Vidfest 2008: McLuhan 2.0

What is Media?

The world medium is almost gone. Whether singular or plural, it’s almost always media these days. In a sense, everything is media. Media is the environment we live in.

The definition of the word changes as the world around us changes. The medium is both the message and the medium itself.

Advertisers are no longer competing for your attention. they claim to be, but they’re not. They’re competing to rescue you from your inattention.

(Sidenote: Eric McLuhan doesn’t have a computer! He doesn’t believe in getting too close to them – he thinks you lose your ability to study them)

Every new medium reconstrues the audience. This provides them with a totally new way to imagine things.

The global village is another term that gets bandied about too often. The global village is a very uncomfortable place. Like any small village, there’s no privacy, everyone is interested in everything that everyone else is doing is not and there’s no way to retreat. Just because the people are scattered around the world doesn’t mean anything.

Since television, the global village has been replaced by something called the global theatre. It truly has turned the world into a stage, and means that people are no longer looking for a job they’re now looking for a role. We’re always being observed, and that means that the idea of private identity is now useless and is an encumbrance.

Because of things like Facebook and other social networks, you’ve expanded your network and an extension of your “stage”. Your social network is your audience and gives you your identity, your sense of belonging, and wholeness. The global theatre never ends – you’re always on. The curtain never goes down.

No matter where you are on the internet, you’re everywhere. Your body may be in one place, but YOU are everywhere at once. There and fully functional as a intelligent, sentient being. The only thing you can’t do are physical, tangible things. Most people don’t realize that this is happening – it’s unconscious, and that’s “where all the action is” says Dr. McLuhan.

We’ve moved out of the physical world and into the metaphysical world. You are no longer constrained by your body and through the net, you can do anything, be anyone, go anywhere. It’s almost totally beyond your control because that’s the nature of participation and interaction.

Media is only definable by metaphysical terms. Electronically, there’s no movement of the message… the message is with you everywhere.

The global village is full of gossip – if it arrives to you as it occurs, then it’s gossip, or you’re participating in it, in which case you’re a player in the global theatre. It puts you either directly beside or in what’s happening around the world in seconds. There is no separation between action and reaction anymore.

Where does it all go from here? what is the next evolution of media?

they no longer asked what happened on the news. they now ask how did that feel? the objective data is very small. They’re relying on the feeling, the interaction, the perception and the experience. The thrust of the report has gone from the data and to the feeling. The experience, the effect and the interaction. That doesn’t engage people anymore.

This has been a very academic and deep subject, however, it’s been very interesting. This is very much something I think I need to mull over some more… as with the Chris Anderson event, images will come later tonight.

Final note: copyright is over. It’s gone. It started to disappear with the advent of xerox. Once you start publishing anything on the internet, anyone can use it, and copyright is now meaningless.