is a cultural reaction to the loss of confidence in the universal potential of the Enlightenment project and Modernity. The Postmodernism means, therefore, a reaction to what is modern. Some schools of thought are located its origin in the alleged exhaustion of the modernity project by the end of the twentieth century.
1) The document discusses different viewpoints on modernism, modernity, and modernization and their relationship to the modern world.
2) It explores the origins of the concept of modern humanity in the early 20th century and T.S. Eliot's critique of modern humanity's disbelief in God.
3) Modernism emerged in different places, including France in the 1840s influenced by the writings of Baudelaire, and the US in the early 20th century through poets like Eliot and Pound.
My presentation at the Media Ecology Association Convention 2010. Objective: to explore and expand the ecological metaphor including concepts like media evolution, media extinction, human-media coevolution, etc.
This lecture looks at Determinism and Technological Determinism. This lecture is part of the Media and Cultural Theories module on the MSc and MA in Creative Technology and Creative Games at The University of Salford.
Modernity refers to a historical period beginning in the 15th century that saw the rise of capitalism, industrialization, and secular rational thinking. It is divided into three phases: early modernity from 1453-1789, classical modernity from 1789-1900, and late modernity from 1900-1989. Modernism emerged in response to industrialization and urbanization in the 19th-20th centuries and is reflected in artistic and cultural movements. While related, modernity refers to a specific time period, whereas modernism refers to trends in art, culture, and social relations characterized by the development of the modern world.
This document discusses renewed interest in the medieval period in both Europe and America. It argues that looking at the Middle Ages allows us to better understand the roots of modern problems and our origins. Examining medieval history is like a doctor examining a patient's childhood to understand their current health issues. However, some question if this interest in medievalism is just a postmodern fascination or fulfills a deeper need to reconnect with spirituality in a post-Enlightenment world. The document also discusses how the medieval period can provide a framework for rethinking history and identity outside of linear, progressive models.
Postmodern geography emerged as a reaction to modernism and its emphasis on grand theories and rational explanations of human behavior and society. Postmodernism rejects the idea of objective truth and universal reason, instead emphasizing particular perspectives and pluralism. It first appeared in fields like architecture and literature before being incorporated into geography starting in the 1970s. Postmodern geographers reject meta-narratives and focus on specific contexts and differences in space. They also aim to restore the importance of geography by emphasizing how spatial factors shape social and economic processes. However, postmodern geography has been criticized for potentially promoting intellectual nihilism and for deemphasizing important concepts like social class.
Post modern theory(critical interrogations) by Nadia SaeedNadiaSaeed20
This document provides a summary of the book "Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations" by Steven Best and Douglas Kellner. The book systematically analyzes postmodern theory and evaluates its relevance for critical social theory. It provides an introduction and critique of theorists like Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Baudrillard, and Lyotard. It also discusses postmodern feminist theory and the politics of identity. While postmodern theory provides insights, the authors argue it lacks adequate methodological and political perspectives for a critical social theory or radical politics. The document examines chapters on these various postmodern thinkers and their critiques of and departures from modernism.
THE CRISIS OF MODERNITY OF THE ARAB-ISLAMIC WORLDRaul Bereczki
This document summarizes the crisis of modernity in the Arab-Islamic world. It discusses three main attitudes toward modernity that emerged: rejection, combining traditional values with modern ideas, and fully supporting modernization through westernization. The document also discusses the roots of Islamic fundamentalism in the colonial experience and Cold War era. Key factors influencing the adoption of modernity included the association with colonialism and a reluctance to separate religion from politics according to the Western model of secularism. Overall, the crisis of modernity stems from complex reactions to Western influence over many decades.
This document discusses the concept of the "social" in social media. It argues that while social media platforms construct an idea of social interaction, their use can also mobilize people for political and social change, as seen in events like the Arab Spring and 2011 London Riots. The document reviews literature on the concept of the social, including work by Raymond Williams that traces the term's history and ambiguity. It proposes looking at social media through the lens of "social energy" to understand its role in political expression and mobilization of large groups.
This document discusses Jean Baudrillard's theories about media and society. It outlines how Baudrillard initially criticized Marshall McLuhan's views but later adopted McLuhan's idea that "the medium is the message" as a central tenet. Baudrillard argued that media create a hyperreality and world of simulations that has replaced the real. He also believed that media dissolve meaning and distinctions between media and reality through a process of implosion. While McLuhan saw potential benefits of media, Baudrillard viewed media more negatively as isolating individuals and preventing meaningful communication.
Overview of technological determinism and technological inevitablism. Analysis of implications in four key areas; environment, nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence, poverty.
McLuhan was a media theorist who believed that media are extensions of human senses and faculties. His most famous work explored how the characteristics of different media shape society. Technological determinism asserts that a society's technology drives cultural and social changes. The movie Inception depicts dreams as extensions of the subconscious mind. Advanced technology allows people to share and explore dreams on deeper levels. Totems help distinguish reality from dreams, while projections are extensions of the subconscious that respond violently if threatened. The film shows how technology can be used to overcome limitations like death but may also risk becoming trapped in endless dreams.
The document discusses Marshall McLuhan's theory of technological determinism. McLuhan believed that new communication technologies transform human experiences and society in fundamental ways. He argued that electronic media would tie the world into a global village. McLuhan focused on how media extend human senses across space and time, rather than issues like exploitation or centralized control. While influential in the 1960s, later research failed to empirically support McLuhan's assertions about the effects of new media.
PowerPoint prepared for a presentation at the “Sémiotiques et Rhétorique” workshop in Algeria in 2008, at which it was, in the end, unfortunately impossible to participate
This document summarizes and discusses the concept of "networked reenactments" which are experiments in communication across different fields of knowledge. It describes how various media like television documentaries, websites, museum exhibits, and academic works have used reenactments to help explain concepts to diverse audiences simultaneously. These reenactments became "epistemological melodramas" that tried to map connections between different knowledge domains and address many groups at once with limited control over how knowledge was presented. The document analyzes a TV program on Leonardo da Vinci as an example of using layered reenactments through simulation, narrative, and interactive elements to connect past and present understandings.
Technological determinism is a theory that technology drives social and cultural change in predictable ways. It argues that (1) technology develops along an inevitable path independent of human influence, and (2) the introduction of new technologies causes inherent social effects as societies reorganize around the new technologies. Individual interpretations vary but share the ideas that technology determines history and progress through its innovations, which societies cannot control and must adapt to.
The document discusses the dual existence dynamics of the informational society. Key parameters like economy, space, and state of existence exist through two coexisting dimensions: local/settlement and global/movement. These dimensions are experienced simultaneously. For example, time is experienced through both biological time (settlement) and timeless time (movement). The state of existence has shifted from a real perception of reality to a virtual one ("real virtuality") as symbols and codes are now shared globally online. This has created an imbalance with too much reliance on the virtual/movement dimension. For a stable informational society, there needs to be a rebalancing of the local/settlement and global/movement dimensions and a renewed value placed on the
The post modernity as ideology of neoliberalism and globalizationFernando Alcoforado
1. Postmodernity emerged as a cultural reaction to the failure of Modernity to realize human progress and happiness. It questions notions of truth, reason, and progress that characterized Modernity.
2. Jean-François Lyotard argued that Postmodernity results from the death of grand narratives of Modernity based on ideals of equality, liberty, and progress. Postmodernity is characterized by uncertainty and fragmentation.
3. Postmodernity can be seen as an ideological weapon of neoliberal capitalism to incorporate social imaginaries that benefit ruling classes and mitigate class conflict, silencing issues to prevent worker awareness of their true historical conditions.
This document summarizes Stuart Hall's critique of two paradigms in cultural studies - a "culturalist" strand and a "structuralist" strand. Hall sees both paradigms as having strengths and weaknesses. The author of this document then provides their own critique, arguing that both paradigms risk dualism by separating social consciousness from social conditions. The author proposes an alternative view that sees social structure as pre-existing for individuals but incarnate in human activity, avoiding dualism while recognizing the role of both social structures and human agency.
