This job listing is from the CBS Radio employment site. It is at the same location where I work, for the same company. I thought it might be of interest to some people in the class:
Job Title Digital Media Manager-WTIC-AM, FM, WRCH &WZMX
Auto req ID 2163BR
Market Hartford
Station WTIC-AM
Format News/Talk
Department Programming
Job Description
CBS RADIO, Hartford is looking for a full time Director of Media responsible for the websites and technical aspects of the stream broadcasts for the four CBS Radio stations in Hartford. Stations are: WTIC AM, WTIC FM, WRCH FM and WZMX FM.
Required Skills/Experience
Web responsibilities include creating custom graphical user interface templates, create and manage web content, web and email blasts, viral marketing, as well as implementing new web technologies. Responsible for employing tools to prepare text, photo and graphics to the station websites to accomplish updates, edits and refreshes on schedule. Edit, update and compose online material including copy, graphics/photos, audio clips and video clips (for podcasting). Produce content (collaborative and syndicated) to run across format sites. Add RSS feeds to station websites.
Preferred Skills/Experience
Graphic/design responsibilities include photography, creating and maintaining visual imaging (web and print), advertisements (for internal station and client use), logos, flyers, posters, digital highway billboards and other promotional material (mousepads, roll banners, bus billboards, station vehicle wrap).
Director will also be required to work with the CBS Radio sales team, to create compelling internet advertising campaigns; May also, work directly with clients on a per case basis.
Qualified candidates must: Have above average computer skills, be able to prioritize and be able to work under deadline. Successful candidates should be able to work independently with minimal supervision. Must be comfortable working with multiple station departments and be able to work on multiple projects at once.
Technical Skills:
Graphic and Video: Adobe Premium Suite CS3 (Photoshop, Fireworks, Adobe Audition)
Web: Microsoft FrontPage, Adobe Dreamweaver (HTML, CSS, JavaScript)
Office: Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook)
Other: Google Analytics and Bachelor’s degree preferred.
Minimum Education Level Bachelor's Degree or Equivalent Experience
Additional Candidate Instructions
Please apply on line first by going to www.cbsradio.com and clicking on the careers link and then click job bank and apply for the specific job. Once you have done so you can then email Steve Salhany at SRSalhany@cbs.com or mail your resume:
Steve Salhany
Operations Manager
CBS Radio, Hartford
10 Executive Drive
Farmington, CT 06032
Or via email:
SRSalhany@cbs.com
NO PHONE CALLS PLEASE.
CBS Radio is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Media Theory Is Complicated...
Media theory is complicated...
I enjoyed the class, learned some McLuhanesque and Shirkesian theory, and got hands-on experience with web tools that I would probably would not have gotten around to exploring on my own.
I also met some fascinating people on Monday nights!
The Past and the Future
On Wednesday, I stood about a foot and a half away from a 1455 paper edition of the second volume of a Gutenberg Bible, at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City. The bible was open in a clear plastic case. The display card bragged that the Morgan Library and Museum is the only institution in the world to possess three copies. The book itself was printed with heavy, thick black and red body type in Latin, with an ornate first letter at the start of a passage, near the top of the right hand page.
The book in front of me was the first major work printed with movable type. It changed the way knowledge was spread and preserved. On the other side of the room was an even older tome, an illuminated European book of scripture from the eleventh century, with leather straps and clasps on the outside edges of the front and back cover, to keep the book securely closed. I felt a sense of awe at the historic significance of the printed bible, and at the sheer age and the commitment of hundreds of generations of people over the centuries to keep the hand drawn religious book intact.
I also thought of Shirky's prediction (in his book and online) that the internet will make twentieth century journalists as obsolete as the scribes who made the eleventh century volume. On a personal level, I wonder how many scribes became printers...? Which is part of the reason why I took this class to begin with, since under Shirky's theory, my job as a journalist would seem to put me in the scriptorium, quill pen in hand.
Near the end of the final class, we discussed what the next big things might be on the internet. Here are three predictions:
Wikis: They have not fully flowered. Wikis are a fundamentally new way of writing and thinking about information made possible by the internet. I don't know what else can be done with them, but something interesting is possible.
Harnessing the tidal flow of information: There is so much data flowing across the web, much of it about people in social media. Marketers are interested in this info so they can sell more stuff to more people, but what other uses can it be put to? Maybe new metaphors could help spur new ideas in this area.
New uses for mobile devices: Twitter and Flickr seem like early uses, but this area is not mature yet.
