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Notes Lectures Media Theory
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- Media Theory
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- Universiteit Van Amsterdam (UvA)
Notes Lectures Media Theory
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Week 1: MediumWhat is Media Theory?
Definition of theory from the Oxford Dictionary: a system of ideas intended to explain something,
especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained.
For example: Darwin’s theory of evolution.
2 approaches to knowledge:
1. Nomothetic approach (natural sciences) aims at generalizations and formulation of laws.
It works through observing that leads to general laws, like “water boils at 100 degrees
Celsius”. According to Popper, theories are falsifiable, meaning that a theory is true until we
measure the opposite. The nomothetic approach is to find the regularity that has caused the
wrong observation and then, an alternative theory can be formulated.
2. Ideographic approach (humanities) aims at understanding the meaning of contingent,
unique, and often cultural or subjective phenomena. According to Foucault, a theory is
like a toolbox that takes place in a particular time and place in history. An example of
ideographic theories is “how were proper relations organized in Ancient Greece?”
Counterexamples do not work for the ideographic approach as this type of knowledge is
applicable on unique cases (since it does not formulate general laws).
3 examples of the ideographic approach in media context:
1. Peter Bruegel de Oude’s painting Children’s Games (1560) is in bird-eye perspective
even though subjective perspective was already invented. Charles de Tolnay argues that the
Bruegelian birds-eye perspective “catches the totality of the world, opens an insight into
the structure of the cosmic system itself, as it would not be recognizable from below, and
makes it possible for the beholder to relive the creative joy of the Architect of the World”
(1952). This analysis is an ideographic approach to knowledge because De Tolnay used
the theory of perspective to understand De Oude’s motive for using of the birds-eye
perspective, which is that De Oude was not interested in individual experiences and instead
in creating a cosmic viewpoint.
2. George Lucas’s American Graffiti (1973) depicts the typical image of the American
1950s. Frederic Jameson argues that the movie is postmodern nostalgic: “in a world in
which stylistic innovation is no longer possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles, to
speak through the masks and with the voices of the styles in the imaginary museum” (1983).
Jameson used the concept of “postmodern nostalgia” to point out that nostalgia in these
movies are mere pastiche (imitation of a period). According to him, movies like American
Culture are a good example of a culture that no longer reinvents itself but only cite to
previous periods that are reduced to their mediatic representations.
3. Eleonora Ravizza claims American TV show Mad Men as reflexive nostalgia, “through
discourses of artificial images and advertising, Mad Men attempts to expose the artificiality of
the fifties as a cultural construct,” leading to, “a more critical portrayal of the fifties by
dealing with issues that were unrepresented at the time” (2013). Here, it is pastiche combined
with critical commentary on how these images were constructed. Ravizza used Jameson’s
concept of “nostalgia” to make an argument about how it works in Mad Men (which is
an ideographic approach to knowledge), rather than trying to formulate a general theory of
nostalgia.
These examples show that (1) theory encourages and inspires discussion and debate, meaning that (2)
theoretical debates are ongoing and encourage more theorizing. (3) Theories are (often) deliberatively
provocative. (4) The purpose is to challenge common-sense thinking: “making the ordinary
extraordinary”. This means that (5) theory is a process and (6) our role is to engage in that process.
Stuart Hall: “I am not interested in theory; I am interested in going on theorizing” (1996).
,3 types of theory: (1) falsifiable theories (nomothetic) or theories as tools (ideographic), (2)
descriptive (“this is how the world works”) or critical (“this is what is wrong with the world”), and (3)
endogenous (from within the discipline) or exogenous media theories (interdisciplinary influences).
3 important remarks: (1) remember that theories come out of a national, political, or economic
context and that influences the theories, (2) be attentive towards travelling theories and productive
cross-pollination, and (3) repeated and consistent engagement “mines” the difficult texts.
What is a Media Theory?