The post modernity as ideology of neoliberalism and globalizationFernando Alcoforado
The failure of the Enlightenment and Modernity in the realization of human progress and of happiness achievement for humans paved the way for the advent of Post-Modernity that is a cultural reaction to the loss of confidence in the universal potential of the Enlightenment project and Modernity. The Postmodernism means, therefore, a reaction to what is modern. Some schools of thought are located its origin in the alleged exhaustion of the modernity project by the end of the twentieth century.
1) The document discusses different viewpoints on modernism, modernity, and modernization and their relationship to the modern world.
2) It explores the origins of the concept of modern humanity in the early 20th century and T.S. Eliot's critique of modern humanity's disbelief in God.
3) Modernism emerged in different places, including France in the 1840s influenced by the writings of Baudelaire, and the US in the early 20th century through poets like Eliot and Pound.
My presentation at the Media Ecology Association Convention 2010. Objective: to explore and expand the ecological metaphor including concepts like media evolution, media extinction, human-media coevolution, etc.
This lecture looks at Determinism and Technological Determinism. This lecture is part of the Media and Cultural Theories module on the MSc and MA in Creative Technology and Creative Games at The University of Salford.
Modernity refers to a historical period beginning in the 15th century that saw the rise of capitalism, industrialization, and secular rational thinking. It is divided into three phases: early modernity from 1453-1789, classical modernity from 1789-1900, and late modernity from 1900-1989. Modernism emerged in response to industrialization and urbanization in the 19th-20th centuries and is reflected in artistic and cultural movements. While related, modernity refers to a specific time period, whereas modernism refers to trends in art, culture, and social relations characterized by the development of the modern world.
This document discusses renewed interest in the medieval period in both Europe and America. It argues that looking at the Middle Ages allows us to better understand the roots of modern problems and our origins. Examining medieval history is like a doctor examining a patient's childhood to understand their current health issues. However, some question if this interest in medievalism is just a postmodern fascination or fulfills a deeper need to reconnect with spirituality in a post-Enlightenment world. The document also discusses how the medieval period can provide a framework for rethinking history and identity outside of linear, progressive models.
Postmodern geography emerged as a reaction to modernism and its emphasis on grand theories and rational explanations of human behavior and society. Postmodernism rejects the idea of objective truth and universal reason, instead emphasizing particular perspectives and pluralism. It first appeared in fields like architecture and literature before being incorporated into geography starting in the 1970s. Postmodern geographers reject meta-narratives and focus on specific contexts and differences in space. They also aim to restore the importance of geography by emphasizing how spatial factors shape social and economic processes. However, postmodern geography has been criticized for potentially promoting intellectual nihilism and for deemphasizing important concepts like social class.
Post modern theory(critical interrogations) by Nadia SaeedNadiaSaeed20
This document provides a summary of the book "Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations" by Steven Best and Douglas Kellner. The book systematically analyzes postmodern theory and evaluates its relevance for critical social theory. It provides an introduction and critique of theorists like Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Baudrillard, and Lyotard. It also discusses postmodern feminist theory and the politics of identity. While postmodern theory provides insights, the authors argue it lacks adequate methodological and political perspectives for a critical social theory or radical politics. The document examines chapters on these various postmodern thinkers and their critiques of and departures from modernism.
THE CRISIS OF MODERNITY OF THE ARAB-ISLAMIC WORLDRaul Bereczki
This document summarizes the crisis of modernity in the Arab-Islamic world. It discusses three main attitudes toward modernity that emerged: rejection, combining traditional values with modern ideas, and fully supporting modernization through westernization. The document also discusses the roots of Islamic fundamentalism in the colonial experience and Cold War era. Key factors influencing the adoption of modernity included the association with colonialism and a reluctance to separate religion from politics according to the Western model of secularism. Overall, the crisis of modernity stems from complex reactions to Western influence over many decades.
This document discusses the concept of the "social" in social media. It argues that while social media platforms construct an idea of social interaction, their use can also mobilize people for political and social change, as seen in events like the Arab Spring and 2011 London Riots. The document reviews literature on the concept of the social, including work by Raymond Williams that traces the term's history and ambiguity. It proposes looking at social media through the lens of "social energy" to understand its role in political expression and mobilization of large groups.
This document discusses Jean Baudrillard's theories about media and society. It outlines how Baudrillard initially criticized Marshall McLuhan's views but later adopted McLuhan's idea that "the medium is the message" as a central tenet. Baudrillard argued that media create a hyperreality and world of simulations that has replaced the real. He also believed that media dissolve meaning and distinctions between media and reality through a process of implosion. While McLuhan saw potential benefits of media, Baudrillard viewed media more negatively as isolating individuals and preventing meaningful communication.
Overview of technological determinism and technological inevitablism. Analysis of implications in four key areas; environment, nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence, poverty.
The document describes the design and fabrication of a thermal evaporation system for depositing thin films of silver onto glass substrates for solar cell applications. Key elements of the system include a vacuum deposition chamber, turbomolecular pump to reach pressures of 10-5 Torr, and a custom-built high current, low voltage AC power supply. Silver pellets were successfully evaporated at temperatures over 900°C in the chamber onto glass substrates through a mask, depositing a 75nm thin film with low resistivity. The system provides a means of physically vapor depositing thin metal films for solar cell contacts in a controlled vacuum environment.
The document discusses gamifying design thinking for three company challenges: 1) Company A wants to gamify their CV screening process to better match candidates to roles. 2) Company B aims to improve low engagement and completion rates of their online training by gamifying it. 3) A link is provided for mobile gamification cards. The document encourages asking questions during the initial design phase.
The document is a resume for Rowena Lukaki applying for a position in reservation, call center, or office work. It summarizes her 7 years of work experience including positions in hotel reservations and customer service in Dubai, the Philippines, and Oman. Her skills include customer service, reservations systems, Microsoft Office, and she is fluent in English with basic Arabic.
Marketing the Military & Music through Social Mediaaimhipr
Is #socialmedia a viable tool for an #oldschool #military organization and a 60-year-old #PipeBand? Can a small #notforprofit #pipesanddrums band with an older membership use #SM to successfully recruit new members, increase its visibility, and ultimately land more gigs?
Scala Introduction - Meetup Scaladores RJRodrigo Lima
Scala is a multi-paradigm programming language that runs on the Java Virtual Machine. It is designed to express common programming patterns in a concise, readable, and type-safe way. Scala smoothly integrates features of object-oriented and functional languages. Companies like Play Framework, Apache Spark, and The Guardian use Scala for building web applications, processing big data, and delivering features faster with less code. Scala code compiles to Java bytecode, allowing it to interoperate with Java libraries and take advantage of Java's large ecosystem.
Sreenivasan R has over 10 years of experience in SAP MM and ERP implementations. He has worked as a consultant for SAP MM modules and implemented ERP systems like NOW and TIM for various textile and manufacturing companies. He is proficient in procurement, inventory management, and order processing. Currently, he works as a SAP Business Analyst for Milacron LLC providing global support for their SAP system.
Media ecology examines how communication media like social networks and smartphones impact human perception, interaction, and society. It studies the structure and content of communication environments and their effects. While technologies provide convenience and strengthen relationships, they can also weaken real conversation and reflection. Constant connectivity through devices may form addictions and prioritize machines over human interaction. Overall, different media influence how people understand reality.
Este documento discute as contribuições de Harold Innis e Marshall McLuhan para o pensamento comunicacional canadense. Apresenta as principais ideias e teorias desenvolvidas por esses autores, como a centralidade dos meios de comunicação na análise de Innis e a distinção entre meio e mensagem em McLuhan. Questiona também os limites e possíveis desenvolvimentos desse programa de pesquisa.
