Visual and Cultural Theory - Essay Example

? Historical Media Transitions in McLuhan’s (1962, 1995) “Prologue: The Gutenberg Galaxy” 16 August The history of human communication affects the history of media. The debate on the development and effects of both histories cannot be detached, however, from the discourse on the binary between literate and non-literate societies. Marshal McLuhan’s The Gutenberg Galaxy, originally published in 1962 (republished in 1995), explores the transition of human civilisation from being an oral to a writing society, where the media have become increasingly diverse and prevalent in affecting the shape and direction of human communication. This essay analyses and determines the main ideas and historical and cultural contexts of the prologue of McLuhan’s The Gutenberg Galaxy, while using studio practices to explain McLuhan’s key ideas. Two secondary materials are also used to explore McLuhan’s text, Morrison’s (2001) article, “The Place of Marshall McLuhan in the Learning of His Time” and Scannell’s (2007) book, Media and Communication. The main ideas of McLuhan’s (1995) The Gutenberg Galaxy emphasise the importance of the medium as the message, while Morrison (2001) asserts the role of technology in expanding human functions. Scannell (2007) supports the cultural transitions that occurred, using McLuhan’s idea of a “global village” (p.135). McLuhan describes the effects of transitioning from an oral to a writing society wherein he argues that literacy expands important human functions, but with limitations, and that the electronic age has produced the retribalisation of human society, and these ideas have a connection to the transition from soundless to sound films, where the latter films exhibit both opportunities and limitations for expressing and extending human thoughts and practices. McLuhan (1995) criticises the devaluation of oral societies, including their oral practices. His text responds to the historical underestimation of the value of oral practices and the vitality of oral societies. He cites the work of Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales, who continued the work of Milman Parry. Parry hypothesised that his Homeric studies could prove that oral and written poetry did not share similar patterns and uses (McLuhan, 1995, p.90). Parry’s work had been initially snubbed by the academe because of the prevailing belief that literacy is the basis of civilisation. Morrison (2001) describes the difficulties of Parry in getting his study approved in Berkeley during the 1920s. See Appendix A for research notes on the primary and secondary texts used. The Berkeley faculty represents the general belief that literacy and civilisation are directly related: The notion that high literacy is the normative state of language and civilization, and that its only alternative is the fallen state of illiteracy, and hence darkness and ignorance, seems to occupy the vital center of humanistic studies with remarkable energy and intensity. (Morrison 2001, para.6). The key idea is that by assuming that literacy is the most important sign of civilisation, it automatically discriminates against studies on oral practices and societies that would suggest otherwise. McLuhan responds to the historical underrepresentation of oral studies in the humanities and history in general. He wants to address this underrepresentation through his own analysis of the electronic age, and how it goes back to oral traditions of earlier times. McLuhan demonstrates that history is incomplete when it does not provide enough space for the description and analysis of oral societies and practices. Aside from filling the gap of literature on oral practices, McLuhan (1995) supports the idea that oral societies have a richer connection with all of their senses, while the written text has produced a limited visual society because it suppresses auditory functions. He highlights literature that explores the vitality of oral practices, where oral societies are rich civilisations, perhaps even richer than writing ones. McLuhan (1995) mentions Professor Harry Levin in his preface to Professor Lord’s The Singer of Tales. Levin highlights that: We ought to take a fresh look at tradition, considered not as the inert acceptance of a fossilized corpus of themes and conventions, but as an organic habit of re-creating what has been received and is handed on. (cited McLuhan 1995, p.91). Written communication is described as fossilised because it becomes so permanently unchangeable that it does not grow over time. The idea is that verbal tradition is a highly creative act, since it compels storytellers to re-create the story over and over again. Morrison (2001) confirms the idea of creativity in oral societies through the concept of cliches that have lost its original meaning in Western literate societies. He says: To us Western, secular moderns, a cliche is a shopworn expression unworthy of serious consideration because of its overuse. To an oral culture, triteness is inconceivable, for only those thoughts that can be formulated into sayings, apothegms, proverbs, and other dicta are likely to survive the entropic effects of oral transmission. (Morrison 2001). Cliches, in the oral society’s terms, manifest the ability of people to sew existing stories, in order to re-create old ones. As these stories spread across the society, they exhibit the collective spirit of the people. McLuhan presents the idea that it is ironic that some historians undermine oral practices when the latter have highly re-creating processes that unite the senses. What is supposed to be the underdog of human communication may actually be a distinctive superstar. While oral practices enrich the senses, the visual society limits it. McLuhan (1995) argues that the visual society restricts how people express and interpret their ideas and emotions. He argues this through the process of experimentation. In