The Medium is the Message.

       Marshal McLuhan was a Canadian father of forethought in the fields of communication technology. Although he had passed away before the communicative devices of the 21st century were created, his philosophies and concept of "The media is the message is the message" can still be applied to many aspects of today's mass communicative society. The study of media is important because it helps us understand our actions and the functioning of society. McLuhan’s beliefs can help extenuate this.

          In layman terms - the medium is the message can be broken down into two halves that complement each other: The medium (television, radio, text, etc) is just as important as the information being exchanged (the message). In other words, the medium is the characteristics of what we conceive and the message is what we understand. To apply this into real life, we can compare the use of books and television. Words often have multiple meanings, so readers must be good problem-solvers in order to place words in the correct order. Therefore, for this reason, everyone could interpret written work differently. Television is comprised of a visual element and a spoken element. For this reason, the same mystery and analytical abilities are not present. This is one such case, where the medium has had the opportunity to influence the idea behind the message. Here McLuhan is asking us to look beyond the obvious message, for changes based on the medium.

        The medium can also be described as an extension of ourselves, like an arm and a hammer. The hammer was created by man to allow us to put our ideas into action; similar to how language lets us express our thoughts. Both are mediums which have an effect on the expression of the message. A last analogy is one of a burglar using steak to distract a watchdog. The public can be regarded as the dog; the meat is the message; and burglar is the medium. We can lose sight of the message due to the medium and lose sight on the task at hand.

     In Summary, McLuhan’s beliefs are an interesting take on the perception and our understanding of information.  It would have been interesting to see how McLuhan applied his beliefs to communicative methods of the 21st century, as today we are communicating on a larger and global scale.

        George Owell – influential English novelist, takes his stance on how the English language has regressed. Orwell blames this largely on political and economic issues, in a cycle of bad decision making. Here we are presented with a list of passages, which the author has critiqued. Authors no longer have the ability to get their ideas across effectively; it is now a swamp of “vagueness and sheer incompetence”. Writing techniques which no longer have the same effect as they once had these include; Dying metaphors, Operators or Verbal False Limbs, Pretentious Diction and Meaningless words.  

          Use of metaphors have just been an excuse for authors to not come up with their own creative material, often they are out of place or not as relevant as they have been in the past. Operators or Verbal False Limbs are a way of beating around the bush, it makes the text seem more intellectual or politically correct when a simple more direct word would have sufficed. Similarly, this can also be seen with a pretentious diction.  Words like epic and virtually, try to make mundane events more interesting than they are in reality. Meaningless words are the use of words only for the sake of using them, this is a characteristic often used in art criticism and in politics, often if we have a word to summarize a concept even if we make not have an exact definition for that word.  In summary, writers are no longer concise; we use the long drawn out phrases of others and mash them together, this is simply because it is faster and easier but we are sacrificing on quality.

       Orwell is against politicians’ use of English; parties attack each other with “mechanically repeated phrases” and think they are above their audience and don’t want to hit them with the hard facts. Language can corrupt thought, you can get lost in the words and not realise the message. Orwell leaves us with some tips to improve our own writing; these include – avoiding figures of speech, short words are better than long ones, be conscience (cut words out), active writing is ideal and to avoid jargon.

     This was written by Orwell in 1946, many would agree that commonplace English has continued to change to this day. To relate this to CCIT, a new trend in the way of communication would include the use of textese. Texteses include shorthand – such as ‘u’ and acronyms like ‘WTF’.  I believe that Orwell would enjoy this form of communication because it is straight to the point, the shorthand lets information travel quickly and doesn’t leave any room to get lost in the words and it is all about getting the message across.

Orwell, G. (1946). Politics and the English language. Retrieved March 7^th 2012 from                         

https://portal.utoronto.ca/bbcswebdav/pid-3322554-dt-content-rid- 17730806_2/courses/Winter-2013-CCT110H5-S-LEC0101/George%20Orwell_%20Politics%20and%20the%20English%20Language.pdf

Podcast

https://soundcloud.com/adamwolski0-1/podcast

    The transfer of information has always been prevalent in human society; ever since the invention of the printing press in 1450, information has had the opportunity to be distributed quickly, uniformly and to the masses.  However, as this progressed into the Industrial age, there was a clear division between the social classes and who could give their own slant on the information at hand. In the past, intellectuals and the elite were the ones who were publishing and distributing the information. There was a clear imbalance of power which resulted in one group lecturing and the other group blatantly accepting the knowledge passed down. The CBC podcast “ReCivilization” by Don Tascott; interview regards the World Wide Web, Wikipedia, the Guardian & the new world of television indicate a turning point in the spread of information. Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World-wide-web, has seen the strength of collaborating and the concept of “networked intelligence” when he left his invention free of patent and available to the public.