- Walter Ong studied differences between oral and literate societies and how the shift from oral to literate thinking changes human cognition. He argued literacy is necessary for science, history, and philosophy.
- Oral cultures rely on memory and the spoken word holds power. Knowledge does not accumulate over time in oral societies in the same way it does in literate ones.
- Milman Parry recorded epic folk poems in Yugoslavia in the 1930s that were memorized and recited orally, sometimes changing between tellings. His work showed how oral traditions rely on techniques like formulaic phrases to aid memorization and transmission of knowledge.
Media specificity level_5_lecture_finalGretaMedelyte
This document discusses the concept of media specificity. It begins by defining key terms like medium, media, and mass media. It then outlines the main topics that will be covered, including how each medium has unique properties and limitations, theories of medium specificity, and how media can influence and extend human capabilities and social patterns. The document examines examples of media specificity in fields like photography, sound recording, and technology. It argues that an understanding of media specificity is important for theoretical frameworks of communication.
The Wave of the Future: Understanding Marshall McLuhanPaul Schumann
This is a summary of Marshall McLuhan's work applied to understanding the past, present and future. It covers - the medium is the message, the medium as content, hot and cool media, our change from a pre-literate to literate to post literate society, characteristics of the post literate society, and the four laws of media. It will close with a discussion of the wave of the future.
The benefits of understanding this approach are that you:
• Will understand why our present environment is the way that it is
• Gain a greater understanding of the interrelationships of past, present and future.
• Will understand the influence of media on our perception, thinking and actions
• Will gain insight on the long term future.
Paul Schumann is a practicing futurist with expertise in creativity and innovation. He has lived long enough to see forecasts fail and succeed, including some of his own. He had a thirty year career with IBM in three very different arenas - as a technologist and technology manager in semiconductor technology, as an internal entrepreneur creating the first independent business unit within IBM, and as a cultural change agent developing a more creative and innovative culture. Since retiring from IBM he has 19 years of experience in consulting as a business futurist with programs in creativity and innovation. He is the founding president of the Central Texas Chapter of the World Future Society (http://centexwfs.ning.com). And he is the founder of the Insights – Intelligence - Innovation Collaborative (http://incollaboration.ning.com) . He is on the advisory boards of the Marketing Research Association and the Austin Center for Nonprofit and community Based Organizations. More information about Paul can be found on his web site (http://www.glocalvantage.com).
I made this slideshow for a class presentation applying Marshall McLuhan's theory to the modern medium of the internet. The points made in these slides contributed greatly to my final project, Tweory (see my links).
This document summarizes a paper that argues for a "geography of communication" approach within cultural studies. It discusses how representations of space impact spatial production through construction and architecture. The author argues that theories of spatial production must also account for communication and mediation, as all representations occur in space and all spaces are produced through representation. The paper proposes that a "spatial turn" in media studies is needed to analyze how communication produces space and vice versa. It reviews theories on how digital technologies blur boundaries between spaces and discusses the concept of "texture" as a way to study mediations through which spaces are produced.
This document summarizes Marshall McLuhan's theory of media ecology and how different communication technologies shape human societies and perceptions. It discusses McLuhan's view that the "medium is the message" and that we must consider the environmental influence of media rather than just their content. It also summarizes Harold Innis' view that communication media embed biases regarding the organization and control of information, and that societies aim to balance time-based and space-based media. Finally, it discusses Neil Postman's view that media forms regulate and dictate the type of content they can convey.
Exploring Media Theory Lecture 7 Marshall McLuhanMarcus Leaning
This lecture provides an overview of Marshall McLuhan's influential media theory work. McLuhan argued that the medium or form of communication is more important than the content. He believed each era was dominated by a different communication medium that shaped human experience, moving from oral to print to electronic. McLuhan is considered a "formalist" who focused on how media technology structures society rather than what messages mean to audiences. While criticized for lacking evidence, McLuhan's work predicted trends of new media and the "global village."
A CRITICAL FRAMEWORK FOR TEXTUAL ANALYSISBryce Nelson
This document provides an overview of frameworks for analyzing myths and their political, social, and economic dimensions. It discusses several thinkers that influenced the analysis of myths, including Barthes, Marx, Levi-Strauss, and Critical Theorists. The document proposes analyzing myths using a mixed-methods approach informed by these frameworks. It will apply Barthes' concept of myth as a semiotic structure to analyze Plato's Myth of Er and several television comedy programs to reveal their depictions of social class and the natural order.
Moyra Haslett argues that Marxist literary and cultural theories focus on the relationship between literature, culture, and society. Literature represents culture, which is shaped by social and economic factors. Marxist theories distinguish between the economic base and cultural superstructure, though they influence each other. Cultural artifacts are material products subject to social and economic conditions of production, distribution, and consumption. Marxists view language as a social system that reflects material practices and class relations.
Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan were influential scholars from the Toronto School who studied the impact of communication technologies on civilization. Innis introduced the concepts of "time-biased" and "space-biased" media and analyzed how forms of communication shaped societies. He also developed the idea of the "monopoly of knowledge" to show how media affects knowledge distribution. McLuhan expanded on these ideas, arguing that "the medium is the message" because communication technologies influence social structures and human interaction more than the content they convey. He analyzed how oral, written, printed, and electronic media each shaped different eras of civilization.
1. Media Ecology examines how media and communication technologies shape human culture, society, and the environment. It was coined by Marshall McLuhan and has evolved into a broader field of research.
2. Media Ecology theorists argue that media are not neutral tools but profoundly impact how we perceive the world, interact with each other, and structure societies.
3. Major theorists who contributed to Media Ecology include Marshall McLuhan, Lance Strate, and others who studied the interaction of communication, culture, and consciousness.
Postmodernism Essay
Essay On Postmodernism
An Overview of Postmodernism Essay
The Impact Of Postmodernism
Essay on Postmodern condition
Postmodernism Essay
Postmodern Art Essay
Week 1 Notes: The Anthropology of Media and MediationCameron Murray
This document provides an overview of key concepts and readings for Week 1 of an anthropology course on the anthropology of media. It discusses how anthropologists have increasingly studied media and its role in cultural contexts over the past few decades. Some key points made include:
- Media shapes and is shaped by cultural practices and defies easy categorization or boundaries.
- Studying media has altered understandings of the relationship between the local and global.
- There is a renewed interest in studying Western media and how media circulates globally.
- The field has moved beyond just studying communication technologies to a broader anthropology of social mediation and how various processes circulate images and knowledge.
Lewis Mumford was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and writer known for his studies of cities and urban architecture. He believed that the chief function of cities is to convert resources into culture. Mumford was influenced by Patrick Geddes' concept of regional planning and worked to establish cities planned sustainably on a human scale with residential, cultural, commercial, and industrial areas surrounded by agricultural greenbelts. He criticized projects like Robert Moses' highways in New York for prioritizing cars over communities. Mumford's work promoted organic, sustainable urban development and influenced environmental and appropriate technology movements.
1. The document discusses the work of media theorists Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan and how they analyzed the impact of different communication media on societies and cultures.
2. Innis argued that media can be classified as either time-biased or space-biased based on their physical properties and how they influence the organization of societies.
3. McLuhan popularized the idea that "the medium is the message" and that communication media have subtle effects on users' perceptions beyond the actual content delivered.
The document outlines the schedule and topics for workshop sessions on November 9, 2010. Slot 1 will cover topics like lifestyles, energy efficiency, water, soils and gardening. Slot 2 will discuss issues like global commons, sustainability frameworks and participation models. Slot 3 focuses on participation, dialogue and policymaking. Additional links and references are provided for further information on speakers and related events.
This document provides an overview of the origins and development of sociology as a field of study. It discusses early thinkers like Auguste Comte, who coined the term "sociology" and saw it as a way to rationally improve society. It also covers contributors like Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber, who helped establish sociology as a scientific discipline focused on understanding human social behavior and group dynamics within broader social contexts through systematic study and objective analysis.