I am still undecided on the overall hotness and coolness of the Internet. The 1999 book Digital McLuhan by Paul Levinson (summarized here) described the web as being a very cool place. But the web is a very different place than it was in the late 1990's, with more video and multimedia, in higher definition. Many of the online trends we have discussed in class, from Wikipedia to Facebook, were set up after the book was written. The conversion of audio, video, and text to ones and zeroes, and the ability to use them all in equal measure on the internet has created so many different tools that labeling the entire internet hot or cold would be meaningless. As we did in class, the best approach is to analyze each kind of web site or service and judge them on their own traits.
The book in front of me was the first major work printed with movable type. It changed the way knowledge was spread and preserved. On the other side of the room was an even older tome, an illuminated European book of scripture from the eleventh century, with leather straps and clasps on the outside edges of the front and back cover, to keep the book securely closed. I felt a sense of awe at the historic significance of the printed bible, and at the sheer age and the commitment of hundreds of generations of people over the centuries to keep the hand drawn religious book intact.
I also thought of Shirky's prediction (in his book and online) that the internet will make twentieth century journalists as obsolete as the scribes who made the eleventh century volume. On a personal level, I wonder how many scribes became printers...? Which is part of the reason why I took this class to begin with, since under Shirky's theory, my job as a journalist would seem to put me in the scriptorium, quill pen in hand.
Near the end of the final class, we discussed what the next big things might be on the internet. Here are three predictions:
Wikis: They have not fully flowered. Wikis are a fundamentally new way of writing and thinking about information made possible by the internet. I don't know what else can be done with them, but something interesting is possible.
Harnessing the tidal flow of information: There is so much data flowing across the web, much of it about people in social media. Marketers are interested in this info so they can sell more stuff to more people, but what other uses can it be put to? Maybe new metaphors could help spur new ideas in this area.
New uses for mobile devices: Twitter and Flickr seem like early uses, but this area is not mature yet.
I am still undecided on the overall hotness and coolness of the Internet. The 1999 book Digital McLuhan by Paul Levinson (summarized here) described the web as being a very cool place. But the web is a very different place than it was in the late 1990's, with more video and multimedia, in higher definition. Many of the online trends we have discussed in class, from Wikipedia to Facebook, were set up after the book was written. The conversion of audio, video, and text to ones and zeroes, and the ability to use them all in equal measure on the internet has created so many different tools that labeling the entire internet hot or cold would be meaningless. As we did in class, the best approach is to analyze each kind of web site or service and judge them on their own traits.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Artforum Article: Digital Collage's Growth and Society
This post follows up on the previous post.
This recent Artforum article (free registration required) primarily discusses the growth of collage in a digital age, and its response to economic turmoil, but the author veers into McLuhan territory, and some of what he has to say could also apply to tumult caused by the introduction of new media:
...The manner in which collage can make meaning—in an atmosphere now dense in remixes, mash-ups, and shuffles—will be very different than it was in times of crisis past. Today, collage must confront its status as a form that has risen rapidly in postwar popular culture, making it a natural impulse for all media. It is not only a common response to the layers of information that burden us but also an invisible force that reorganizes histories, logs, and lineages to be more readily accessible—now an everyday necessity. I would like to take collage’s recent resurgence in art as an occasion to revisit and update its related popular histories—a shifting story, one that hovers at the fluid seam of art, politics, technology, and mass media.
* * * * *
FOLLOWING THE LATE 1960s, the collage impulse became increasingly dominant in popular media as segments of information began to get smaller, faster, more readily transferable, and ultimately less linear. Beginning with the Children’s Television Workshop’s heavily research-driven programming, which introduced Sesame Street in 1969, and ending with the launch of Shawn Fanning’s peer-to-peer website, Napster, in 1999, we might reconsider the late-twentieth-century history of collage as a consumer-as-creator genealogy.
* * * * *
IN 1931, [Raoul] HAUSMANN HAD CLAIMED that photomontage could create “the most striking contrasts, to the achievement of perfect states of equilibrium.” By 2001, this equilibrium had reached a global scale through the trafficking of billions of digitized images: the hyperplastic descendants of the rigid cut-and-paste fragments from an earlier moment of collage.
McLuhan Shirky Mashup
Watch my video!
I assembled the video downloadable here from a 2008 lecture hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society by Clay Shirky (released under Creative Commons 3.0), a 1967 question and answer session with Marshall McLuhan from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation via YouTube, plus audio taken from the K-OS song Crabbuckit from the album Joyful Rebellion, and the MIA song XR2 from the album Kala from Compact Discs. My copyright rationale is that the Shirky speech is released for remixing, and all four sources are being used for educational purposes..
