Final Thoughts

I signed up for this class because I am fascinated by media. I guess one could call me a bit of an odd duck when it comes to how I use it. Despite my youth, I've always been a bit reluctant to adapt to the new technologies that are changing the way we make and receive news. I still try to read the newspaper in print form, subscribe to print magazines, buy books, etc. I prefer hand written notes, cards sent through the postal system, editing with a pen and paper instead of through Microsoft Word. At the same time, I have a list of blogs I love (including online only newspapers), I have been on Facebook for years, I mostly use e-mail to communicate, I text message instead of call, I have a smart phone, and I find out most of my 'breaking news' via the Internet. Often what I prefer isn't what I do, for sake of time and convenience. (That says something: the most meaningful mediums are often not the easiest.) But I guess you could consider me a hybrid of sorts: holding onto the vestiges of the past while at the same time embracing the trends of the future.

I would say that this class has both enlightened and confused the hell out of me. I've learned that its a big world out there filled with a ton of information. (According to this report, Americans consume 100,000 words a day. Wow!) My cautious, static side - the one that likes to stay in my bedroom in my town of 15,000 where nothing seems to change - is scared of this and prefers sticking to limited, hot mediums, the ones that have borders, ends, lights at the end of the tunnel. Everyone else but me can do the dirty work. My adventurous, consuming side - the one that likes to take spontaneous trips to New York City at 2:30 am - sees things differently. This side likes being an active participant in the global conversation, finding things that branch off of other things, having a part in the action.

So I guess the lesson is I still don't know where I stand on what, or even if I need a stand. I know what I like and why. I'd say I'm more knowledgeable on the content in the class and where things are headed, etc. I just don't know yet the effect this transition will have on society. That question still looms over me, and I feel partly guilty for not having an answer.

Revising the New Haven train station board

Colin's right. The board at the New Haven train station is relevant to the class because the medium is the message.

So my question is what is the message of that board? I guess when it was originally created it was probably cutting edge in intent. Instead of having an employee stand up and manually replace each letter, it could be done automatically. It was meant to show that train travel is fast, efficient, requiring little passenger input. The times, stations, routes were magically changed,

Yet now the message is the exact opposite. Its old, its regressive, its outdated. It evokes the mindset of the past when we looked at it as the future. Now we see it as something to hold onto to because we are under the impression that its better than what will replace it. I'm of the mindset that at least for this case that is true. The message is now that the board is used there because train travel has been around for so long and its hopefully not going anywhere. With all the talk of improved transportation, the train is something your parents, grandparents, and you as a child took.

By replacing it with an LCD board, they are replacing the message, instead making it so that train travel is the fastest and most efficient mode of travel - not the most classic or traditional.

Nostalgia?

I just checked the new posts on the main site, so I'll get to those links after I make this post.

Maybe I'm feeling a bit too sentimental or nostalgic this week, but this story, which I found online and not in print (another telling sign?) made me a bit sad. The New Haven train station is replacing the old school 'Solari' schedule board - the noisy one that manually changes each character until it creates a new message - with an LCD monitor.

I really liked that sound and display whenever I would be waiting for a train there. Each change would create new words out of old ones until settling on the right one. Springfield would turn into SpriHaven before ending with New Haven. It enhanced the character of the station and the mystique of train travel to me. I always found the idiosyncratic mistakes charming too - a misspelling that would take a few extra seconds to correct, a 30 minutes late notice that would switch back to 15 minutes late. (I'm using the past tense because although its still there, it won't be soon, and as I don't plan on doing any train travel in New Haven for the foreseeable future, it might as well be the past to me.)

I know this isn't really related to this class, but I think the greater transition is still relevant. With all this activity going on to replace dying types of communication, what are the implications on the way we live? Have we lost something that can't easily be attained again? I guess this is my end of the semester, end of an era question.

Reflecting

My course wide reflection on the decline of the newspaper:

Say what you will about The New York Times and its doomed fate and increasing obscurity, but I think its still a force. I was very moved by this realist and poignant article today about aging, rural America.

I know that the Internet has the potential (and may already be) to produce this type of work and better, but its is so large and dispersed that it can almost be a treasure hunt to find excellency. Unless you become an active searcher, its easy to miss great things. I understand that aggregates work to fix this, but when I pick up the newspaper every morning in Mather Hall, everything is there. The headlines call out to me. I don't need to click any links, create any webs to get from place to place, its just there.

That being said, I like how the Internet can enhance the experience of reading the newspaper. In the little box in the paper today was a suggestion to find out more about the story on the website of the Times. There I found a slideshow of pictures that went along with the article.

I hope stories like this and the accessibility of finding them never goes away.

Hot vs. Cold

Now that I have a better understanding what constitutes hot and cold mediums, my question, which I don't yet have an answer for is:

What are the social implications of both hot and cold mediums?

Clueless on McCluhan?

So I'm rereading Part I in preparation for class tonight and so I can actually blog on it, and I'm confused by his characterization of TV as cool. If a hot medium "extends one single sense in 'high definition'", wouldn't tv fall into this category? A few pages later McLuhan goes onto include an ad in the hot medium category with his example of the insurance commercial showing "Dad in an iron lung" More recently there is this TV ad. "This ad did more to strike terror into the reader than all the warning wisdom in the world", he writes. Doesn't this apply to this graphic PSA? Can mediums shift from being hot to cool, depending on what is being broadcast? I'm confused about this.

A guess

Is McLuhan saying that society has a duty to maintain an equilibrium of hot and cold mediums?

Just a thought

I believe that a true sign of a successful liberal arts education is that when you graduate you get way more references in Woody Allen movies than when you matriculated.

On McLuhan

So I've just read Chapter 1 of McLuhan, twice. I'm going to gather my thoughts, but they may be convoluted, as its my first attempt at externalizing everything I've just read. Consider what I'm writing more like notes/summarization I would take for a class.

1. McLuhan says that any medium is an extension of ourselves. Is this because we created each medium, and the medium's origins is rooted in a rationalized idea that could only come from a human brain? Does it have to do with utility?

2. An actual medium is just a medium. The content inside that medium is its own medium.

3. The message is not what is being said (i.e. "BARACK OBAMA IS A MUSLIM" being flashed on the television screen), that would be the content. Rather, the message is the effects of what the medium does for humanity (i.e. telephone speeding up the time it takes to converse with someone.) Quote: "It is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action."