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MDA10001
Introduction to
Media Studies

Week 4: Form vs Content

Dr Andy Lynch
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REMINDER: STUDY GROUP
CONTINUES WEEKLY!
n Thursdays 3.30pm - 4.30pm in BA605

n No Need to Register! Just Show Up!

n Lead by your amazing Study Group Leader Ash who can provide tips and
experiences about studying in the unit.

n Come regularly or attend a few sessions over the semester – you can expect an
informal friendly space to learn with peers!

n More information on canvas!

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This Week’s Framing Questions

Who is Marshall Mcluhan

& why is media’s FORM
important to consider in
textual analysis?
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Today’s lecture

n Part 1: Meeting Marshall McLuhan

n Part 2: What does ‘The Medium is the Message’ Mean?
n Part 3: Hot and Cool Media
n Part 4: Criticisms of McLuhan and Technological
Determinism
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Textual Analysis =
n Form = a text’s particular configuration/appearance, its medium
n e.g. the fact a magazine article is a magazine article (rather
than anything else), what sort of article it is, and what sort of
magazine it is
n Content = the subject matter of a text
n e.g. the material (information and ideas) an article discusses
n Style = the particular aesthetic manner of a text
n e.g. the type of language an article uses and its visual
composition
n Structure = how the different parts of the text are arranged
n e.g. the ordering of an article’s information and visual layout
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Part 1
Semiotic analysis and symptomatic readings
tend to focus on content of a text
– but what about the form of the text itself…?

FORM CONTENT
+ Marshall McLuhan
nA famous media theorist in the 1960s –
genuinely a celebrity in own right.

n Regarded as quite whacky in his thinking and

writing, but in many ways started
contemporary Media Studies.

n Unlike thinkers from literary and cinematic

traditions, McLuhan turned our attention
away from the content of the text.
n Introduced thinking about media as a
network; thought about how it infiltrated our
lives, changed our lives and the structures of
our society.
+ Marshall McLuhan
n For McLuhan, media form is most
important —some would argue he uses
this interchangeably with technology.

n He was less interested in

semiotics/content e.g. what is on the
television is less important than the
television itself.

n It’s not just what’s in the text that impacts

its meaning – but the form it takes to do
that communication also changes its
meanings.
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‘Understanding Media: The Extensions of
[hu]man’
n In his most famous book,
Understanding Media, Mcluhan n Telescope: Extension of our ability to see
talks about media as “extensions of
[hu]man[s].” n Hearing Aid: Extension of our ability to hear

n Media can thus be understood as a n Wheel: Extension of our feet

kind of a tool, or technology – n Phones: Extension of our voice
media as ‘something in between’
allowing our ideas to have further n Knife: Extension of our nails and teeth
reach.
n This is a simplistic model and it can n The Printing Press: Extension of our voices
be critiqued but is also
foundational in Media Studies as it n Television: Extensions of our eyes and ears
helps us consider the impact of the
medium.
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Marshall McLuhan
n “Rapidly, we approach the final phase of the
extensions of [hu]man[s] — the technological
simulation of consciousness, when the
creative process of knowing will be
collectively and corporately extended to the
whole of human society, much as we have
already extended our senses and our nerves
by the various media…” (p. 6)
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Now we can
freely access the
IDEAS ideas of others

MEDIUM
Now we can listen
PRINTING PRESS to the ideas of
others whilst doing
other things

RADIO Now we can visually

see the ideas of
others in the comfort
of our homes

TELEVISION
Now we can interact
and respond to the
ideas of others from
all over the world

INTERNET
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Part 2
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‘The Medium
is the Message’
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The Medium is the Message
‣ “The personal and social consequences of any
medium… result from the new scale that is
introduced into our affairs by each extension of
ourselves or by any new technology” (p. 19)

‣ New medium(s) would introduce

new patterns of individual and social behaviour,
as well as new approaches to certain tasks.

‣ The means of expression is going to impact

the meaning of expression.

‣ “We shape our tools and, thereafter, our tools

shape us” — John Culkin (1967)
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To further illustrate this point:
“The ‘message’ of any medium or
technology is the change of scale or
pace or pattern that it introduces into
human affairs.”