This document summarizes a presentation given by Dr. Dean Kruckeberg on using an ecological framework to understand community building and managing change in organizations. Some key points:
- Society is undergoing a revolution driven by advances in communication technology that are fundamentally changing humans.
- Public relations can help address this change but current theories are deficient. Kruckeberg recommends examining a theoretical framework from natural sciences like ecology.
- The work of Aldo Leopold teaches that communities are foundational to ecology. Humans are part of the larger biotic community rather than conquerors of land.
- Leopold's concept of ecology included an "ecological conscience" and view of ethics as a community instinct.
Rethinking Media and Cultural Studies: A Journey through Paradigms and TurnsYiğit Kalafatoğlu
Considering the last century, we see that experts and scholars from various fields such as communication, philosophy, history, sociology, and psychology are interested on media and communication studies. Several movements like positivism, interpretivism, interactionism, Marxism and neo-Marxism has shaped the way scholars pointed out their theories.
This version of the book is current as of: April 10, 2010. The current version of this book can be found at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Sociology
This document discusses the work and ideas of Marshall McLuhan and Jean Baudrillard regarding media and technology. McLuhan coined the phrase "the medium is the message" and predicted concepts like the global village and World Wide Web. Baudrillard built upon McLuhan's work and theorized about hyperreality and how media constructs our perception of reality. Both viewed media as having significant impacts on society and believed new technologies would continually reshape human experience.
HCL Notes and Domino License Cost Reduction in the World of DLAUpanagenda
Webinar Recording: https://www.panagenda.com/webinars/hcl-notes-and-domino-license-cost-reduction-in-the-world-of-dlau/
The introduction of DLAU and the CCB & CCX licensing model caused quite a stir in the HCL community. As a Notes and Domino customer, you may have faced challenges with unexpected user counts and license costs. You probably have questions on how this new licensing approach works and how to benefit from it. Most importantly, you likely have budget constraints and want to save money where possible. Don’t worry, we can help with all of this!
We’ll show you how to fix common misconfigurations that cause higher-than-expected user counts, and how to identify accounts which you can deactivate to save money. There are also frequent patterns that can cause unnecessary cost, like using a person document instead of a mail-in for shared mailboxes. We’ll provide examples and solutions for those as well. And naturally we’ll explain the new licensing model.
Join HCL Ambassador Marc Thomas in this webinar with a special guest appearance from Franz Walder. It will give you the tools and know-how to stay on top of what is going on with Domino licensing. You will be able lower your cost through an optimized configuration and keep it low going forward.
These topics will be covered
- Reducing license cost by finding and fixing misconfigurations and superfluous accounts
- How do CCB and CCX licenses really work?
- Understanding the DLAU tool and how to best utilize it
- Tips for common problem areas, like team mailboxes, functional/test users, etc
- Practical examples and best practices to implement right away
Your One-Stop Shop for Python Success: Top 10 US Python Development Providersakankshawande
Simplify your search for a reliable Python development partner! This list presents the top 10 trusted US providers offering comprehensive Python development services, ensuring your project's success from conception to completion.
Programming Foundation Models with DSPy - Meetup SlidesZilliz
Prompting language models is hard, while programming language models is easy. In this talk, I will discuss the state-of-the-art framework DSPy for programming foundation models with its powerful optimizers and runtime constraint system.
AI 101: An Introduction to the Basics and Impact of Artificial IntelligenceIndexBug
Imagine a world where machines not only perform tasks but also learn, adapt, and make decisions. This is the promise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a technology that's not just enhancing our lives but revolutionizing entire industries.
How to Get CNIC Information System with Paksim Ga.pptxdanishmna97
Pakdata Cf is a groundbreaking system designed to streamline and facilitate access to CNIC information. This innovative platform leverages advanced technology to provide users with efficient and secure access to their CNIC details.
Fueling AI with Great Data with Airbyte WebinarZilliz
This talk will focus on how to collect data from a variety of sources, leveraging this data for RAG and other GenAI use cases, and finally charting your course to productionalization.
HCL Notes und Domino Lizenzkostenreduzierung in der Welt von DLAUpanagenda
Webinar Recording: https://www.panagenda.com/webinars/hcl-notes-und-domino-lizenzkostenreduzierung-in-der-welt-von-dlau/
DLAU und die Lizenzen nach dem CCB- und CCX-Modell sind für viele in der HCL-Community seit letztem Jahr ein heißes Thema. Als Notes- oder Domino-Kunde haben Sie vielleicht mit unerwartet hohen Benutzerzahlen und Lizenzgebühren zu kämpfen. Sie fragen sich vielleicht, wie diese neue Art der Lizenzierung funktioniert und welchen Nutzen sie Ihnen bringt. Vor allem wollen Sie sicherlich Ihr Budget einhalten und Kosten sparen, wo immer möglich. Das verstehen wir und wir möchten Ihnen dabei helfen!
Wir erklären Ihnen, wie Sie häufige Konfigurationsprobleme lösen können, die dazu führen können, dass mehr Benutzer gezählt werden als nötig, und wie Sie überflüssige oder ungenutzte Konten identifizieren und entfernen können, um Geld zu sparen. Es gibt auch einige Ansätze, die zu unnötigen Ausgaben führen können, z. B. wenn ein Personendokument anstelle eines Mail-Ins für geteilte Mailboxen verwendet wird. Wir zeigen Ihnen solche Fälle und deren Lösungen. Und natürlich erklären wir Ihnen das neue Lizenzmodell.
Nehmen Sie an diesem Webinar teil, bei dem HCL-Ambassador Marc Thomas und Gastredner Franz Walder Ihnen diese neue Welt näherbringen. Es vermittelt Ihnen die Tools und das Know-how, um den Überblick zu bewahren. Sie werden in der Lage sein, Ihre Kosten durch eine optimierte Domino-Konfiguration zu reduzieren und auch in Zukunft gering zu halten.
Diese Themen werden behandelt
- Reduzierung der Lizenzkosten durch Auffinden und Beheben von Fehlkonfigurationen und überflüssigen Konten
- Wie funktionieren CCB- und CCX-Lizenzen wirklich?
- Verstehen des DLAU-Tools und wie man es am besten nutzt
- Tipps für häufige Problembereiche, wie z. B. Team-Postfächer, Funktions-/Testbenutzer usw.
- Praxisbeispiele und Best Practices zum sofortigen Umsetzen
In the rapidly evolving landscape of technologies, XML continues to play a vital role in structuring, storing, and transporting data across diverse systems. The recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) present new methodologies for enhancing XML development workflows, introducing efficiency, automation, and intelligent capabilities. This presentation will outline the scope and perspective of utilizing AI in XML development. The potential benefits and the possible pitfalls will be highlighted, providing a balanced view of the subject.
We will explore the capabilities of AI in understanding XML markup languages and autonomously creating structured XML content. Additionally, we will examine the capacity of AI to enrich plain text with appropriate XML markup. Practical examples and methodological guidelines will be provided to elucidate how AI can be effectively prompted to interpret and generate accurate XML markup.
Further emphasis will be placed on the role of AI in developing XSLT, or schemas such as XSD and Schematron. We will address the techniques and strategies adopted to create prompts for generating code, explaining code, or refactoring the code, and the results achieved.
The discussion will extend to how AI can be used to transform XML content. In particular, the focus will be on the use of AI XPath extension functions in XSLT, Schematron, Schematron Quick Fixes, or for XML content refactoring.
The presentation aims to deliver a comprehensive overview of AI usage in XML development, providing attendees with the necessary knowledge to make informed decisions. Whether you’re at the early stages of adopting AI or considering integrating it in advanced XML development, this presentation will cover all levels of expertise.
