W. Terrence Gordon
W. Terrence (Terry) Gordon has kindly offered to give us a virtual guest lecture on McLuhan. He is the author of many books and is the editor of Gingko Press’ Critical Edition of Understanding Media](http://www.gingkopress.com/02-mcl/understanding-media.html).
The lecture will be on Monday May 20th at 16:00 CET (click here for your own timezone).
The URL for the Adobe Connect session is the following:
We had an interesting discussion just now about the usage of phones in our current society and how movies are changing (especially in relation to books). We also talked about hierarchies in large organizations and how they relate communications technology. You can watch the recording here:
On Monday, May 13th, at 16:00 CET we will have our next virtual meeting for #UMRG. Click this link to see the meeting in your own timezone.
We will use Adobe Connect. Click on the following link to join the meeting:
http://meet79324623.adobeconnect.com/umrg-8
This week we will look at the chapters about the typewriter, the telephone, the phonograph and the movies. Dennie and Ñusta have created summaries with questions that we will try and answer together. There should be a lot of discussion, so make sure the microphone of your computer is working. Go here if you think you need help with Adobe Connect.
See you there!
P.S. Can somebody please remind me at the beginning of the session to press the record button? Thanks!
Ñusta Nina has created a set of slides as a summary for chapters 26 to 29. Make sure to check out the embedded videos and her questions at the end:
Click to see the slide show
Dennie Heye has written the following about chapter 26 to 29.
To be honest, it took me a while to get into McLuhan’s writing. It reminded me of the theoretical books and articles I read during my university studies – but with the difference that McLuhan makes you think at least once every chapter and his thinking is still valid after decades.
Below my mindmap based on the chapters typewriter, telephone, phonograph and movies for others to peruse. It’s an interactive (expandable) PDF of the mindmap, hopefully this works for all.
Click to download/open PDF
I have outlined the questions that I would like to offer for discussion below. Unfortunately I will not be present during next week’s call to take part in the discussion:
1. McLuhan states that the telephone has decentralized every operation and bypasses hierarchical arrangements in business. This made me think how e-mail instant messaging and now social media has continued this trend. to this day. But still many (older?) organisations are still run via hierarchical “command and control” structures, although everyone knows that these structures are not how things get done, communicated or decided. Why do organisations still put so much effort and “respect” in hierarchical (management) structures, when the current set of technology tools could lead to more transparent communication, better informed decision making and more fluid operations?
2. In the chapter about the telephone, McLuhan writes: “”In any given structure, the rate of staff accumulation is not related to the work” and “The work to be done is actually the movement of information”. I have always worked in complex, global, large organizations and I am sometimes amazed how much staff is involved in moving information around. We handle, reprocess, (re)validate, re-work, discuss, re-route information all day – just look at the job titles nowadays: process owners, business analysts, information architect, compliancy officer etc. .I wonder how much of this work is part of a “ritual” (or perhaps even busy work?) or actually work that is crucial to make the organization realize it’s goals?
3. On the last page of the chapter about the phonograph, McLuhan puts a great set of short definitions:
Telephone: speech without walls
Phonograph: music hall without walls
Photograph: museum without walls
Electric light: space without walls
Move / radio / tv: classroom without walls
How would McLuhan have defined the Internet in the above list?
This thinking about innovation is very common nowadays, but McLuhan wrote the following in 1964 and just has a particular way with words that I very much appreciate. From page 336 (of the ISBN 978-1584230731 edition):
Any innovation threatens the equilibrium of existing organization. In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so that they can be clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses. When one is found, it is assigned to a group for neutralizing and immunizing treatment. It is comical, therefore, when anybody applies to a big corporation with a new idea that would result in a great “increase of production and sales.” Such an increase would be a disaster for the existing management. They would have to make way for new management. Therefore, no new idea ever starts from within a big operation. It must assail the organization from outside, through some small but competing organization.
Kars Alfrink from Hubbub just helped us to have a great discussion about MLuhan, games, art, play and work:
Make sure to check out the chat transcript for a set of links to books, games and concepts.
I stumbled on a faux interview with McLuhan in Wired from 1996. It is prefaced as follows:
Scholars agree that Marshall McLuhan’s earliest books were written by him, but there is mystery and uncertainty about who really wrote his subsequent works. McLuhan would lie on a couch, head on a pillow, and spout ideas, for hours. Sometimes assistants would transcribe as McLuhan dictated, sometimes they would later write down what McLuhan had said, and sometimes they would write down what they thought McLuhan had said. Somehow books were assembled from these notes and recollections, and then McLuhan signed his name to them. This indefinite manner of creation was never a problem for McLuhan, who often insisted that facts were not as important as fallacies.
The fallacies of this interview with McLuhan are as follows: About a year ago, someone calling himself Marshall McLuhan began posting anonymously on a popular mailing list called Zone (zone@wired.com). Gary Wolf began a correspondence with the poster via a chain of anonymous remailers. McLuhan (who would have been 85 this year) said he now lives in a beach town in Southern California named “Parma.” (This town does not exist.) One after another, tiny hints, confirmed by third parties close to McLuhan decades ago, convinced Wolf that if the poster was not McLuhan himself, it was a bot programmed with an eerie command of McLuhan’s life and inimitable perspective. After many rounds of e-mail, the conversation got down to the meat of the matter: What does McLuhan think about all this new digital technology?
The things Wolf makes “McLuhan” says are quite funny and smart. For example McLuhan is asked his thought on advertising. His reply is as follows:
Let me tell you about the economy of Parma, where I live. It has a secret economy, a mixture of software firms and natural-juice franchises whose factories are the unused rec rooms and converted triple-car garages of a suburban lifestyle that no longer holds interest. The juice franchises in Parma do not actually squeeze juice – this is handled remotely by friends and relatives of the franchisees, who strike deals with national distributors of organic produce. The franchise handles the marketing campaign: developing slogans, bottle designs, billboards, and TV commercials.
You see, the advertising is far more expensive and difficult than the juicing. This has been the case generally with advertising for several decades: by now it should be obvious that a product is merely an inducement to the consumer to purchase the advertising. The Net will only further this movement.
It is quite conceivable to me that a juice franchise could stop charging for its beverage altogether and simply give it away to people who pay to receive the advertising. (Emphasis mine)
Read it all here.
Wired has a page that lists all their references to McLuhan. I enjoyed The Wisdom of Saint Marshall, the Holy Fool and Kelly’s interview with Derrick de Kerckhove too.
On Monday, May 6th, at 16:00 CET we will have our next virtual meeting for #UMRG. Click this link to see the meeting in your own timezone.
We will use Adobe Connect. Click on the following link to join the meeting:
http://meet79324623.adobeconnect.com/umrg-7
This week we will have a guest: game designer Kars Alfrink from Hubbub. Rhonda Jessen has written a summary and asks us two questions, while I have also asked a few questions about games on the basis of some McLuhan quotes. There should be a lot of discussion, so make sure the microphone of your computer is working. Go here if you think you need help with Adobe Connect.
See you there!
P.S. Can somebody please remind me at the beginning of the session to press the record button? Thanks!
Rhonda Jessen has used Haiku Deck to create a visually stunning summary of chapters 23 to 25.
You can download a PDF version of the slides or watch them on Haikudeck by clicking the image below.
Ads, Games & Telegraph on Haiku Deck
Rhonda would like us to talk about the following questions:
Understanding Media 