The Electronic Age: The Age of Implosion – McLuhan
McLuhan, M. (1997). Media research: technology, art, communication: Routledge.
In The Electronic Age – The Age of Implosion, McLuhan discusses the idea that the explosion of the electronic age has actually created an implosion of our models of perception. This is to say that we are now ever-more aware of individuals at much greater distances than we once were. “All men are now involved in one another physically and psychically as happens when they occupy a very small village. And as global villagers, all men must now accommodate their judgments to the complex interdependence understood and manipulated by villagers” (16).
As I’ve noted previously (again an epiphany far from original to me), McLuhan’s insight is far more relevant today than it was at the time he wrote this essay (1962). In the 1960s, one could read newspapers, hear radio broadcasts, or watch television footage of events and individuals in other parts of the world or even interact with individuals over the telephone. However, this pales in comparison to the direct, egalitarian, interactive features that the internet offers us. One can create his or other own website, video blog, etc. for the masses, or have one-to-one video conversations, either in real time or asynchronously, with individuals around the world. Therefore, to the extent that I can be aware of, interact with, and accommodate my judgments and perceptions of people around the world, we are currently more “global villagers” than ever before.
This is to say that we can communicate with online individuals at any distance without even leaving our homes. We form various communities that assist us in socializing, working through personal or professional issues, discussing our religious and spiritual beliefs, etc. While this may not have the FtF synchronicity and serendipity of a literal village (performing tasks and walking together, etc.), many conversational tangents occur. When such communication is conducted through the OVC, one can both see and hear the individual(s) with whom he or she is speaking. The essence of my research is to determine the extent to which this situation presents a level of social presence (awareness of the conversation participants) higher than other distance communication methods and how it is perceived in ratio to FtF communication.
“Today, at the end of the Gutenberg era…, we find new fascination with all the pre-literate cultural modes of man. Many are now disposed to reject the entire achievement of literate Western man in an effort to recover integral values” (21).
I am no way suggesting we should, or could, ignore the literacy we have achieved in the name of returning to some pre-literate status. However, through my examination of the Online Video Conversation (OVC), I am interested in looking at a particular way that we communicate largely orally through asynchronous online video. Just as Walter Ong wrote of “Orality and Literacy,” I am not interested in any opposition of these two concepts, but rather, how they relate to and affect each other and how we use them together. The OVC offers a pretty unique setting in which we can communicate through online video, yet including textual communication as well.
In a discussion of how all our technologies bring new enterprises but also chip away at our faculties, McLuhan cites Edward T. Hall from pg 13 of The Silent Language:
“Today man has developed extensions for practically everything he use to do his body. The evolution of weapons begins with the teeth and the fist and ends with the atom bomb. Clothing and houses are extensions of man’s biological temperature-control mechanisms. Furniture takes the place of squatting and sitting on the ground. Power tools, glasses, tv, telephones, and books which carry the voice across both time and space are examples of material extensions. Money is a way of extending and storing and labour. Our transportation networks now do what we used to do with our feet and backs. In fact, all man-made material things can be treated as extensions of what man once did with his body or some specialized part of his body” (27-28).
The OVC represents another method of communicating that we once did face-to-face (FtF). While this could refer all the way back to a pre-literate, primary orality, I am really referring more to the setting in which I am examining it: the classroom. Instruction in the university was originally delivered solely FtF. Distance education (jumping right to the internet age) went through a number of phases, including asynchronous textual delivery using LMS tools such as BlackBoard and WebCT, Television delivery, synchronous online meetings in both textual (like the MOO or Moodle) and video (with Skype and other tools), etc. The OVC is a different approach, which has students and instructors communicating through online video, but in an asynchronous manner: a communication situation that strives to some extent to simulate aspects of the FtF setting, but perhaps also providing the textual element that exists in the FtF classroom where instructors and students can share examples on a blackboard or whiteboard.
“Having outered ourselves in the new materials we have to behold ourselves anew. And we then become what we behold” (28).
