Media Theory
MEDIUM
What is Media Theory?
Theory:
A supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one
based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained
Nomothetic types of knowledge
Aims at generalisations, it aims of the formulation of general laws (a rule)
Natural sciences
Water boils at 100 degrees C.
From empirical observations to general law
Theory in this context is falsifiable
therefore the falsification of the theory than leads to a new general law
Ideographic types of knowledge
Aims at understanding the meaning of contingent, unique and often cultural
or subjective phenomena (so no rule, it is particular to only that situation)
Humanities
How were property relations organised in Ancient Greece?
here you use theoretical concepts (like property relations) in order to
analyse a particular period in the past
so a peculiar place or time or thing which they make a claim for
Theory as a toolbox
Bird eye view in the painting
American graffiti imitating dead styles post modern nostalgia
note these are ideal types
You can state (based on these examples):
Theory encourages and inspires discussion and debate
Theoretical debates are ongoing, and encourage more theorising
Theory is (sometimes) deliberatively provocative
Purpose on often to challenge common-sense thinking: 'making the ordinary
extraordinary"
, theory is a process
Your role is to engage in that process
You should not look a theory as just a series of closed paradigms. We should
understand theorising as an open horizon, moving within the magnetic field of
some basic concepts.
Types of theory
theory as falsifiable versus theory as a tool
Descriptive (this is how the world works) versus critical (this is what is wrong
with the world) - see also administrative versus critical theory
Endogenous versus exogenous media theory - from within the discipline
versus (from outside) interdisciplinary influences
Some remarks:
Theory comes out of a national, political or economic context and this
context influances the theories (French poststructuralism)
But also travelling theories and productive cross-pollination
"you have indeed local debates with leads to theory which than travels
and is being adapted and could be put to productive use in a very
different context."
,What is a medium?
(i) the old general sense of an intervening or intermediate agency or substance
(anything which is an intervening substance between two events)
(ii) the conscious technical sense, as in the distinction between print and sound
and vision as media (there needs to be technology involved
However some destict it as "any intervening substance". A medium is anything
that makes a connection so that communication becomes possible
"The content of any medium is always another medium" (McLuhan)
The Toronto School of Communication Theory
(Harold Innis, Eric Havelock, Marshall McLuhan)
key argument: communications systems and technologies structure our
individual psychology and our culture/society (so you use communication
and technology to analysing society)
Emphasis on the form and function of media communication rather than the
content
(Trans)historical research: comparing different eras/periods and formulate
general principles
Conclusion: communication technologies are the engine of socio-historical
change
Our inventions (media) reinvent us
Innis; "Every medium is biased with respect to time and space"
, different media (paper vs stone)allow different types of societies. I you have light
media, paper, it can be easily transported and you can have a bigger empire. If you
on the other hand have more solid clay for example you are limited in the reach
you will have solidity over time because clay does destroy as fast as paper. So the
inventions that we make determine in a way the kind of societies that we have.
McLuhan
the Medium is The Message
What he means by this is that we should always attend to the changes brought
about by the particular form and features of media technologies (the form and
features of paper and of clay)
"Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which
humans communicate than by the content of the communication" (it becomes
irrelevant what you are communicating)
"The 'message' of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or
pattern that it introduces into human affairs"
Media as extensions of man:
Each medium has its own specific effects on our behaviour, thinking, and sense
perception, it that way our senes are extended because of the medium. (paper can
go far so you know about foreign cultures)
Anything can be a medium: TV, radio book, but also car, clocks, glasses (because
they are all extensions of our bodies)
MEDIUM
What is Media Theory?
Theory:
A supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one
based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained
Nomothetic types of knowledge
Aims at generalisations, it aims of the formulation of general laws (a rule)
Natural sciences
Water boils at 100 degrees C.
From empirical observations to general law
Theory in this context is falsifiable
therefore the falsification of the theory than leads to a new general law
Ideographic types of knowledge
Aims at understanding the meaning of contingent, unique and often cultural
or subjective phenomena (so no rule, it is particular to only that situation)
Humanities
How were property relations organised in Ancient Greece?
here you use theoretical concepts (like property relations) in order to
analyse a particular period in the past
so a peculiar place or time or thing which they make a claim for
Theory as a toolbox
Bird eye view in the painting
American graffiti imitating dead styles post modern nostalgia
note these are ideal types
You can state (based on these examples):
Theory encourages and inspires discussion and debate
Theoretical debates are ongoing, and encourage more theorising
Theory is (sometimes) deliberatively provocative
Purpose on often to challenge common-sense thinking: 'making the ordinary
extraordinary"
, theory is a process
Your role is to engage in that process
You should not look a theory as just a series of closed paradigms. We should
understand theorising as an open horizon, moving within the magnetic field of
some basic concepts.
Types of theory
theory as falsifiable versus theory as a tool
Descriptive (this is how the world works) versus critical (this is what is wrong
with the world) - see also administrative versus critical theory
Endogenous versus exogenous media theory - from within the discipline
versus (from outside) interdisciplinary influences
Some remarks:
Theory comes out of a national, political or economic context and this
context influances the theories (French poststructuralism)
But also travelling theories and productive cross-pollination
"you have indeed local debates with leads to theory which than travels
and is being adapted and could be put to productive use in a very
different context."
,What is a medium?
(i) the old general sense of an intervening or intermediate agency or substance
(anything which is an intervening substance between two events)
(ii) the conscious technical sense, as in the distinction between print and sound
and vision as media (there needs to be technology involved
However some destict it as "any intervening substance". A medium is anything
that makes a connection so that communication becomes possible
"The content of any medium is always another medium" (McLuhan)
The Toronto School of Communication Theory
(Harold Innis, Eric Havelock, Marshall McLuhan)
key argument: communications systems and technologies structure our
individual psychology and our culture/society (so you use communication
and technology to analysing society)
Emphasis on the form and function of media communication rather than the
content
(Trans)historical research: comparing different eras/periods and formulate
general principles
Conclusion: communication technologies are the engine of socio-historical
change
Our inventions (media) reinvent us
Innis; "Every medium is biased with respect to time and space"
, different media (paper vs stone)allow different types of societies. I you have light
media, paper, it can be easily transported and you can have a bigger empire. If you
on the other hand have more solid clay for example you are limited in the reach
you will have solidity over time because clay does destroy as fast as paper. So the
inventions that we make determine in a way the kind of societies that we have.
McLuhan
the Medium is The Message
What he means by this is that we should always attend to the changes brought
about by the particular form and features of media technologies (the form and
features of paper and of clay)
"Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which
humans communicate than by the content of the communication" (it becomes
irrelevant what you are communicating)
"The 'message' of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or
pattern that it introduces into human affairs"
Media as extensions of man:
Each medium has its own specific effects on our behaviour, thinking, and sense
perception, it that way our senes are extended because of the medium. (paper can
go far so you know about foreign cultures)
Anything can be a medium: TV, radio book, but also car, clocks, glasses (because
they are all extensions of our bodies)