experimenting with the human language, the idea is to suppress or remove the organ being studied to understand its effects on organisms, and researchers can deduce the function the missing or diminished organ from there (McLuhan 1995, pp.92-93). Literacy suppresses the auditory ability of people, which expands and intensifies the visual aspect of language (McLuhan 1995, p.93). The problem, however, is that by seeing language alone, it removes the unity of all senses. McLuhan (1995) calls literacy as a form of “disturbance” of the senses, which printing enhanced (p.94). An example is the difference between merely telling stories, as in early plays, and showing it through cinemas. In early plays, the audience see the action with their own senses, while actors use their full senses to perform too. Cinemas delimit the rest of the senses when people only see the performance as a recorded object. Scannell (2007) explained McLuhan’s analysis, where the “seeing” language has limited its connection with other senses (p.134). Indeed, one can imagine the difference between a nonliterate and literate man, where the former considers all senses in expressing and decoding language, while literate people emphasise what they see in the written world. The irony is present once more because visualising language should be seen as superior to oral language, when the reverse can be argued. Another idea from McLuhan is that the media of the visual society provide tools that extend the functions of the human senses, which supports the idea that the medium is the message. Though literacy and printing can be argued as disturbances, McLuhan (1995) argues that these tools are extensions of humanity, not outside it or even as some critics say, harmful to it. He asserts that literacy impacts human expression in positive ways because it has “made it possible for man to accumulate experience and knowledge in a form that made easy transmission and maximum use possible” (McLuhan 1995, p.94). In connection to studio practices, adding sound enables actors to directly express themselves in ways that reconnect them to their bodies. Though people can no longer view the performances “live” as in oral societies, they can hear the performance and connect sounds to actions and symbols on screen. Moreover, when McLuhan explores the idea that the medium is the message, it highlights the importance of the medium in shaping the message, affecting both the speaker and the receiver. There is something biological in how he explains the connection between the media and the message through organ suppression (i.e. remove sound and observe the effects on people’s thoughts and speech), but the point is that when a person becomes literate, his/her perception of the world changes too. As the auditory function becomes suppressed, the visual capability becomes highlighted and stronger. How people predominantly express themselves shape how they think and interact with one another. In studio practice, instead of just showing the scenes for instance, without sound, they use other ways of clarifying scenes, such as through using titles and other written expressions. Before the written language, people can see something and interpret it using collective experiences. With the written language, they can interpret the media individually. Thus, the medium becomes an important part of the message itself. The final idea to be discussed is the retribalisation of the society through the electronic age. McLuhan uses King Lear to describe and explain the social changes that came about after literacy and printing. He talks about “darker purpose” of King Lear that marks the shift to individualism, which reverts to collectivism in the electronic age (McLuhan 1995, p.99). He argues that: “King Lear is a presentation of the new strategy of culture and power as it affects the state, the family, and the individual psyche” (McLuhan 1995, p.99). In essence, the written word highlights the individual psyche and the individual’s importance in modern society. Electronic age changes that by providing opportunities for oral practices to re-emerge and for tribalisation to develop once more. McLuhan (1995) argues the impact of the media on human communication and interactions: “The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village” (p.121). When he says this, he refers to another cultural transformation, from detribalisation to retribalisation. McLuhan’s text is responding to cultural changes from collectivism to individualisation back to collectivism again through the electronic age. Media technology enables people to speak more and to speak more often with one another, instead of just reading and repeating the same words and images. Together, they can re-create history in ways that early nonliterate societies used to. These ideas can be expressed further, where the opportunities in sound films refer to the ability to extend the auditory function, while the limitations of sound film are the undermining of the drama that comes from oral societies. Oral societies can understand sound films in that they can become part of the performance, although in a limited way. McLuhan (1995) asserts that: Non-literate people have no such acquired habit and do not look at objects in our way. Rather they scan objects and images as we do the printed page, segment by segment. Thus they have no detached point of view. They are wholly with the object. (p.128). With sounds, people can connect with the actors more. They can see the relationship between speech and body gestures, as well as facial expressions. Nevertheless, sound films have limitations when they have lost the drama of soundless films. McLuhan cites the work of J.C.Carothers, who wrote in Psychiatry about the differences between literate and nonliterate children: Whereas the Western child is early introduced to building blocks, keys in locks, water taps, and a multiplicity of items and events