Unveiling the Impact of McLuhan's Laws on New Media Evolution

1. Marshaling McLuhans’ Laws to Explicate New Media Presented to the Communication Technology Division of AEJMC Mike Dorsher, Ph.D.  Department of Comm. & Journalism  University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire My Research Goals: • Rescue the ‘Laws of Media’ from obscurity • Apply them to new media born since McLuhan’s death • Reveal how new media already distort our lives • Forecast how today’s new media will mature • ... and what they’ll ultimately morph into • Marshall McLuhan, 1911-1980 • “The medium is the message” 1964 • “The medium is the massage” 1967 • “Laws of Media: The New Science” 1988 • Finished by his son, Eric McLuhan • Presciently predicts a plane becomes a projectile (p. 202) For example: the Four Media Laws Applied to Digital Video Recorders • DVRs such as TiVo retrieve: • Computers • DVDs • VCRs • Cable TV • The Internet • Because they are cybernetic; i.e., they complete the feedback loop • DVRs extend: • Time shifting • Commercial skipping • Live sports telecasts • Online shopping and marketing • Dataveillance • DVRs obsolesce: • VCRs • Catalog shopping • Commercials • Watching sports live • Viewers’ home privacy • DVRs reverse into: • Nonlinear media • Commercials with program breaks • Video jukeboxes • Gesellschaft; i.e., uncommon ground for society The McLuhans’ 4 Laws of Media • All media, simultaneously: • Extendsome sense or organ of the user • Obsolesce, or close, another sense • Retrievesome facets of older media • Reverseinto some unintended form • When pushed to their limits The father, son and ‘Holy smokes!’ For example, McLuhan’s Xerox copy machine ‘tetrad’: Conclusion: McLuhan the Media Determinist? • ‘There is no inevitability where there is willingness to pay attention’ -- Laws of Media, p. 128