      Today, consumers are no longer uneducated, are less subjective to bias and are now contributing to the sources that at one point they could only read. One of the best examples of this is Wikipedia; a resource built entirely on public support. Organizations like Wikipedia give everyone the chance to express their journalism abilities by working towards bettering the service without payout. Looking beyond the podcast - YouTube has also proven to be a good outlet for the share of knowledge; examples including tutorials and D-I-Y’s, users post this information to better the experience of others and expect little in return. This seeming endless potential of new media brings up the question: How are traditional forms of media adapting and surviving? The Guardian – a Uk newspaper has been progressive and tried to make the jump to prevent themselves from being left in the dust. The Guardian, has an open forum in areas like the arts where the public can help be the critic. This is based on the belief that no matter how experienced a reviewer may be, having a diverse range of opinions can help the article more than ever.

Aside from this, all of the papers content is available online for free, resulting in an enormous international following. Another form of a traditional media which has developed is television. The television industry has been creating around maintaining a larger number of viewers. This does not attend to small niche markets, in order to overcome this – television has moved to the internet. Viewers can log on and view the material created by the channel, it is much less costly to produce and can carefully pick at a desired audience. This concept is similar to ‘Vlogs’, which tend to be homemade, yet powerful and reach a certain demographic. With human communication being a part of us for as long as we can remember, it is astonishing to see how in such a small time scale communication has changed so much. This is what makes the future of communicative information technology so exciting.

 

Tapscott, D. (CBC National Radio). (2012, January 22). ReCivilization Episode One: Turning the media inside out [Audio Podcast].                                                                                                                        Retrieved fromhttp://www.cbc.ca/recivilization/episode/2012/01/04/episode-one-turning-the-media-inside-out/

Social Media: Creating a new generation of online do-gooders; or is it all talk no action?

         The article ‘Small Change’ by Malcom Gladwell is one of comparison; on one hand we hear of the constant benefits of the new digital age, on the other hand we here of the successes of the yesteryear and some critiques of the use of social media. Social media can be an incredible force at times; humans are more productive in a setting that facilitates the flow of ideas. “Our acquaintances—not our friends—are our greatest source of new ideas and information.” Social media is continuously expanded; it allows an even playing field for all those who contribute, removes the hierarchy structure seen in most organizations and ultimately empowers those who may not normally have a voice.  For this reason, Twitter was considered being nominated as a Nobel Peace prize winner for its effects in conflicts like the 2009 civilian uprising against the communist Moldovan government.

      Some of the critiques against social media are questioning if whether or not they are getting to the bottom line. The term digital divide can also be applied in this situation. Many of the social issues at hand are in some of the least developed countries on earth, this means those most affected by the situation are the least likely to have the technological access and to benefit from this type of assistance. As mentioned in the article, those who were fighting for democracy in Iran, were not the one using twitter, it was outsiders who were tweeting in English trying to make a difference. Unfortunately, again due to the digital divide and the fact that most residence only speak Farsi – a tweet of this nature would not end up carrying much weight. People often incorrectly think they can sit at their computer all day liking pages on Facebook and they will be making the world a better place. Lastly, some companies are aware of this and are potentially using it to their advantage. In an article by ‘Business Day’ an Australian journal speaks of the how the company Kia, they offered to feed a family in Sudan for a day based on every like they received – an idea that seemed innocent enough. Many visitors to the site were outraged that Kia would be blackmailing clients for likes on Facebook especially since they were planning on donating a set amount anyway.

McDStories: Perhaps the Worst Public Relations Attempt of 2012

Providing an outlet for your consumer base to easily communicate with the corporation and other loyal customers seemed like a great idea when McDonald's encouraged its Twitter followers to use the #McDStories hastag in January of last year. The Independent explores the ordeal and nitpicks some of the campaigns flaws. Social media is booming and is such an integrated part of advertising in the 21th century. Advertisement concept through social media for this reason may not be analyzed and planned out as thoughtfully as a television commercial may be. The campaign took off very quickly, but in a different direction than expected. The hash tag was used as an outlet for complaints and mockery. Examples include customers questioning the quality of food, illness complaints and frustrated employees.  McDonald's was getting bombarded from all angles of their business model and had trouble covering their bases. Ultimately, the campaigned died after one hour, which is quiet astonishing regarding the size of McDonald's marketing staff. This was a hard lesson to learn for the corporation, although consumer input can be invaluable, this campaign was not the correct way to do so and ended up created a hatred filled free for all.