TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM

MARSHALL MCLUHAN

1. INTRODUCTION.

. Media critic Marshall Mcluhan was himself a media figure

o He believed that the new electronic media have radically altered the way
people think, feel, and act.

2. COMMUNICATION I]\IVENTIONS: THE BALANCE POINTS OF

HISTORY

o Mcluhan divided human history into four epochs: tribal, literate, print, and
electronic
o The changes from one age to *re next were rapid and were caused by new
communication technology
o These new technologies were the phonetic alphabet, the printing press, and the
telegraph
o The electronic media have created social upheaval.

3. WE SHAPE OUR TOOLS AND THEY IN TURN SHAPE US

, Mcluhan's theory is technological determinism-changes in modes of

communication cause cultural change and shape human existence
. Mcluhan extended the work of Harold Innis
. No aspect of culture is untouched by communication technology, Mcluhan
proposed
. He believed that every new form of media innovation extended some human
faculty
. Media organize and interpret our social existence.

4. THE MEDIUM TS THf, Mf,,SSAGE.

I Our lives are a function of the way we process information

I Key communication technologies change the way people think about
their world
. themselves and
i A medium has more influence than its explicit messages
& Mcluhan's pun "the medium is the massage" indicates that the media work us
over
I The dominant medium of an age dominates people.

5. A MEDIA ANALYSIS OF HUMAN HISTORY

.i The tribal age: an acoustrc community
l. The senses ofhearing, touch, taste, and smell were more advanced than
visualization
 2. "Primitive" people lived richer lives than their literate descendants
because the ear does not select
3. People acted with more passion and spontaneity.
.i. The age of literacy: a visual point of view.
L Literacy moved people from collective tribal involvement to private
detachment
2. Literacy encouraged logical, linear thinking, and fostered mathematics,
science, and philosophy.
* The print age: prototype of the industrial revolution.
I . The pnnting press made visual dependence widespread
2. The development of fixed national languages produced nationalism
3. Mcluhan regarded the fragrnentation of sociefy as the most significant
outcome of print
* The electronic age: the rise ofthe global village
L Mcluhan believed that the electronic media are re-tribalizing humanity
2. In an electronic age, privacy is a luxury or a curse ofthe past
3. Linear logic is useless in the electronic society; we focus on what we
feel.

6. TELEVISION IS MEDIUM COOL

i Mcluhan's media-cultural analysis sought to explain the social unrest of the

1960s
i He classified media as either hot or cool
l. Hot media are high-definition channels of communication usually
directed at a single sense receptor print, photographs, motion
pictures, and radio
2. Cool media's low-definition display draws a person in, requiring high
audience participation-telephone
i Parallels exist between the categories of hot and cool and the left-brain and
right brain functions
l. Hot media tend to be highly visual, logical, and private
2. Cool media tend to be aural, intuitive, and emotionally involving
i Although people think of television as visual, Mcluhan disagrees; to him,
television is cool because it requires viewer involvement and doesn't bypass
either sight or sound.

7. LIVING ON THE EDGE OF AN ERA

/ Politics
l Modem politicians must work the medium of television effectively
2. The fall of the lron Curtain demonstrates the ability of the electronic
media to carry the message of freedom throughout the global village
/ Education.
l. The acoustic media threaten an educational establishment invested in
books
2. Educators need to plunge into the vo rtex ofelectronic technology
 r' Sex and drugs
I - Mcluhan believed that television is tactile and acoustic
2. Thus, he argued that television inspired the sexual revolution and
increased drug usage

8. THE NEW DIGITAL AGE_AN ERA Otr'TECHNOPOLY

r Has the recent revolution in communication technology wrenched us into a
new digital age that is qualitatively different from the four historical epochs
Mcluhan names?
o Neil Postman wams that each media technology carries an inherent ideology
that it thrusts upon its users
. Postman believes we have become a technopoly-our thought-world is
dominated by technology; tools have taken over
o The mediated world has replaced traditional print values wiih cyber-virtues
such as speech, emotional involvement, and immediate gratification
. Postman believes we must assess the effect on our lives oftechnologies before
we adopt them.

9. CRITIQUE: HOW COULD HE BE RIGHT? BUT WHAT IF HE IS?

o Mcluhan did not adequately support his claims

o His prose is very difficult to understand
o Deterministic theories have difficulty with the criterion of falsifiability
o Yet some cultural critics and media practitioners praise Mcluhan's insights
1. Tom Wolfe suggests that Mcluhan may be one of the great geniuses of
our era
2. Tony Schwartz praises his insights into political advertising
3. Malcolm Muggeridge conducts Mcluhanesque analyses of religious
broadcasting
4. Although it is difficult to accept all that he said, his historical analysis
has heightened awareness ofthe possible cultural effects ofnew media
technologies