McLuhan says artists can anticipate and describe the changes wrought by new media, and teach their viewers how to ride with the punch of those changes, instead of taking it on the chin. Several people in class have mentioned popular movies about the internet (The Net, Enemy of the State), but I'm not sure those are "art," in the sense that McLuhan means.
One form of the art being produced to anticipate the psychological impact of the tools of the internet could be digital mashups and remixes that have been produced by musicians, video artists, and visual artists in growing numbers over the last two decades. This art could be seen as a preparation for a world where copyright breaks down, and where people share information more promiscuously. In a world of ones and zeroes, that information can just as easily be a sample from a song (which was likely very personal to the original artist) as photos of your kids, blog posts, or a video you shot with your friends shared through a social networking site.
My video is itself a mashup, with McLuhan, Shirky, and the effects of the media and digital culture as its topic. In some way, this video may be an example of the medium being the message. Although there may be some lighthearted meaning created by the juxtaposition of pieces of video from 40 years apart, the finished piece is at least as much about my ability to create the work, as it is about creating a new message out of what these two scholars have said.
I assembled the video downloadable here from a 2008 lecture hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society by Clay Shirky (released under Creative Commons 3.0), a 1967 question and answer session with Marshall McLuhan from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation via YouTube, plus audio taken from the K-OS song Crabbuckit from the album Joyful Rebellion, and the MIA song XR2 from the album Kala from Compact Discs. My copyright rationale is that the Shirky speech is released for remixing, and all four sources are being used for educational purposes..
McLuhan says artists can anticipate and describe the changes wrought by new media, and teach their viewers how to ride with the punch of those changes, instead of taking it on the chin. Several people in class have mentioned popular movies about the internet (The Net, Enemy of the State), but I'm not sure those are "art," in the sense that McLuhan means.
One form of the art being produced to anticipate the psychological impact of the tools of the internet could be digital mashups and remixes that have been produced by musicians, video artists, and visual artists in growing numbers over the last two decades. This art could be seen as a preparation for a world where copyright breaks down, and where people share information more promiscuously. In a world of ones and zeroes, that information can just as easily be a sample from a song (which was likely very personal to the original artist) as photos of your kids, blog posts, or a video you shot with your friends shared through a social networking site.
My video is itself a mashup, with McLuhan, Shirky, and the effects of the media and digital culture as its topic. In some way, this video may be an example of the medium being the message. Although there may be some lighthearted meaning created by the juxtaposition of pieces of video from 40 years apart, the finished piece is at least as much about my ability to create the work, as it is about creating a new message out of what these two scholars have said.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
McLuhan V. Shirky
A passing reference by Shirky, to McLuhan.
"Viral marketing is McLuhan marketing: The medium validates the message."
"Viral marketing is McLuhan marketing: The medium validates the message."
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Understanding Media Chapter 1 and 2
Understanding Media: Chapter 6 Media as Translators
Page 57
In a broad definition of prayer, all of social media could be seen as part of the divine thunder (even the trolls taunting the Christians with posts about feces). By some definitions, prayer could be something as simple as taking part in the world, God working through us (our actions?) or even an attitude.
Page 58
This paragraph might describe the trouble now facing traditional news media: Market collapse. With the drop in production costs of media, more people are producing, providing a glut in advertising availabilities. This drives down prices, the same way a bumper crop of blueberries drives down prices for farmers.
Yet at the same time the internet gives people a greater ability make some money by gathering information, and presenting it. For example, Blogger.com users can "monetize" their blog. If they can write in a way people find useful or enjoyable, anyone can earn a (very) few dollars by learning something interesting or helpful, and blogging about it. Of course, people can also choose to contribute their information gathering for free, through efforts like Wikipedia, or open source projects.
Page 59
"We are now in a position to go beyond that, and to transfer the whole show to the memory of a computer."
Page 60 - 61
In this electric age we see ourselves being translated more and more into the form of informatoin, moving toward the technologoical extension of consciousness. That is what is meant when we say that we daily know more and more abut man. We mean that we can translate more and more of ourselves into other forms of expression that exceed ourselves. Man is a form of expression who is traditionally expected to repeat himself, and to echo the praise of his creator. "Prayer," said George Herbert, "is reversed thunder." Man has the power to reverberate the divine thunder, by verbal translation."The first three sentences of the preceding passage could have been written about Facebook. But I would not typically think of FB as a form of prayer. People are using Facebook to at least facilitate prayer. Other people are making fun of FB through prayer. And then there is at least one Facebook prayer page, which as of this writing, was being attacked by members of this troll group.
