In this document all seminar notes are included. During the seminars, the lecturer went deeper into the meanings of the mandatory texts. Every lecturer did this differently. My grade for this course was a 8,8. Goodluck!
Text 1: Understanding media: The Extensions of Man - Marshall McLuhan
Media as an extension of man → They extend the functionality of our organs.
They extend what we can do with our bodies or minds.
Understanding media as the extension of man = central statement
→ media as extension of body and mind
These extensions (media) change humans & society
Media as an extension of body & mind, How the extensions function:
Exploding (Relates to the body) Imploding
Mechanical Electrical
Extended our bodies in space: Cars, roads, Communication technologies: Telephones,
industrialization, colonisation. TV, computer. We live in a Information
Makes the world a bigger place. Smaller world: the world as a global village.
Electric speed in bringing all social and
political functions together in a sudden
implosion has heightened human
awareness of responsibility to an intense
degree.
The aspiration of our time for wholeness, empathy and depth of awareness is a
natural adjunct of electric technology → we want to understand everything
through data. (like platforms gathering all the data to know/understand
everything)
Chapter 4 The Gadget Lover: He wants to explain how the extensions change humans
Why/how do these extensions come into being?
Stimulus (irritant/frustration) → The extensions amplify our organs ( Like with the
phone we can hear further) & They self-amputate. As one thing gets amplified
the other gets amputated to get equilibrium.
Narcissus Myth (p.41)= man become more fascinated with the extensions of
themselves, rather than staying with who they are. He did not recognize his
reflection → he became obsessed with himself.
Media is our extension we can do new things with and become obsessed with.
We become numb by everything else → create a single-minded focus ( do not
experience other things.
Sense ratio (p45) (closely related to numbness) → when you focus on something
the other gets less active. If the one gets extended the other will decrease (like
watching Tv, you only hear and see).
, Sense “closure” (p45) → We change/ exclude things so we can use it. We create
a loop between us and the media because we get fascinated. We close of from
other things.
Servomechanisms (p46) → We start to serve the media.
Man as the sex-organs of technology (p47): we create new technologies.
Week 2: Technology
Key difference between technological determinism and cultural materialism:
- cultural materialism is historically situated; what happened in society, history and
specific situations. McLuhan only looks at the technology.
- essentialist vs. no essence
Humanist Posthumanist
SCOT (humans have agency) - ANT (things also have agency, they
also influence how we experience
the world)
- Mediation theory (builds upon ANT)
Essentialist non-essentialist
Technological determinism (the technology - Cultural materialism
does this one thing) - SCOT
- ANT
- Mediation theory
Critical Normative
Cultural materialism (by placing technology Mediation theory (what technology does to
in history/context, there is a critical aspect) our morality)
Reading 1: Television - Raymond Williams
P.4-8
before there were two things: technological determinism & Symptomatic technology, they
both put technology out of society. But Williams approaches this in another way.
P.8-13
All the elements of Television Technology already appeared in other places →
imagined in other places and came together in this social need that started to
exist.
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