Electric light is “a medium without a

message, as it were, unless it is used to
spell out some verbal ad or name.”

Electric light radically reshaped life and

culture: that is its ‘message’. It also carries
information.
+ Electric light is “an invaluable instance of
how people fail to study media at all. For it
is not till the electric light is used to spell
out some brand name that it is noticed as
a medium. Then it is not the light but the
‘content’ that is noticed.”

That is, when looking at a billboard,

people tend not to notice the technology
lighting up the billboard, the just see – for
example – Coca Cola.

Its important to acknowledge how the

content gets to us.

Many of McLuhan’s ideas are easier to

understand in light of the digital era.
+ Mcluhan was against an
Instrumental View of Technology
‣ In the instrumental view, technology just
does what we tell it to (as instruments in
our control) e.g. guns don’t kill people…
people kill people.
‣ E.g. David Sarnoff: “We are too prone to
make technological instruments the
scapegoats for the sins of those who wield
them. The products of modern science are
not in themselves good or bad; it is the
way they are used that determines their
value.”
+ Against an Instrumental View of
Technology

‣ McLuhan radically disagrees.

‣ He emphasised the idea that technology, once
invented, would begin to change the game.
‣ So, it was not as if the technologies were
passive and humans would just pick them up
when they felt like it.
‣ McLuhan argues media never completely
bends to the will of those who use it. Media
are not just information channels; while they
supply the content of thought, they also shape
the process of thought.
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Therefore, according to McLuhan:
n We should study the form of media, rather
than just its content because each media
form has its own strengths, weaknesses,
and affordances to empower, limit or
change their users.
n In
its most extreme form, humans, as
McLuhan once said, are “merely the
reproductive organs of technology.”
+ Think about it…
📨 Media forms are not just things that carry
communication but devices that have their own
properties and influences.

📨 What differing technologies do you use to send

differing messages?

📨 On what medium can you be most yourself?

📨 Does it make a difference whether you can see

the person?

📨 How does your manner of behaving and relating

to people depend on the platform you’re using?
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Part 3
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Hot and Cool

Media
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Hot and Cool Media
• McLuhan thought of media as being
‘hot’ or ‘cool’ to describe the way they
are used.
Hot Cool
• “Hot media are, therefore, low in
participation, and cool media are high
in participation.” (p. 39)
Radio Telephone
Photograph Cartoon
• The ’participation’ refers to how much
the audience has to work to receive the
message
Film Television
Books Comics
• “No medium has its meaning or
existence alone, but only in constant
interplay with other media.” (p. 43)
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1963: Newspaper

n “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of

Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of
former slave owners will be able to sit down together at
the table of brotherhood.

n I have a dream that one day even the state of

Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice,
sweltering with the heat of oppression will be
transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

n I have a dream that my four little children will one day

live in a nation where they will not be judged by the
color of their skin but by the content of their character. I
have a dream today.”

- Martin Luther King (1963)

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1963: Radio (2.23)
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1963: Television
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nHow did each medium make you feel?

nHow did the message change for you when
you could visually see Martin Luther King
making the speech to 200,000 people?
nHow do you think seeing and hearing
televised global events (such as the Martin
Luther King speech) has impacted society?
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Part 4
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Criticism of McLuhan’s Approach
n A great many people have criticised McLuhan’s
approach. Most famous of these was Raymond
Williams, a Welsh cultural studies theorist.

n He accused McLuhan of being a technological

determinist i.e. that McLuhan disregards other
elements that may determine our lives and
society (freewill; political structures; financial
structures; history and socio-economic factors).

n A focus on technology erases social conditions

and institutions: “If the effect of the medium is
the same, whoever controls or uses it, then we
can forget ordinary political and cultural
argument and let the technology run itself.”
(1974: 131)
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Week 4 Summary
‣ We can think about media as technological forms
as well as texts.

‣ Sometimes this verges on being technologically

determinist; engage with this week’s readings to
think about how this relates to ‘the digital divide’.

‣ Different media have different effects — on society

and the content they produce.

‣ This perspective is crucial for the digital age.

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MDA10001
Introduction to
Media Studies

Week 4: Form vs Content

Dr Andy Lynch