“Once a new technology comes into a social milieu it cannot cease to penetrate that milieu until every milieu is saturated”
What I interpret McLuhan is trying to say in this quote is that people in today’s world are overly consumed by new technology.As new technology embraces new faces the older ones get left behind and eventually forgotten.In the past news was passed through newspapers which was then replaced by the television which was then overcome by the internetand even the internet has been overcome by social networks which people can come socialize through their smart phones.
Now relating this quote to my passion group, as it stood before the common athlete or famous singer could be only interviewed or seen through mediums such as the television or magazines like “Peoples” but now with new technologies such as Twitter invented any athlete, celebrity or even any person can set up their own twitter account and speak their mind freely or give any sort of inside scoop of what is going through their minds.There was a time when only a few people had these accounts like Facebook and Twitter but like McLuhan said it cannot penetrate until every milieu is saturated, and in the case of these two new social media it has spread immensely.It is scary to think what kind of new technology will be imagined next, I wouldn’t be surprised if we were to find out in the next week!
With all this new technology though is it actually better is the question.Now that we check on everything basically from the palm of our hands is it making the world a better place or it just making people lazy?It is said that new technologies are here to make our lives a little easier, but I think the word “easier” is a little more stretched than noticed.
"Whence did the wond'rous mystic art arise,
Of painting SPEECH, and speaking to the eyes?
That we by tracing magic lines are taught,
How to embody, and to colour THOUGHT?"
I interpret this poem by Marshall McLuhan "The Media is the Massage" to mean that as our ability to communicate (the message) through evolving media advanced our messages became more precise. McLuhan says "all media are extensions of some human faculty..." If we look at the print era we know that messages were being massed produced allowing the masses to have quicker access to news. Today we have television, Internet, and social media, etc. to spread the news. The technological advancement has changed the physical message we are sending out. In the print era the message was a letter or newsprint. Today it is a video of a person actually speaking to you. The message is formed in the messenger's mind and when they send the message out it now more closely resembles the original message that they thought of. What will the future bring as we advance our media communications? Will we one day be able to broadcast our original thought straight to the audience?
By: Heather Leong
Monday, July 11, 2011
"the content of writing is speech, just as the written word is the content of print, and print is the content of the telegraph. If it is asked, "What is the content of speech?," it is necessary to say, "it is an actual process of thought, which is in itself nonverbal." - The Medium is the Message, McLuhan
McLuhan's theory applies to the written and oral era. Music is communicated orally, and the lyrics are expressed in written form. He explains that the content of speech is derived from a conscious thought process as opposed to being fundamentally verbal. Thus, thought is translated into verbal communication that is expressed through music. In this case, a song would be the medium in which information is transferred and emotions are evoked. If you take into consideration what a song's lyrics imply versus what is actually meant, the results could be contradictory. The content that is understood varies from person to person as their external environment shapes their character. McLuhan argued that technology transforms reality for people and allows them to invent new possibilities. The pathways to development are relentless that enable music to succeed as an upcoming medium to transfer ideas from one individual to masses.
As words come out of a singer’s mouth, one by one, a story is told. As McLuhan explains, when reading from left to right each word is connected to the next. The string of words get longer and longer depending on the length of the piece of writing, and the words start making sense because of how they are related to one another. Reading is a way of communicating, just as singing is another form of communicating. McLuhan explains how all messages are perceived differently depending upon which medium the message is received through. For example, when listening to a song through the radio you may not get the full effect as you may when you are watching the music video on TV; this is because you are physically able to visualize what the singer is talking about. When listening to a song, the tone of the singers voice changes depending on how they want you to hear each word and the chorus is repeated over and over, so the listener knows what the song is saying without having to read between the lines.
Music, for musicians, as with any form of media, is an extension of oneself. As Marshall McLuhan states in "Understanding Media," "[...] the personal and social consequences of any medium [...] result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves [...]" That is to say that instruments are an extension of a musician's self, and this self extension is known as "media," and media convey messages.
But not only instruments or music can be classified as "media." Anything can be media if you think about it. Even speech carries a message, which starts in the thought process, which then gets expressed through voice. So even speech is derived from something else.
Now back to music. There is often a mix of messages within music, within a particular song (within a band's image, even); it's more than just noise. Words often hold a poetic, or maybe not so much a poetic meaning, while the instruments set the mood and play with it.
