Marshall McLuhan 1966 - Predicting the Internet with Robert Fulford

you've been writing about the mass media for a good many years and now you're an object of the mass media how has this changed your view of it well let me instead explain why this has happened because you see suddenly if you've noticed the mood of North America has change very drastically things like the safety car couldn't have happened ten years ago why is that no it's because people have suddenly become obsessed with consequences of things they used to be obsessed with mere products and packages and launching these things out into markets and into the public now they've suddenly become concerned about what happens when these things go out on the highway what happens when this kind of program gets on the air what happened they want safety air safety cigarette safety cars and safety programming this need for safety is a sudden awareness that things have effects now my writing has for years been concerned with the effects of things not their impact but their consequences after impact TV unlike the fantasy world the escaped world of the movies TV creates enormous lis serious and realistic minded sort of person well almost oriental in his inward and meditativeness I think this is the teenager of today she's becoming almost oriental in his inwardness he's so thoughtful and serious no green whereas the the movie generations of the 20s and 30s were a Khun coded bunch of superficial types had a good time and went to college but not for knowledge and that sort of thing all has changed and changed because of television because very much television gave the old electric circuitry that is already here gave it a huge extra push in this direction of involvement and inwardness you see the circuit doesn't just simply push things out for inspection it pushes you in to the circuit it involves a you'll when you've got a new medium into a play in a and population all their sensory lightships a bit sometimes shifts a lot this changes their outlook their attitudes changes their feelings about studies about school about politics since TV both Canadian and British and American politics have cooled off almost to the point of rigor mortis our politics require much more hotting up than the TV medium will give them a TV is ideal as you see when you get to experts like ourselves discussing coupie the this is good TV because there's a process going on of mutual challenge discovery and processing now TV is good for that and same with ads if the audience can become involved in the actual process of making the ad then it's happy it's like the old quiz shows they were great TV because it gave the audience a role something to do they were horrified when they discovered they'd really been left out all the time kills the shows are rigged gnarlier this is a horrible misunderstanding of TV on the part of the programmers but in the same way most advertisers do not understand TV media do you know that most people read ads about things they already home they don't read things to buy them but to feel reassured that they have already bought the right thing in other words they get huge information satisfaction from ads far more than they do from the product itself this the other said is what we're advertising is hinting is quite simply into a world where the and will become a substitute for the product and all the satisfactions will be derived informational e from the ad and the product will be a merely a number in some file somewhere instead of going out and buying a package book of which there have been five thousand copies printed you will go to the telephone describe your interests your needs or your problems and say I'm working now in the history of Egyptian arithmetic I know bit of Sanskrit I am unqualified in German and I am a good mathematician they said it'll be right over and they at one Xerox with the help of computers from the libraries the world all the latest material just for you personally not as something to be put out on [Music] on the bookshelf they send to the package as a direct personal service this is where we're heading under electronic information conditions products increasing where our becoming services what kind of a world would you rather live in is there is there a period in the past or a possible community tree you'd rather be in I'd rather be in any period at all as long as people are going to leave it alone for a while let's let go just leave it now but they're not going to either No so the only alternative is to understand everything that's going on and then counter and neutralize it as much as possible turn off as many buttons as you can and frustrate them as much as you can I am a resident Lee opposed to all innovation all change but I am determined to understand what's happening because I don't choose us to sit and let the juggernaut were all over me know this many people seem to think that if you talk about something recent you're in favor of it the exact opposite is true in my case anything I talk about is almost certainly to be something I'm resolutely against and it seems to be the best way of proposing it just to understand it and then you know where to turn off the button

Channel: mywebcowtube

Views: 43,923

Keywords: Marshall Mcluhan, Global Village, Norman Meiler, Conversation, Understanding Media, The planet as art form, Violence as a quest for identity, Pattern recognition, The medium is the message, Nature of the artist, Technologies as extensions of man, Moral judgement as alienation, Eric Mcluhan, james joyce, carpenter, tactile values, Michelle Rae Anderson, Elizabeth McLuhan, Peter C. Montgomery, Dean Motter, Alexandra Oliver, TV, Internet

Id: ijeMM-NXvus

Length: 5min 31sec (331 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 07 2016