Raymond Williams (1921-1988) defines medium as a convergence of 3 senses: (1) the old general
sense of an intervening or intermediate agency or substance; (2) the conscious technical sense, as in
the distinction between print and sound and vision as media; and (3) the specialized capitalist sense,
in which a newspaper or broadcasting service—something that already exists or can be planned—is
seen as a medium for something else, such as advertising. He argues, “it is interesting that sense (1)
depended on particular physical or philosophical ideas, where there had to be a substance intermediate
between a sense or a thought and its operation or expression. In most modern science and philosophy,
and especially in thinking about language, this idea of a medium has been dispensed with; thus
language is not a medium but a primary practice, and writing (for print) and speaking or acting (for
broadcasting) would also be practices. It is then controversial whether print and broadcasting, as in the
technical sense (2), are media or, more strictly, material forms and sign systems”.
Williams’s approach juxtaposes with several approaches that retain the broader definition of a
medium as “an intervening substance”, meaning that a medium is anything that makes a
connection so that communication becomes possible. Marshal McLuhan (1911-1980) also takes
this approach and he argues that “the content of any medium is always another medium”.
McLuhan, Harold Innis (1894-1952) and Eric A. Havelock (1903-1988) belong to The Toronto
School of Communication Theory. The key argument of this theory is that communications
systems and technologies not only structure our individual psychology but also our
culture/society. Media is usually regulated at the level of content (no advertisement around children
programming), but the emphasis of media communication should be on the form and its function.
These arguments are based on (trans)historical research: comparing different eras/periods and
formulate general principles (nomothetic). A conclusion from the research is that communication
technologies are the engine of socio-historical change: “our inventions reinvent us”, meaning that
from the moment we invent media, we reinvent ourselves as we become different beings.
One of Innis’s primary contributions to the communication theory was to apply the dimensions
of time and space to various media. He says that every medium is biased with respect to time and
space, “the concepts of time and space reflect the significance of media to civilization. Media that
emphasize time are those durable in character, such a parchment, clay and stone. The heavy
materials are suited to the development of architecture and sculpture. Media that emphasize space
are apt to be less durable and light in character such as papyrus and paper. The latter are suited to
wide areas in administration and trade. “The conquest of Egypt by Rome gave access to supplies of
papyrus, which became the basis of a large administrative empire” (Empire and Communications).
A similar argument stems from McLuhan’s work: “the medium is the message”, which is the
general statement from the communication theory; it is not the content of the medium that matters, but
the form and its function. We should always attend to the changes brought about by the
particular form and features of media technologies. He says, “societies have always been shaped
more by the nature of the media by which humans communicate than by the content of the
communication”, and in other words, “the message of any medium or technology is the change of
scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs”. This is perfectly compatible with
Innis’s argument that every communication technology makes scaling up possible (paper is
easier to write on than stone).
,In Media as Extensions of Man (1964), McLuhan says that each medium has its own specific
effects on our behavior, thinking, and sense perception – every medium extends these. According
to McLuhan, anything can be a medium (e.g. TV, radio, book, cars, clocks, glasses) and these are
considered media because they are “extensions of man”, which goes against Williams’s argument.
McLuhan’s argument is that even though modern Western culture, like earlier/other cultures, is
shaped by media and communication technologies, there is one thing that is unique to western
civilization: our media are electronic (versus the mechanical media of old). As a consequence, what
previously was not possible with mechanical media (e.g. sending a letter), electronic media (e.g. live
radio) is instantaneous and global in reach: the world has become a “global village”.
McLuhan has been extremely influential in an approach to media, called media ecology. According to
McLuhan, media creates all-encompassing “environments” in which we live. He says, “any
understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work
as environments”, he continues, “the present is always invisible because it is environmental. No
environment is perceptible, simple because it saturates the whole field of attention”. What he means
by this is that it is very difficult to realize what the environment does to us as the environment
goes unnoticed, and it is very difficult to perceive the environment because our entire field of
attention is saturated by the environment. With his aphorisms, McLuhan tries to make us aware
of the communication environment in which we are operating. This notion of McLuhan is
parallel to Heidegger’s tool-being, meaning that technology and objects have the tendency to
withdraw from our consciousness – they become invisible and transparent.