Let's take U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday," for example;
"You know people are dying every single day through bitterness and hate, and we're saying why? What's the point? And you can move that into places like El Salvador and other similar situations - people dying. Let's forget the politics, let's stop shooting each other and sit around the table and talk about it... There are a lot of bands taking sides saying politics is crap, etc. Well, so what! The real battle is people dying, that's the real battle."
In Derry, Ireland, on January 30, 1972, there was an incident known as "Bloody Sunday," (or sometimes, "The Bogside Massacre") twenty-seven civil rights protesters and bystanders, including seven teenagers, all of whom were completely unarmed, were gunned down by British soldiers.
It's worth noting that U2 is of Irish descent, so there is obviously some extra sentimental appeal to their choice in subject matter for the song. The album the song is from is "War," and, as stated by the band, the title has an alternate non-military meaning.
"[...]War is intentionally more direct, more specific. But you can still take the title on a lot of different levels. We're not only interested in the physical aspects of war. The emotional effects are just as important, 'the trenches dug within our hearts.' People have become numb to violence. Watching the television, it's hard to tell the difference between fact and fiction. One minute you see something being shot on The Professionals, and the next you see someone falling through a window after being shot on the news. One is fiction and one is real life, but we're becoming so used to the fiction that we become numb to the real thing. War could be the story of a broken home, a family at war."
The song being released in 1983 served to be a reminder of the "unjustied and unjustifiable" events that happened just 11 years prior.
Although lyrics can give direct message, there is also more to the song. The slow guitar riffs and electric violin give the song a somber tone. The drums can be described as "military-esque" and the snare hits even seem to mock-imitate gunshot noises, and giving the verses and choruses power and aggression, while the refrains drop the snare and guitar, focusing on the vocals, giving the song an uplifting undertone. As Bono stated, "love is [...] a central theme" of the song. It's meant not only to mourn the deaths of the innocent, but also to realize injustices, and to stand up for your rights and freedoms.
And this is how music is the message. It's not just noise. It holds feeling, meaning, and purpose, all of which are an extension of the artist's self.
In the summer of 2000, Afroman released a track called “Because I got high” which spread like wildfire. Every elementary kid, high school student to adults were humming this catchy tune.
The lyrics to this song were highly controversial and caused quite a stir amongst parents and concerned teachers. Afroman’s track narrates a short story of how he lost his job, paycheck, is a paraplegic and is homeless all because he got high. It appears that the track can be interpreted in various ways, one being that it is an anti marijuana song in which Afroman is trying to warn others of the effects of the drug, or a mockery of what effects the drug gives and all the stupid things that follow. It depicts more of a satirical situation and the irony of the fact that smoking a joint made him lose everything. The term “paraplegic” was initially sung in the track, however, after a couple weeks of being aired, the term was bleeped out. The public took offence to the term and derived a derogatory meaning from the song, thus giving a negative impact to the public.
Society tends to decide what songs are socially acceptable and what is not. Thus, restrictions are tagged to songs making them appear as inappropriate irrespective of the positive message it may try to convey. The media censors selectively which gives rise to conflicts as to what is morally accepted and what is not. Who decides what is acceptable? These questions are a great example of the ambiguity of censorship in music and media. Does music communicate ideas and emotion? If so, how do people formulate the meaning? It is difficult to truly identify the discourses associated with music and how we come to understand what the song is trying to convey. Media censorship is very vague and ambiguous, it is difficult to determine what is acceptable, and to whom. The public's opinion of appropriateness depends on their character and their external environment; thus making it difficult to define boundaries.
Songs with a lot of profanity used in them usually have alternative versions available: the clean version and the dirty version. The clean version available does not contain any swear words, this way it can be played on the radio and its video can be watched on TV by everyone. To get rid of profanity, a bleep sound is put in place of the swear word and usually the person swearing is blurred out just so that no lip reading can be done. Censoring and filtering are always involved in the process of media because Canada has certain regulations and rules which apply to all content shown on television and the content heard on the radio. Drake’s song, “Best I Ever Had” comes in two explicit versions that can be heard and viewed. The dirty version is still being played but only at places where it seems appropriate, such as, bars and clubs. These are places where everyone is over the age of 19 and are mature enough to listen to music with profanity. If children were to listen to songs with such profanity they may be influenced to use those words at the wrong time, without knowing what the word may mean. Therefore, the clean version is played on TV and the radio where the public, all ages, can listen to the song and also view the music video.