which constrain him to think in terms of spatiotemporal relations and mechanical causation, the African child receives instead an education which depends much more exclusively on the spoken word and which is relatively highly charged with drama and emotion. (cited McLuhan 1995, p.108). The text shows that soundless films have flair when it comes to dramatising performance. They have a specialty in expressing emotions that can be universal to all audiences. Still, one should not discount the idea that the electronic media can include more participation between performers and the audience. For instance, films nowadays have social networking accounts, where the producers, directors, and actors can communicate with viewers. Retribalisation happens, but not automatically. The audience has to respond or to create the conversation. McLuhan (1005) ends with a positive note which underlines the theme of communicative human potential for electronic media. He cites Gombrich who understands the pros and cons of the visual society: From this point of view it appeared quite natural that the awakening of art from primitive modes should have coincided with the rise of all those other activities, that, for the humanist, belong to civilization: the development of philosophy, of science, and of dramatic poetry. (cited McLuhan 1995, p.108). People have the tools in their hands to develop diverse skills and knowledge, but they have to make certain choices. In studio design, sound can either be meaningful or meaningless, depending on how directors and writers intend to use it, and how the audience want to understand it. McLuhan presents the vital ideas of the role of the medium in producing the message and its interpretation and the retribalisation that occurs through the electronic age. He does not present a deterministic look at technology, but rather appreciates how electronic media create a global village. Instead of utopia, he presents the challenges of technology. People have the tools to express themselves and to make stories through films. Nevertheless, they also have the power to either maximise it for meaningful purposes or to minimise its importance to the message. Bibliography McLuhan, M., 1995. Prologue: The Gutenberg galaxy. In: McLuhan, E. and Zingrone, F. The essential McLuhan. London: Routledge, 90-145. Morrison. J.C., 2001. The place of Marshall McLuhan in the learning of his time. Counterblast: e-Journal of Culture and Communication, 1(1). Available from: http://www.nyu.edu/pubs/counterblast/issue1_nov01/articles/morrison.html [Accessed 14 August 2013]. Scannell, P., 2007. Media and communication. London: SAGE. Appendix A: Research Notes on the Primary and Secondary Texts Used in This Paper 1. On “Prologue: The Gutenberg Galaxy” Goal of the text: “The Gutenberg Galaxy is intended to trace the ways in which the forms of experience and of mental outlook and expression have been modified, first by the phonetic alphabet and then by printing” (McLuhan 1995, p.90) from verbal to written stories and interactions from speaking to writing to supply the “one thing we do not know.” “But even so, there may well prove to be some other things!” (McLuhan 1995, p.92) Responding to the lack of history, studies on “the revolution in the forms of thought and social organization resulting from the phonetic alphabet” (McLuhan 1995, p.91) impact of phonetic language on human thought and social organisations Text complements The Singer of Tales by Albert B. Lord learning how to sing without the phonetic alphabet and writing oral tradition Professor Harry Levin in his preface to Professor Lord’s The Singer of Tales: “We ought to take a fresh look at tradition, considered not as the inert acceptance of a fossilized corpus of themes and conventions, but as an organic habit of re-creating what has been received and is handed on” (McLuhan 1995, p.91) verbal tradition and its impact on re-creating, emphasis on helping or promoting thinking with creativity writing as “fossilized”- speaking as re-creating “parallel in socio-economic theory” (McLuhan 1995, p.91) money and trading practice changes, hard to compare with barter trade without sufficient data on barter trading practices transition to money and phonetic alphabet= both changed social patterns and practices Karl Bucher states that the study on the classical world must not start with alphabet-using societies but the “primitive” ones (McLuhan 1995, p.91) Primitive society perspective versus modern society perspective (McLuhan 1995, p.92) “Reverse perspective” says McLuhan (1995, p.92) Primitive in what? What is the meaning of this label? McLuhan (1995, p.92) asserts that we live in an “electric or postliterate time.” Jazz musician uses all kinds of oral techniques (McLuhan 1995, p.92) Typographic and mechanical era- then electric era Post-oral because of existence of oral forms and structures of “human interdependence and of expression” (McLuhan 1995, p.92) McLuhan (1995, p.92) says that this calls for “some reorganization of imaginative life.” Reorganization- How we see and express ourselves, how we form and change social structures and forms McLuhan resists a “deterministic” approach to describing modern society Method- Experimentation- Suppress or remove organ being studied- observe effects on organism- deduce the functions of the organ from there Literacy suppressed “auditory function” (McLuhan 1995, p.93) Literacy expands and heightens visual function of language (McLuhan 1995, p.93) Process of attaining balance and unison after a disturbance is introduced: “...The brain runs through its rules one after another, matching the input with its various models until somehow unison is achieved. This may perhaps only be after strenuous, varied, and prolonged searching” (McLuhan 1995, p.93) Literacy as disturbance, followed by printing (McLuhan 1995, p.94) Tools that extend the functions of the human body (McLuhan 1995, p.94) Language