By highlighting the potential advantages and challenges of integrating AI with XML development tools and languages, the presentation seeks to inspire thoughtful conversation around the future of XML development. We’ll not only delve into the technical aspects of AI-powered XML development but also discuss practical implications and possible future directions.
Digital Marketing Trends in 2024 | Guide for Staying AheadWask
https://www.wask.co/ebooks/digital-marketing-trends-in-2024
Feeling lost in the digital marketing whirlwind of 2024? Technology is changing, consumer habits are evolving, and staying ahead of the curve feels like a never-ending pursuit. This e-book is your compass. Dive into actionable insights to handle the complexities of modern marketing. From hyper-personalization to the power of user-generated content, learn how to build long-term relationships with your audience and unlock the secrets to success in the ever-shifting digital landscape.
For the full video of this presentation, please visit: https://www.edge-ai-vision.com/2024/06/building-and-scaling-ai-applications-with-the-nx-ai-manager-a-presentation-from-network-optix/
Robin van Emden, Senior Director of Data Science at Network Optix, presents the “Building and Scaling AI Applications with the Nx AI Manager,” tutorial at the May 2024 Embedded Vision Summit.
In this presentation, van Emden covers the basics of scaling edge AI solutions using the Nx tool kit. He emphasizes the process of developing AI models and deploying them globally. He also showcases the conversion of AI models and the creation of effective edge AI pipelines, with a focus on pre-processing, model conversion, selecting the appropriate inference engine for the target hardware and post-processing.
van Emden shows how Nx can simplify the developer’s life and facilitate a rapid transition from concept to production-ready applications.He provides valuable insights into developing scalable and efficient edge AI solutions, with a strong focus on practical implementation.
Introduction of Cybersecurity with OSS at Code Europe 2024Hiroshi SHIBATA
I develop the Ruby programming language, RubyGems, and Bundler, which are package managers for Ruby. Today, I will introduce how to enhance the security of your application using open-source software (OSS) examples from Ruby and RubyGems.
The first topic is CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures). I have published CVEs many times. But what exactly is a CVE? I'll provide a basic understanding of CVEs and explain how to detect and handle vulnerabilities in OSS.
Next, let's discuss package managers. Package managers play a critical role in the OSS ecosystem. I'll explain how to manage library dependencies in your application.
I'll share insights into how the Ruby and RubyGems core team works to keep our ecosystem safe. By the end of this talk, you'll have a better understanding of how to safeguard your code.
Taking AI to the Next Level in Manufacturing.pdfssuserfac0301
Read Taking AI to the Next Level in Manufacturing to gain insights on AI adoption in the manufacturing industry, such as:
1. How quickly AI is being implemented in manufacturing.
2. Which barriers stand in the way of AI adoption.
3. How data quality and governance form the backbone of AI.
4. Organizational processes and structures that may inhibit effective AI adoption.
6. Ideas and approaches to help build your organization's AI strategy.
Have you ever been confused by the myriad of choices offered by AWS for hosting a website or an API?
Lambda, Elastic Beanstalk, Lightsail, Amplify, S3 (and more!) can each host websites + APIs. But which one should we choose?
Which one is cheapest? Which one is fastest? Which one will scale to meet our needs?
Join me in this session as we dive into each AWS hosting service to determine which one is best for your scenario and explain why!
Ocean lotus Threat actors project by John Sitima 2024 (1).pptxSitimaJohn
Ocean Lotus cyber threat actors represent a sophisticated, persistent, and politically motivated group that poses a significant risk to organizations and individuals in the Southeast Asian region. Their continuous evolution and adaptability underscore the need for robust cybersecurity measures and international cooperation to identify and mitigate the threats posed by such advanced persistent threat groups.
TrustArc Webinar - 2024 Global Privacy SurveyTrustArc
How does your privacy program stack up against your peers? What challenges are privacy teams tackling and prioritizing in 2024?
In the fifth annual Global Privacy Benchmarks Survey, we asked over 1,800 global privacy professionals and business executives to share their perspectives on the current state of privacy inside and outside of their organizations. This year’s report focused on emerging areas of importance for privacy and compliance professionals, including considerations and implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, building brand trust, and different approaches for achieving higher privacy competence scores.
See how organizational priorities and strategic approaches to data security and privacy are evolving around the globe.
This webinar will review:
- The top 10 privacy insights from the fifth annual Global Privacy Benchmarks Survey
- The top challenges for privacy leaders, practitioners, and organizations in 2024
- Key themes to consider in developing and maintaining your privacy program
How to Interpret Trends in the Kalyan Rajdhani Mix Chart.pdfChart Kalyan
A Mix Chart displays historical data of numbers in a graphical or tabular form. The Kalyan Rajdhani Mix Chart specifically shows the results of a sequence of numbers over different periods.
How to Interpret Trends in the Kalyan Rajdhani Mix Chart.pdf
This Didn't Kill That
1. This Didn’t Kill That:
Architectural History Through Media Ecology
Shannon Mattern
Presented at the College Art Association Conference
Seattle, WA, February 18-21, 2004
It was in a letter to Claire Boothe Luce, congresswoman, ambassador, and magazine
publisher, that Marshall McLuhan called for the management of the world’s “media
ecologies.” That term – Media Ecology – has since come to identify the Toronto and New
York schools of media studies, which are characterized by their examination of media and
communication systems as environments, both physical and symbolic. As Neil Postman,
founder of the New York University Media Ecology program, put it, “the word ecology
implies the study of environments: their structure, content, and impact on people”1. Those
environmental “impacts” include “human perception, understanding, feeling, and value.”
The ecological metaphor thus enables media scholars to examine not only “the media”
themselves, but also the physical and social environments within which they operate and
which they help to create. The metaphor seems equally appropriate for the study of built
environments – not only because architecture does indeed constitute a material ecology, but
also because, as many media ecologists have acknowledged, architecture functions as a
medium, a message system that shapes “human perception, understanding, feeling,”
behavior, and “value.”
My presentation will address how Media Ecologists viewed the history of architecture
through the lens of media history. I will draw upon the work of central figures in Media
Ecology to examine how these theorists have characterized the concurrent and interwoven
evolutions of architecture and communications media. Did architecture really arise, as
2. Sigfried Giedion claims and Marshall McLuhan concurs, with the advent of inscription?
How, according to Harold Innis, did the
emergence of paper-based bureaucracies
reshape built space? And if writing begat
architecture, why, then, should Victor
Hugo predict that this (the book) would
kill that (the edifice), and why was he
wrong? How has television reshaped the home and redefined, as Joshua Meyrowitz explains,
our “senses of place”? Instead of proclamations of revolution, media ecologists offer
historicized accounts of the co-evolution of mediated and built environments.
In his 1992 book, Conscientious Objections, Postman says that media ecology, “as a young subject,
…must address such fundamental questions as how to define ‘media,’ where to look for
cultural change, and how to link changes in our media environment with changes in our
ways of behaving and feeling”2. Lewis Mumford, an urban planner and historian who,
because of his book Technics and Civilization, has also been claimed by Media
Ecology, helps Postman expand the definition of media. Mumford regards the
city as a physical cognitive map, and a training ground for the mind. In The
Culture of Cities he wrote, “Mind takes form in the city; and in turn, urban
forms condition mind…. The city records the attitude of a culture and an epoch to the
fundamental facts of its existence.3 Mumford’s definition of city is not far off from
McLuhan’s definition of media, which he regards as extensions of the mind and senses. And
Mumford’s claim that “urban forms condition mind,” we hear echoed in McLuhan’s famous
3. phrase “the medium is the message”; the form of the medium shapes its content and how
that content is received.
