We can make some sense of the extent and pervasiveness of our present environmental problems by considering the ideas of Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian philosopher and media theorist who died in 1980. In describing the effects on ourselves of the things that we invent, he coined the expression “the medium is the message”, which was playfully modified to “the medium is the massage”. He summarized the process by saying, “We invent things, thereafter they invent us.” He also aptly described the effect of instantaneous electronic communication as having created the “global village”.
Continue reading Reality Through the Rear-View MirrorTag Archives: Television
The Quadra Project: Living in the Metaverse
The beginning of trouble can be linked to the advent of television. The first hint of a problem that has now grown out of control was identified in 1961 by Newton Minow, the leader of a Federal Communications Commission that was authorized to report to President John F. Kennedy on the effects of television on the personal and social psychology of Americans. Minow’s executive summary described a medium that was filled with “a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, Western bad men, Western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons.” Minow concluded that TV was creating “a vast wasteland” in which an alternate reality of entertainment was disconnecting Americans from the actual world in which they lived.
Continue reading The Quadra Project: Living in the Metaverse