This material represents the overheads from a guest lecture
in ENGG481. It won't make much sense on its own but I have placed
it here for students who did not want to page the entire class scribbling
it down.
GNST courses in social impact of ITC:
COMS 380 (History of ITC)
GNST 341 (Computers and Society)
Harold Innis
Marshall McLuhan
"Technological Determinism"
Toronto School
Theory of Transformative Technology (Michael Heim)
Focus of the theory:
affordances: what a technology makes easy
constraints: what a technology makes difficult
McLuhan: "The medium is the message."
Any medium has the power of imposing its own assumption on the unwary.
Prediction and control consist in avoiding this subliminal state of Narcissus
trance.
McLuhan, Understanding Media 1964
Primary orality (folk poetry) affords:
-
Narrative
-
Concrete, memorable images
-
intimate tribal relationship with knowledge
Primary orality constrains:
-
abstract argument
-
lists (except as poetry)
-
accumulation of scientific knowledge (except as apprenticeship)
-
technical illustration
-
worship of novelty
Manuscript literacy (500 BC - 1450AD)
Phonetic alphabet represents an accurate, easily learnable system --
takes literacy out of elite status
Affords:
-
complex deductive reasoning
-
discussion of abstractions (justice, honour, evil, etc.)
Elaborate school system developed to train people in this unnatural art
MS literacy constrains
-
stable texts
-
widespread literacy
-
repeatable illustration
Printing press (1450AD)
Readiness conditions:
-
appropriate technologies
-
paper
-
metallurgy
-
press technology
-
phonetic alphabet
-
market: educated middle class
-
concentration of capital
Print literacy (1450 AD - ?)
Affords:
-
cumulative knowledge (scientific/technical journals, eg Proceedings of
the Royal Society of London)
-
knowledge as ownable commodity (first mass produced product of capitalism)
-
stable graphic illustration
-
meaningful textual layout
-
indexes, alphabetical order
-
headings, divisions, paragraphs
Webtext:
Affords:
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integration of graphics, text, sound
-
easy personal publication
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rapid linking
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broad access
Constrains ... ?
-
Do we lose our ability to process complex abstractions?
Can webtext sustain an argument? Or only an encyclopedia?
-
Does knowledge lose its authority?
If so, how will we accumulate knowledge reliably?
-
Is copyright sustainable?
If not, what will the economic driver be?
Can knowledge continue as a byproduct of capitalism?
-
Does webtext continue the evolution of mass media?
Or does it subvert this evolution?
The visual incorporated into the textual: "the revenge of the text on
television" (Michael Joyce)