Mumford also speaks of the city as a palimpsestic medium; he writes: “In the city, time
becomes visible: buildings and monuments and public ways, more open than the written
record, more subject to the gaze of many men than the scattered artifacts of the countryside,
leave an imprint upon the minds even of the ignorant or the indifferent”4. Here Mumford
provides an excellent introduction to the concept of media biases, an idea developed by
McLuhan’s mentor, economist Harold Innis. Innis presented two chief biases: one towards
space, and one toward time5. A stela etched with Mayan pictograms, for
example, is better relied upon for its longevity than its portability; thus, it
is biased towards time. Paper, however, is valued for its portability and
easy distribution, and it is likely to disintegrate more rapidly than many
other media; paper is thus said to be space-biased.
Postman’s colleague at NYU Christine Nystrom has identified several other biases in
addition to those of the two cosmic forces. Here are just a few: First, “because of the
different physical forms in which they encode, store, and transmit information, different
media have different temporal, spatial, and sensory biases.”6 Compare Shigeru Ban’s paper
house, for example, to Richard Rogers’ Lloyd’s Building; in these two examples, differences
4. in physical form create different spatial and sensory biases.
Shigeru Ban, Paper House Richard Rogers, Lloyds Building
Second, “because their physical form dictates differences in conditions of attendance,
different media have different social biases.” Consider how one “attends” to the
transparency of a Neutra house, compared to the relative opacity of a Loos house; what are
the social implications of these different conditions of attendance?
Richard Neutra, Kafmann House Adolf Loos, Moller House
5. Finally, “because of their differences in physical
and symbolic form, different media have different
content biases.” In architecture, we might think of
“content” as “function” or “program.” Consider
how an architectural form might bias a structure towards particular functions. Why, for
example, might Rem Koolhaas’s Seattle Public Library not be well suited for a hospital?
Returning to Mumford’s review of the city’s biases: He deems it “more open than the
written record, more subject to the gaze of many men than the scattered artifacts of the
countryside,” and capable of leaving “an imprint upon the minds even of the ignorant or the
indifferent.”7 More open than a written record, capable of reaching a larger audience, legible
for the ignorant and relevant to the indifferent: here Mumford addresses the conditions of
attendance to and accessibility of architecture, and in so doing, reveals its social, particularly
its political, biases.8
The concept of media bias allows us to analyze the physical and symbolic properties of a
medium and how those qualities predispose a medium towards particular uses, conditions of
attendance, social meanings, etc., and hold particular social and cultural consequences.
“Bias” allows us to recognize that each medium form possesses a combination of qualities
unlike any other. And that is why Media Ecology focuses on the symbiotic – not parasitic --
relationship among the media9; as one scholar puts it, “…no medium has ever disappeared
from existence or use as a result of the introduction of a new medium.”10 But as McLuhan
argues, each new medium subsumes components or characteristics of the media that came
before it. According to McLuhan’s tetrad, from the Laws of Media , each medium enhances,
6. obsolesces, retrieves, and reverses something about the media and cultural
conditions that precede it.11 The same can be said for architectural media.
There is no basis for claiming that a new building technology or type will
eradicate those that have preceded it; it may take cues from its predecessors
– enhancing, obsolescing, retrieving, and reversing elements of each – but never entirely
doing away with them.
* * * * *
Let’s start at the beginning – the beginning of mass communication history, that is – in the
time before writing, when the human voice was the only medium. There is much agreement
that the rise of civilization – and all of its cultural productions, including architecture –
corresponds to the birth of writing. McLuhan notes that “in his monumental study of The
Beginnings of Architecture, Siegfried Giedion has many occasions to comment on the fact that
before script there is no architecture”.12 Groups of people settled in particular regions,
developed agricultural societies, and eventually grew a surplus of goods, which then enabled
them to trade with others. As trade increased, people needed a means of recording their
transactions, and thus writing developed as a
tool for accountancy. Clay tokens stored in clay
envelopes were used to record the trade of
sheep and grain13. It is significant that the first
writing materials – stone and clay – were also
among the first building materials.
7. Record keeping also promoted the growth of complex political and social institutions. And
as goods were distributed farther and wider, cultural contact and human interchange
increased, and the communication system grew ever wider and more complex. Both
Mumford and Innis credit the alphabet – a development attributed to the Phoenicians – with
promoting the rise of the Phoenicians’ trading cities and the “emergence of smaller nations
dependent on distinct languages.”14 Writing made possible the city-states and imperial cities
of the ancient world. Even the substrate on which the literate elites wrote these characters,
helped to shape their civilizations. Harold Innis writes, “Papyrus was produced in a restricted
area and met the demands of a centralized
administration whereas parchment as the
product of an agricultural economy was
suited to a decentralized system.”15 Thus
the development of writing systems and
writing substrates was essential to the rise
of ancient civilizations, and these new
means of record keeping shaped not only the communication environment, but also the
physical environment – particularly, the birth of city-states and the spread of empires.
But even these cultures, in which communication was controlled and writing stayed in the
hands of the elite, were primarily oral cultures. And here, architecture and speech were the
principal media for communication. Plato’s ideal city was limited in size by the number of
citizens who could be addressed by a single voice.16 “Even so,” Mumford writes, “there was
a more common limitation on the number who might come together within the sacred
precincts to take part in the great seasonal ceremonies….”17 The city could stretch as far as
8. the voice could travel; it could grow as much as the church could hold. “At the beginning,”
Mumford says,” all [the city’s] creative offices were tied to religion, and the most significant
messages were sacred ones.” He continues:
These sacred messages, written in the stars or the entrails of beasts, in dreams,
hallucinations, prophecies, came within the special province of priesthood. For long
they monopolized the creative powers, and the forms of the city expressed that
monopoly…. [T]he great business of the citadel was to ‘keep the official secrets.’18
In these pre-literate cultures, architecture was thus a medium whose message was the control
of communication. As Mumford says, “the forms of the city expressed [the] monopoly” of
political and religious leaders over the creation of knowledge and its distribution.
Now, jump ahead a few thousand years to mid-fifteenth century France: The archdeacon
proclaims: "This will kill that. The book will kill the edifice." This “citadel” was about to lose
its monopoly of knowledge to an altered wine press. “To our mind,” Hugo writes, in The
Hunchback of Notre Dame:
…It was the affright of the priest in the presence of a new agent, the printing press.
It was the terror and dazzled amazement of the men of the sanctuary, in the
9. presence of the luminous press of Gutenberg. It was the pulpit and the manuscript
taking the alarm at the printed word…. It was the cry of the prophet who already
hears emancipated humanity roaring and swarming; who beholds in the future,
intelligence sapping faith, opinion dethroning belief, the world shaking off Rome. It
was the prognostication of the philosopher who sees human thought, volatilized by
the press, evaporating from the theocratic recipient…. It signified that one power
was about to succeed another power. It meant, "The press will kill the church."19
In overtaking the “controlled forms” of Mumford’s pre-
literate city, the printing press signifies a new awakening, a
new epistemology. The archdeacon encapsulates the
argument of Elizabeth Eisenstein, another central figure
to Media Ecology, in her book The Printing Press as an
Agent of Change.20 Hugo continues:
It was a presentiment that human thought, in changing its
form, was about to change its mode of expression; that
the dominant idea of each generation would no longer be written with the same
matter, and in the same manner; that the book of stone, so solid and so durable, was
about to make way for the book of paper, more solid and still more durable. In this
connection the archdeacon's vague formula had a second sense. It meant, "Printing
will kill architecture.”21
The printing press precipitated the evolution of the entire social ecology, as Eisenstein
argues. Thought was evolving. The modes of expressing that thought were evolving. And
these new modes of expression brought new biases: the book of paper offered solidity and
10. durability, and, although Hugo doesn’t mention it, portability and easy distribution. It
enabled literacy and self-empowerment and promised a religious and political revolution.
Hugo assumes that this new medium, with its new attributes, will “disappear” the old.