as “metaphor” that “it not only stores but translates experience from one mode into another” (McLuhan 1995, p.94). McLuhan argues that extending the body ironically delimits it too. IRONY “But the price we pay for special technological tools, whether the wheel or the alphabet or radio, is that these massive extensions of sense constitute closed systems” (McLuhan 1995, p.94). Senses are collective systems- tools for expanding them cannot substitute the awareness for these collective systems Electric age has consequences: “Now, in the electric age, the very instantaneous nature of co-existence among our technological instruments has created a crisis quite new in human history” (McLuhan 1995, p.94). “Our technologies, like our private senses, now demand an interplay and ratio that makes rational coexistence possible” (McLuhan 1995, p.94). Rational coexistence- Sight, sound, and movement coexist The parts that are known through their connection with other parts J.Z. Young- “electricity is not a thing that “flows” but is “the condition we observe when there are certain spatial relations between things” (McLuhan 1995, p.95). Historical viewpoint is limited, “a closed system” (McLuhan 1995, p.96). History suffers from subjectivity, the absence of multilinear approaches (McLuhan 1995, p.96). Alexis de Tocqueville: “Everyone shuts himself tightly up within himself and insists upon judging the world from there” (McLuhan 1995, p.96). McLuhan believes that a more insightful analysis of history can be understood through the marriage of oral and written histories. Written and oral modes, not written versus oral (McLuhan 1995, p.96). McLuhan highlights the importance of “diagnosis and description” versus “valuation and therapy” (McLuhan 1995, p.96). McLuhan describes the process of detribalisaton to tribalisation of modern society from Karl Popper’s studies and concepts theme of the text: “That the abstracting or opening of closed societies is the work of the phonetic alphabet, and not of any other "form of writing or technology, is one theme of The Gutenberg Galaxy” (McLuhan 1995, p.98). McLuhan cites Popper: By the sixth century B.C., this development had led to the partial dissolution of the old ways of life, and even to a series of political revolutions and reactions... This strain, this uneasiness, is a consequence of the breakdown of the closed society. It is still felt even in our day, especially in times of social change. It is the strain created by the effort which life in an open and partially abstract society continually demands from us—by the endeavor to be rational, to forego at least some of our emotional social needs, to look after ourselves, and to accept responsibilities... It is the price we have to pay for being human... (cited in McLuhan 1995, p.98). McLuhan uses King Lear to describe and explain the social changes that came about after literacy and printing. The “darker purpose” of King Lear- toward individualism, and then collectivism McLuhan explains that King Lear shows the innovation of delegation, ruling through delegation. Only we still retain The name, and all th’ additions to a king. The sway, Revenue, execution of the rest, Beloved sons, be yours; which to confirm, This coronet part betwixt you. (cited McLuhan 1995, p.99). “King Lear is a presentation of the new strategy of culture and power as it affects the state, the family, and the individual psyche” (McLuhan 1995, p.99). Detribalisation and efficiency and effectiveness in ruling through divided control: “Shakespeare shows an utter clairvoyance concerning the social and personal consequences of denudation and stripping of attributes and functions for the sake of speed, precision, and increased power” (McLuhan 1995, p.102). Dark purpose, to literally and figuratively strip away sight. Goneril tells King Lear: “I love you more than words can wield the matter;/Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty” (cited McLuhan 1995, p.102). Detribalisation and the breaking of senses, isolation of senses and its ill effects: “The allusion to “the most precious square of sense” shows Shakespeare doing an almost scholastic demonstration of the need for a ratio and interplay among the senses as the very constitution of rationality” (McLuhan 1995, p.102). “King Lear is a kind of elaborate case history of people translating themselves out of a world of roles into the new world of jobs” (McLuhan 1995, p.103). Disturbance: “The stripping of the senses and the interruption of their interplay in tactile synesthesia may well have been one of the effects of the Gutenberg technology” (McLuhan 1995, p.106). Visual society is an impairment of other senses: “The Lockean swoon was the hypnotic trance induced by stepping up the visual component in experience until it filled the field of attention” (McLuhan 1995, p.107). 2. On Morrison’s article Confirms the historical context of McLuhan’s article On the marginalisation of studies on oral societies High literacy versus low oral societies: “The notion that high literacy is the normative state of language and civilization, and that its only alternative is the fallen state of illiteracy, and hence darkness and ignorance, seems to occupy the vital center of humanistic studies with remarkable energy and intensity” (Morrison, 2001). Cliches from oral performances of Homeric poems- the act of sewing available cloths (Morrison, 2001). Written language transforms societies culturally too because it changes how they think and interact with one another (Morrison, 2001). “Medium is the language” where medium becomes the language because it affects how people think and express themselves (Morrison, 2001). 3. On Scannell’s coverage of McLuhan’s The Gutenberg Galaxy McLuhan is “first analyst of the media” (Scannell 2007, p.134). Media as extension of man from Edward Hall’s The Silent Language (Scannell 2007, p.134). Retribalisation through the electronic media Read More