McLuhan’s argument in Laws of Media (1988) is that media effects are “law-like”. They operate
like natural laws rather than judicial laws; descriptive rather than prescriptive. McLuhan makes
arguments about the general laws of the effects of media on the societies in which they arrive.
Hence, he ends up producing some kind of approach to media which is nomothetic in its aspirations.
This asks for an “exact science” (or natural science) of media and culture. McLuhan is no longer
critical and becomes extremely vulnerable to critique like getting charged of technological
determinism by Williams.
, Week 2: Technology
5 approaches to the relationship between technology and society from a historical perspective:
1. Technological determinism: Marshal McLuhan and Toronto School (1950s-1970s)
2. Cultural materialism (cultural studies): Raymond Williams
3. Social Construction of Technology (SCOT): Wiebe Bijker (1980s-now)
4. Actor-Network Theory (ANT): Bruno Latour (1980s-now)
5. Mediation Theory: Peter-Paul Verbeek (from 2000s onwards)
Technological determinism: Marshal McLuhan and Toronto School (1950s-1970s)
In the 1960s, there was a sudden tendency to explain societal changes/phenomena through the
introduction of certain technologies. Technological determinism is a reductionist theory which
claims that technology determines the shape of society. This approach is probably the most
common-sense way of thinking the relation between technology and society. There are 2 versions:
(1) the strong version is the direct and unilinear impact, and (2) the weak version is mediation
through societal features but nevertheless there is a causal relationship between the introduction of the
technology and the social form under examination.
An example from the discipline of history is The Great Stirrup Debate. The basic claim of Lynn
Townsend White Jr.’s book Medieval Technology and Social Change (1962) is that the stirrup
brought feudalism into being. Feudalism is the legal and social system that evolved in West-Europe in
the 8th and 9th centuries, in which vassals were protected and maintained by their lords, usually
through the granting of fiefs, and were required to serve under them in war. A summary of White’s
book: “the use of stirrups enabled an armored horseman, carrying a lance at rest under his right arm,
to embrace himself in the saddle so firmly that the shock of his attack could combine the momentum
of horse and rider. This feature made the mounted knight the most powerful instrument of medieval
warfare, rendering obsolete the older Roman and Germanic military tactics of fighting on foot in close
order. Since it took a great deal of capital to maintain a knight, and since land was the predominant
form of capital, the new military technology demanded that land tenure be reorganized, each unit of
tenure being required to maintain a certain number of knights. This requirement was a key factor in
the development of classic feudalism. Since skill in the management of horses and lance could be
acquired only through long professional training, the new technology created a new aristocracy, the
knightly class, which dominated the later middle ages” (Homans, 1962). White’s claim that the
introduction of the stirrup leads to feudalism is technological determinism because social
structures and moral/cultural values are thought to be determined by technology.
McLuhan as a technological determinist: “in the mechanical age now receding, many actions could
be taken without too much concern. Slow movement insured that the reactions were delayed for
considerable periods of time. Today the action and the reaction occur almost at the same time. We
actually live mythically and integrally, as it were, but we continue to think in the old, fragmented
space and time patterns of the pre-electric age”. Technological determinism is ingrained in popular
speech, the dominant way we tend to think about technology: “Nokia, connecting people” and
“Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life”.
5 criticisms of technological determinism: (1) it’s reductionist; (2) it’s simplistic; (3) the strong
version cannot explain why technology does not lead everywhere to the same result; (4) it’s
ahistorical because it reduces the complexity of history/evolution to one simple cause, and essentialist
because technology is seen as only one thing, it only has one essence, and (5) the weak version pays
more attention to historical specificity, but nevertheless separates technology from society.
Cultural materialism (cultural studies): Raymond Williams
Cultural materialism is an approach that looks at the relationship between technology and society in
a far more complex way than technological determinism does. The approach is taken by cultural
studies scholar Williams, influenced by the materialist approach of Marxism, meaning that all
cultural production takes place under particular material constraints, and that these particular
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