But in the mind of another, Gutenberg’s press would save architecture, provide new
possibilities for its teaching and practice. In his book Architecture in the Age of Printing, Mario
Carpo says that “starting in the early sixteenth century, architectural treatises began to diffuse
a new, media-savvy architectural theory that was consciously developed in response to the
new means of communication”
(e.g., the Five Orders)22. The
reproduction of architectural
images allowed Renaissance
builders to learn from the image
– not from visits to classical sites.
These images of classical
architectural elements fostered a
method of “recomposition” – creating spaces based on various combinations of a set
number of elements. Thus, Carpo says, design was standardized, and imitation was common
and legitimate. Printing would revolutionize the way architecture was taught and practiced;
but the book would not obsolesce the building.
Carpo mentions several characteristics of print – its capability of reliably reproducing images,
its standardization, etc. – that, according to Marshall McLuhan, also impact our conceptions
of spatiality. In his Understanding Media, McLuhan focuses specifically on the spaces of
11. housing. He links writing to the ascendance of the visual over the tactile, kinetic, and
auditory – what he calls the “specialization of the senses” – and the fragmentation of skills.
This newly visually-oriented, literate “sedentary specialist,” he says, can enclose space. “The
square room or house speaks the language of the sedentary specialist, while the round hut or
igloo, like the conical wigwam, tells of the integral nomadic ways of food-gathering
communities.”23
This increasing compartmentalization of
domestic space brought on, in part, by print
culture, is also of interest to Jurgen Habermas. In
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere,
Habermas addresses the increasing
compartmentalization of domestic activities into
different rooms, the new conceptions of privacy
and subjectivity that those architectural changes
indicate, and the arrival of new media forms – like the personal letter and the novel – that
also attest to these changing subjectivities and shifting notions of public and private.24
Gwendolyn Wright also addresses the impact of new popular print formats – particularly
plans books and domestic magazines -- on home design and decoration.25 Although they
characterize it differently, both Habermas and Wright have identified a relationship between
the evolution of media and the evolution of domestic space. Habermas in particular links the
growth of print culture to the spread of new physical spaces – namely, salons and coffee
12. houses – that serve as a testing ground for new media, and provide a forum for rational
critical debate. These new spaces were essential to the formation of a public sphere.
Far from “disappearing” architecture, as Hugo’s novel proposed, the book and print culture
spurred evolution in the media and urban ecologies. The introduction of a new medium –
the book – sparked changes in the design of physical space, so that those spaces could
accommodate the new perceptions, understanding, behaviors, and values of a literate society.
After Gutenburg, photography elicited claims
of another media revolution. Much has been
written on the relationship between
photography and built space. Beatriz
Colomina26, Shelly Rice27, Kester
Rattenbury28, and host of others have
examined the parallels between photography, the new visuality and subjectivities it promotes
– and the new forms of visuality and subjectivity embodied in birds-eye or panoramic urban
images, and promoted by the picture window and the glass-box houses of the twentieth
century. Some have suggested that architecture has surrendered itself to photography;
architecture, they say, exists to be photographed, and often certain canonical architectural
photographs – like those of Julius Schulman – become more real, more “architectural,” than
the built space itself. And as architecture surrenders to the image, architecture becomes image;
it turns itself over to the role of imaging.29 But today, over a century-and-a-half after the
introduction of an image-making machine, architecture survives, even exploiting imaging
13. technologies to enhance itself. Borrowing from McLuhan’s tetrad, it could be argued that the
immateriality of the image only enhances, or retrieves, the materiality of physical place.
<<Photo: Fox Talbot, Bridge of Sighs, 1845>>
Lewis Mumford refers to an
immaterial dimension of the city:
“Not by accident…have the old
functions of the urban container been
supplemented by new functions,
exercised through that I shall call the
functional grid: the framework of the invisible city.”30 One such grid is that of a television
cable network, which, like the book, further altered conceptions of public and private by
bringing outside events into the home. Joshua Meyrowitz, a graduate of the Media Ecology
program at NYU, claims that electronic media have so completely altered our spatial
perception that we are left with “no sense of place.”31 He identifies three consequences of
electronic mediation: First, the merging of public spheres – adult and child, male and female,
etc.; second, the blurring of public and private behaviors; and third, the separation of social
place from physical place. The telephone and television circumvent geographic boundaries,
bringing voices and images from anywhere, everywhere, into the family room. Beatriz
Colomina, Lynn Spigel32, and others have written about the impact of television on the
design of domestic spaces – and our perceptions of, attitudes about, behaviors in, and values
attributed to them. But it’s not only domestic space that has been touched by televisual
mediation; in her book Ambient Television, Anna McCarthy writes about how the ubiquity of
14. television – in airports and laundromats and at grocery store checkouts – alters public and
private spaces and public and private roles33.
Virtuality, many theorists would at one time have had
us believe, spelled the end of architecture, of
geography, of space altogether. Since then, geographer
David Harvey and sociologist Manuel Castells, among
others, have argued that that isn’t the case; virtual
technologies may have entered and altered the media
and physical ecologies – but they haven’t wiped out all
the other species. Still, curator Terence Riley, in his
introduction to the catalog for the “Unprivate House” exhibit at the Museum of Modern
Art, writes: “Today, the private house has become a permeable structure, receiving and
transmitting images, sounds, texts, and data.”34 Is the home really nothing but a membrane,
a substrate, a channel for communication, a viewing screen, a sounding board? Has the
concept of privacy been rendered obsolete?
15. William J. Mitchell, former dean of the MIT School of Architecture and current director of
the MIT Media Lab, says no:
Ubiquitous interconnection does not mean the end of controllable territory, or
elimination of distinctions between public and private turf, but it does force us to
rethink and reinvent these essential constructs in a new context. The emerging
system of boundaries and control points in cyberspace is less visible than the familiar
frontiers, walls, gates, and doorways of the physical worlds, but it is no less potent.35
Publicity and privacy still exist – they just
mean something different now – as in the
case of two projects from the “Unprivate
House” exhibit: the Frank Lupo and Daniel
Rowen’s Lipschutz/Jones Apartment (see
right), and Shigeru Ban’s Curtain Wall
House (see above).
And instead of “disappearing” architecture,
virtual imaging technologies have allowed for the design of buildings that probably would
not have been possible had it not been for the computer. Many of Frank Gehry’s and Greg
Lynn’s designs, for example, owe their existence to the computer.
Lewis Mumford, in The City in History, suggests how we might rethink the role of the “visible
city” in an era dominated by the “invisible”:
16. Many of the original functions of the city, once natural monopolies, demanding the
physical presence of all participants, have now been transposed into forms capable
of swift transportation, mechanical manifolding, electronic transmission, worldwide
distribution. If a remote village can see the same motion picture or listen to the same
radio program as the most swollen center, no one need live in that center or visit it in
order to participate in that particular activity. Instead, we must seek a reciprocal relation
between smaller and larger units, based upon each performing the sort of talk for which it is uniquely
fitted. The visible city then becomes the indispensable place of assemblage for those
functions that work best when they are superimposed one on another or within close
range: a place where meetings and encounters and challenges, as between
personalities, supplements and reduces again to human dimensions the vast
impersonal network that now spreads around it.36
Thus the physical city – and its architecture – are charged with providing a place for the
face-to-face, for the interpersonal. Architecture allows for this “space of flows” to “reverse
into” a public sphere – providing amid the IM’ing and texting a space for speech, among the
earliest of communication technologies.
Mumford saw this opportunity for interaction and communion as a defining characteristic of
the city. In The Culture of Cities, he addresses the effects of the transformation from “the
passive agricultural regime of the village” to “the active institutions of the city”:
The difference is not merely one of magnitude, density of population, or economic
resources. For the active agent is any factor that extends the area of local intercourse, that
engenders the need for combination and co-operation, communication and communion; and that so
creates a common underlying pattern of conduct, and a common set of physical
17. structures, for the different family and occupational groups that constitute a city37
(italics mine).
