From: Jesse Micheal Fagan (aftersox@gmail.com)
Date: Sat 15 Apr 2006 - 18:23:31 GMT
On 4/15/06, Mogens Olesen <motor@olesen.mail.dk> wrote:
>
> Regarding whether the media substrate is neutral or not, there is an
> entire branch within Media Studies, which argues that it isn't neutral. I'm
> talking about the Medium Theory school, normally connected to Marshall
> McLuhan who famously proclaimed that "the medium is the message", that is:
> the choice of medium is actually more important for our way of life than
> whichever content it transmits. I think there is a lot of truth to that
> although it is stated in a rather extreme fashion – which is typical of
> McLuhan's probing style.
>
I think the medium is incredibly important.
But I think a better question might be is the same information coming from a
man treated the same if it comes from a woman?
Is the same information received from a father treated and received the same
if it comes from a friend?
What about the difference between a pastor and a science teacher?
The difference in between the information transmitted via a book and the
information transmitted via audio is immense, I would say. I downloaded
Stephen J Gould's Evolution and Extinction as a series of mp3s but I
couldn't stand the readers voice at all... so I went to Barne's and Noble
and got the book instead. That's right, someone's voice caused me to go
from spending nothing to spending $14.95 - that man's voice encouraged our
economic system... hehe...
Where and how the information is transmitted is incredibly important when
determining the behavioral effects on the receiver. And if the information
affects the behavior of the reciever great enough it will be selectively
retransmitted. So I would say the medium is incredibly important to
memetics.
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