A quarter century ago, media guru McLuhan (d. 1980) wrote his
famous Understanding Media. Now, in a posthumous volume cowritten
by McLuhan's friend Powers (Communications Studies/Niagara U.), the
premises of that work are updated. This collaboration stems from
research undertaken by the authors at the Centre for Culture and
Technology in Toronto. Their analysis of the worldwide impact of
video-related technologies takes the myth of Narcissus (central to
Understanding Media) a step further. McLuhan was struck by the fact
that when men first went to the moon, we expected photographs of
craters but, instead, the quintessential symbol of that adventure
was the dramatic picture of earth - ourselves: "All of us who were
watching had an enormous reflexive response. We 'outered' and
'innered' at the same time. We were on earth and the moon
simultaneously." The authors refer to this kind of moment as a
"resonating interval" - "the true action in the event was not on
earth or on the moon, but rather in the airless void between. . ."
In their analysis, this resonating interval represents an invisible
borderline between visual and acoustic space. The distinction
between the two "spaces" marks the major premise here, with visual
space representing the old traditions of Western Civilization -
left-brain-oriented, linear, quantitative reasoning - and acoustic
space representing right-brain, pattern-producing, qualitative
reasoning. Because of electronic communications, the authors
believe, these two mind-sets are "slamming into each other at the
speed of light." While most societies view themselves through the
past, usually a century behind, present-day changes occur so
rapidly that this "rearview mirror" doesn't work anymore. By use of
what they call the "tetrad," the authors contend that they can
postulate four stages in any invention or trend to determine what
the final result will be - what it will "flip over" into (e.g.,
money flipped over to credit cards; the telephone to
"ominpresence." as in teleconferencing; cable TV should flip over
to home broadcasting; electronic-funds transfer should flip over to
"an intense state of credit-worthiness as pure status"). Dense,
heavily technological writing - but with the occasional insight
that reminds us of what once brought such renown to McLuhan.
(Kirkus Reviews)
Extending the visionary early work of the late Marshall McLuhan,
The Global Village, one of his last collaborative efforts, applies
that vision to today's worldwide, integrated electronic
network.
When McLuhan's groundbreaking Understanding Media was published in
1964, the media as we know it today did not exist. But McLuhan's
argument, that the technological extensions of human consciousness
were racing ahead of our ability to understand their consequences,
has never been more compelling. And if the medium is the message,
as McLuhan maintained, then the message is becoming almost
impossible to decipher.
In The Global Village, McLuhan and co-author Bruce R. Powers
propose a detailed conceptual framework in terms of which the
technological advances of the past two decades may be understood.
At the heart of their theory is the argument that today's users of
technology are caught between two very different ways of perceiving
the world. On the one hand there is what they refer to as Visual
Space--the linear, quantitative mode of perception that is
characteristic of the Western world; on the other hand there is
Acoustic Space--the holistic, qualitative reasoning of the East.
The medium of print, the authors argue, fosters and preserves the
perception of Visual Space; but, like television, the technologies
of the data base, the communications satellite, and the global
media network are pushing their users towards the more dynamic,
"many-centered" orientation of Acoustic Space.
The authors warn, however, that this movement towards Acoustic
Space may not go smoothly. Indeed, McLuhan and Powers argue that
with the advent of the global village--the result of worldwide
communications--these two worldviews "are slamming into each other
at the speed of light," asserting that "the key to peace is to
understand both these systems simultaneously."
Employing McLuhan's concept of the Tetrad--a device for predicting
the changes wrought by new technologies--the authors analyze this
collision of viewpoints. Taking no sides, they seek to do today
what McLuhan did so successfully twenty-five years ago--to look
around the corner of the coming world, and to help us all be
prepared for what we will find there.
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