The OVC is not a communication method that is so unique or radical that it threatens or promises to change the way we communicate. However, it is different enough that it does require its participants, students in this case, to have a different sort of self-awareness in the way that they communicate. Their appearances are now visible–a condition not always existent in online education or communication–and comments are now archived, which creates both beneficial and potentially detrimental results.
McLuhan states, “There will be no more classrooms and no schools and no subjects” (34). He is, essentially, looking to some future point where we will move away from this structure that is based on the technology of his era. This is to say that the classroom is based on the technology of the book where exact replicas (as opposed to the pre-Gutenberg manuscript) could be placed in all the students’ hands. He references the increased perception and sensibility that can be gained from learning grammar and linguists via tape-recorder. The OVC can be seen as an extension of that somewhat dated process in the multimodality that it offers. Also, as I have used it, the OVC is applied in a solely online class (no classroom) for students to communicate across any distance, and could theoretically be used, still for educational purposes, without a formal school or even subject.
[Commented pasted in from Daphne Clemens Ervin]
Obviously you are delving into psychophysic, which studies how our eyes see in 2d, but really we perceive the world with our brain in 3d. It is during infantile development that we develop at various degrees our ability to perceive the 2d world. You know I am not a researcher, and I didn’t have time to read your essay completely because I am in the middle of moving, but I just had to share with you Cheryl Ball, Michael Wesch, and my theory that the Internet is going to cause us to think more circuitously. Wesch has done anthropological work in which natives on an island had the island mapped. However they are nomadic and usually would just build their huts in the best place; yet , with the introduction of the map, they now rebuild their huts in a line so see how print influenced them. The branch that legitimatized psychology as a field is when they studied visual perception. It is called–psychophysics. All of this information is on wikipedia. Anyway, my intuition gave me the motivation to message you because I would love to be a person you could share your research process with. I am so into McLuhan, cyberliteracy, etc. and so is Mialisa Moline. But if you have not studied this aspect because it is so important to tech comm. go for it. Just let me know what you are writing your dissertation.
Take care bro,
Daphne
Hey Daphne,
Admittedly, I am not looking at psychophysic… at least, not intentionally. At first glance, it does not look like it quite feeds into my research. However, the more I ponder it, there might be some place for it. A foundational theory for my diss research is social presence theory, which basically measures the extent to which we are aware of the other individual(s) with whom we are communicating. So I am really looking mostly at that, with a few media theories and social phenomenology to frame it; thus, I am interested in what elements of this specific online communication method shape our perception of it and of the participants with whom we are using it. That said, there could be a place for a discussion on how we perceive he 2D/3D world in regard to using online video. Grrrr, have you just made more work for me? ☺
I don’t think I’ve exchanged more than a few FB comments with Mialisa, but I do know of her (at least former) interest in Ong and orality. I’m actually sitting on a copy of her dissertation, which I’ve yet to read. I’m sure she and I will get into further discussions later. I know Cheryl, although we’ve never much discussed video. I am certainly familiar with Wesch’s video work, but not so much of his actual anthropological work.
The island study you mentioned is really interesting, though. On the surface (have not read the study), it makes me think back to my own undergrad studies in anthropology and the ethic questions of introducing technologies to “natives” in an effort to better their lives. That said, it is very interesting about how a printed/graphical technology could change a cultural practice that has not likely changed among that group for many generations. With each new technology we that we create or encounter, we do tend/need to re-evaluate certain perceptions and practices, since they do shift and reshape our lives to varying degrees. The rate at which new communication tools, and by extension methods, arise in the internet age is amazing, and I do wonder the extent to which each/any of those are really changing the way we communicate and think about such practice as well as what sort of longevity such “new” communication methods will have. I’d say my examination of the OVC is but one small slice of that and one that may very well be outdated as quickly as others.
I’d be happy to share my process and topic. I am revealing little snippets here on the blog as they develop. Current schedule is Quals in late august, so there should be much activity here over the next three months. I’ll take a closer look at psychophysic theory and see if it will work at all for me.
Thanx for the lead; it is good to talk to you, again.
/time
I just re-read this post…I get the message I am communicating to you, but obviously I just drafted a response. If you would like to discuss in more detail, then message me on FB. Time, you rock and roll!!!!!