Canadian Communication Thought Fall 2022

  I want to discuss Marshall McLuhan in this week's blog post. Throughout the course, we spent a great deal talking about Harold Innis; therefore, what better way than to talk about McLuhan, who Innis inspired?  Marshall McLuhan's,  Understanding the Media: The Extension of Man  mainly focuses on the idea that humanity's technological advancements increasing power and speed can be understood as extensions of man. In other words, media is an extension of humans that affects how humans look and feel toward things, as media can alter sensory ratios. He takes you on a historical journey illustrating the breakdown effects of speed through papyrus, the phonetic alphabet, electronic technology, typography, printing...etc. By doing this, McLuhan highlights the argument that power and speed are a disruption in the extension of man that ultimately gets in our way resulting in detachment and uninvolvement. For example, Specifically, McLuhan states, "an extension appears to be a...

For this week’s open topic I thought it would be relevant to discuss McLuhan’s stance on advertising and capital consumerism as well as the theme of the American Dream. In our lecture, we referenced McLuhan’s book and his argument that advertising is all about getting inside the collective mind. Once advertisers are able to get into the collective mind they are then able to manipulate and control the individual into participating in consumerism.  Capital consumerism also has a part to play in the concept of the American Dream. The American Dream is the idea that individuals strive for high aspirations and goals to better their life and inhibit the “ideal lifestyle”. Achieving the American Dream also means being in the upper class, having financial stability and freedom, and therefore the ability to be a super-consumer. Commodity fetishism is a term used to describe the relationship between commodities and people. Furthermore, the way that certain commodities like luxury goods depic...

Marshall McLuhan’s Gutenberg Galaxy is not the most accessible read regarding his thought process. He moves along differently than almost any author I have read; starting with King Lear, McLuhan alluded that man's stream of consciousness or self-awareness was embodied in that text's transformational nature. The transformation from the idea that kings organize society based on roles towards a sense of individuals choosing jobs for themselves. The role of the Gutenberg printing press is its ability to spread ideas like Shakespeare’s play on mass.   According to McLuhan, the transformation of society from orality to visual culture was tied to the printing press.   This process was made possible through the alphabet, in its ability to provide a medium for thoughts of society; it’s important to note that writing had accomplished this but to a lesser degree. The organizational structure of society was heavily influenced by mass production via the printing press, civil society, and t...

               In this week's blog post, I would like to talk about Bruno Latour. As he was mentioned in one of my other classes I found that some of his theories and ideas related to other influential figures we have brought up in this course.  In his article ‘ Visualization and Cognition: Drawing Things Together,’ Latour points out the invention of print and its effects on science and technology as well as mobilization and immutability. The meaning of mobilization as we know is the ability to make something movable, and the meaning of immutability is the inability to change. Latour brings forward the concept of immutable mobiles, the printing press becomes a device that makes both mobilization and immutability possible at the same time. The printing press ensures immutability by the process of printing great quantities of identical copies, and mobility is ensured by the number of copies that will be distributed around the world. Immuta...