Decades later, MIT’s William Mitchell, who is heavily invested in the increasing mediation of
experience, echoes Mumford. In e-topia, he writes:
If public life is not to disintegrate, communities must still find ways to provide, pay
for, and maintain places of assembly and interaction for their members – whether
these places are virtual, physical, or some new and complex combination of the two.
And if these places are to serve their purposes effectively, they must allow both
freedom of access and freedom of expression.38
So while Mumford refers to a “common set of physical structures” and emphasizes the
“local,” Mitchell extends this space for communion and communication to include the
physical, the virtual, and hybrid spaces. Mitchell, although he doesn’t use Innis’s terms,
advocates for an assessment of the biases of particular communication environments.
Describing what he calls a “new economy of presence” – a ecological concept that McLuhan no
doubt would have appreciated – Mitchell writes:
In conducting our daily transactions, we will find ourselves constantly considering
the benefits of the different grades of presence that are now available to use, and
weighing these against the costs.39
Mitchell makes no proclamations of revolution or obsolescence. Different media forms and
spaces can coexist – and should coexist in order to allow people the choice, to give them
agency in shaping their physical and media environments.
18. In an article in Communication Research, Eric and Mary Ann Allison suggest that there is a need
for harmony between physical environments and media environments. They warn the reader
that “a city in which most of the inhabitants spend more than half of their waking hours in
symbolic space,” by which they mean engaged in communication or engaged with media –
that city “becomes ineffective when the norms shared in virtual reality are not those
delivered in the city”40 Are they proposing that the identity-shifting, the obliteration of
privacy, and the ego-driven behavior that are supposedly commonplace in virtual reality
should be mirrored in the city’s physical architecture?
Consonance between our symbolic and our physical existences does indeed provide a sense
of harmony and stability; as planner Eduardo Lozano says, “the concept of isomorphism
implies an active functional relationship between the built environment and the human
mind, in which the individual senses and culture are intertwined”41 But what “model of the
mind” would architects use as a design model? Our symbolic environment is not entirely
virtual – nor is it likely to become so. There are a plethora of examples of retrieval and
reversal in popular culture: Through the popular website meetup.com, people with similar
interests and beliefs find one another online, form a virtual
community, then extend that virtual community into the physical
world, meeting for debate at local bars and coffeehouses. These
virtual meeting spaces retrieve the public spheres of 19th century
coffeehouse and pubs. The presidential candidate Howard Dean
owes much of his campaign’s strength to Meetup.com constituents.
Consider a few other examples in which physical space has either supplemented or
triumphed over virtual spaces: flash mobs (see below), telecommuting, online dating services
19. are only a few. Our analog lives still require physical places – not spaces designed as an
afterthought, or as a backup for when the server crashes, but spaces thoughtfully designed to
enhance our multiple conditions of being – both mediated and immediate. Architecture
should promote built environments that balance and enhance our media environments; it
should complement, and provide
alternatives to, our communicative
and mediated experiences.
1
Neil Postman, “The Reformed English Curriculum.” in A.C. Eurich, ed., High School 1980: The Shape of the
Future in American Secondary Education (New York: Pitman, 1970): 5.
2
Neil Postman, Conscientious Objections: Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology, and Education
(New York: Vintage Books, 1988): 5.
3
Lewis Mumford, The Culture of Cities (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1966: 5.
4
Ibid., 4.
5
Harold Innis, The Bias of Communication (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1951).
6
Christine Nystrom, "Symbols, Thoughts, and Reality: The Contributions of Benjamin Lee Whorf and Susanne
K. Langer to Media Ecology" The New Jersey Journal of Communication 8:1 (Spring 2000).
7
Mumford, Culture, 4.
8
Consider Walter Benjamin’s discussion of architecture’s reception in a state of “distraction.”
9
Casey May Kong Lum, “Introduction: The Intellectual Roots of Media Ecology,” The New Jersey Journal of
Communication 8:1 (Spring 2000): 1.
10
Thomas F. Gencarelli, “The Intellectual Roots of Media Ecology in the Work and Thought of Neil
Postman” The New Jersey Journal of Communication 8:1 (Spring 2000): 97.
11
Ibid; Marshall McLuhan and Eric McLuhan, Laws of Media: The New Science. Toronto: The University of
Toronto Press, 1988.
12
Marshall McLuhan, “The Role of New Media in Social Change” in George Sanderson and Frank Macdonald,
Marshall McLuhan: The Man and His Message (Golden, CO: Fulcrum, 1989)): 36; Siegfried Giedion, The
Eternal Present. The Beginnings of Architecture. A Contribution on Constancy and Change (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1964)
13
Denise Schmandt-Besserat, How Writing Came About (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996).
14
Innis, 39.
20. 15
Innis, 48.
16
“For the city, as it develops, becomes a center of a network of communications: the gossip of the well or the
town pump, the talk at the pub of the washboard, the proclamations of messenger and heralds, the confidences
of friends, the rumors of the exchange and the market, the guarded intercourse of scholars, the interchange of
letters and reports, bills and accounts, the multiplication of books – all these are central activities of the city. In
this respect the permissive size of the city partly varies with the velocity and the effective range of
communication.” (Lewis Mumford, The City In History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1961) 63-5.
17
Mumford, City, 63.
18
Mumford, City, 99.
19
Victor Hugo, “This Will Kill That” The Hunchback of Notre Dame:
http://www.freebooks.biz/Classics/Hugo/Hunchback/HunchbackC24P1.htm
20
Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural
Transformations in Early Modern Europe. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge: Univ. Press, 1979).
21
“In fact, from the origin of things down to the fifteenth century of the Christian era, inclusive, architecture is
the great book of humanity, the principal expression of man in his different stages of development, either as a
force or as an intelligence.” (Victor Hugo, “This Will Kill That” The Hunchback of Notre Dame:
http://www.freebooks.biz/Classics/Hugo/Hunchback/HunchbackC24P1.htm)
22
Mario Carpo, Architecture in the Age of Printing: Orality, Writing, Typography, and printed Images in the
History of Architectural Theory Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001: 6
23
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994):125; see also Marshall
McLuhan, “The Role”, 36.
24
Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry Into a Category of
Bourgeois Society (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995).
25
Gwendolyn Wright, Moralism and the Model Home: Domestic Architecture and Cultural Conflict in
Chicago, 1873-1913 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Building the Dream: A Social History of
American Housing (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981).
26
Beatriz Colomina, Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media (Cambridge, PA: The MIT
Press, 1994); “The Media House,” Assemblage 27 (August 1995): 55-66.
27
Shelley Rice, Parisian Views (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997).
28
Kester Rattenbury, “Iconic Pictures” In Kester Rattenbury, Ed., This Is Not Architecture: Media
Constructions (New York: Routledge, 2001): 57-90.
29
In addition, much has been written on the pageantry of the movie palaces and other such theatrical
architecture; about the consumer messages written into the grands magasins and the early department stores,
architecture serving as advertising.
30
Mumford, City, 564.
31
Joshua Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1985).
32
Lynn Spigel, Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1992); Welcome to the Dreamhouse: Popular Media and Postwar Suburbs (Console-ing
Passions) Durham: Duke University Press, 2001).
33
Anna McCarthy, Ambient Television: Visual Culture and Public Space (Console-Ing Passions) (Durham:
Duke University Press, 2001).
34
Terence Riley, Unprivate House (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1999): 11.
35
William J. Mitchell, e-topia: “Urban Life, Jim – But Not as We Know It” (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999:
28-9
36
Mumford, City, 563.
37
Mumford, Culture, 6.
38
Mitchell, 97.
39
Mitchell, 129.
40
(Eric W. Allison, Mary Ann Allison, “Using Culture and Communications Theory in Postmodern Urban
Planning: A Cybernetic Approach” Communication Research 22:6 (December 1995): 640.
41
Eduardo E. Lozano, Community Design and the Culture of Cities: The Crossroad and the Wall (Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990).