In a broad definition of prayer, all of social media could be seen as part of the divine thunder (even the trolls taunting the Christians with posts about feces). By some definitions, prayer could be something as simple as taking part in the world, God working through us (our actions?) or even an attitude.
Page 58
Under electric technology, the entire business of mann becomes learning and knowing. In terms of what we still call an "economy" (the Greek word for a houshold), this means that all forms of employment become "paid learning," and all forms of wealth result from the movement of information. The probelme of discovering occupations or employment may prove as difficult as wealth is easy.
This paragraph might describe the trouble now facing traditional news media: Market collapse. With the drop in production costs of media, more people are producing, providing a glut in advertising availabilities. This drives down prices, the same way a bumper crop of blueberries drives down prices for farmers.
Yet at the same time the internet gives people a greater ability make some money by gathering information, and presenting it. For example, Blogger.com users can "monetize" their blog. If they can write in a way people find useful or enjoyable, anyone can earn a (very) few dollars by learning something interesting or helpful, and blogging about it. Of course, people can also choose to contribute their information gathering for free, through efforts like Wikipedia, or open source projects.
Page 59
"We are now in a position to go beyond that, and to transfer the whole show to the memory of a computer."
Page 60 - 61
Having extended or translated our central nervous system into the electromagnetic technology, [through computer programs that can replicate the human senses] it is but a further stage to transfer our consciousness to the computer world as well. Then, at least, we shall be able to program consciousness in such wise (ways?) that it cannot be numbed nor distracted by the Narcissus illusions of the entertainment world that beset mankind when he encounters himself extended in his own gimmickry.Ummm. This has not happened, and I don't think we are close to putting a human brain online. A search of "human consciousness" at the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research turns up nothing. Besides, there is no programming that can prevent a human consciousness from being distracted by this.
Understanding Media: Chapter 5 Hybrid Energy
Page 49
In reference to new technologies and media, McLuhan writes "They fact that they do interact and span new progeny has been a source of wonder over the ages. It need baffle us no longer if we trouble to scrutinize their action. We can, if we choose, think things out before we put them out."
But starting on page 246 of Here Comes Everybody, Shirky argues that products can be put out more quickly with social media advising the producers, and open source models reducing the economic penalties for putting out a bad product. "Open source doesn't reduce the likelihood of failure, it reduces the cost of failure; it essentially gets failure for free. This reversal, where the cost of deciding what to try is higher than the cost of actually trying them, is true of open systems in general." At the begining of the chapter, Shirky writes "The logic of publish-then-filter means that new social systems have to tolerate enormous amounts of failure. The only way to uncover and promote the rare success, is to rely, once again, on social structure supported by social tools."
Or, as longtime techie and salesman Guy Kawaski writes in Reality Check: "Don't worry about shipping an innovative product with elements of crappiness... If a company waits until everything is perfect, it will never ship, and the market will pass it by."
Shirky and McLuhan's ideas seem to be in conflict. Shirky argues that based on economics, new technology can be pushed out more quickly, because of the ease and prevalence of social media feedback and the lack of economic pain if a product fails because only volunteer time was invested in making the product. McLuhan might find fault with this approach, because if the new medium is going out the door more quickly, then there is probably no time to fully think out its implications for society, or how best it could be used. Shirky's answer might be that the increased speed of social media allows for people to consider the impact of their products as they are being released. Shirky might even argue that this could be one of the changes resulting from a break boundary, which McLuhan mentions in the previous chapter: The speed of interaction afforded by social media might allow us to more easily and quickly identify, analyze and (hopefully) respond to changes in society. These changes are themselves being sped up by the fluidity of thought provided by the Internet and its progeny. McLuhan might argue that it remains to be seen if intelligent thought can be carried out so quickly. Although there is no economic penalty for volunteers working together to quickly put out a bad piece of software, there can be a major penalty, if society is too quick to jump on the bandwagon of a bad idea hashed out too quickly in social media.
Page 51
"The present book, in seeking to understand many media, the conflicts from which they spring, and the even greater conflicts to which they give rise, holds out the promise of reducing these conflicts by an increase in human autonomy."
Does social media increase individual autonomy or decrease it? It increases autonomy by allowing everyone to become a publisher, and by allowing individuals to communicate with each other, potentially to challenge a dictatorship, as described in Belarus in Here Comes Everbody. Social media also allows users to express their personalities online, via everything from plain old homepages to a Youtube account.
But social media could decreases autonomy because it can be used by organizations, like a dictatorship trying better coordinate its efforts to put down a rebellion. And much of the information that people put online to differentiate themselves, can also be used by marketers, governments, or whoever else is able to purchase or collect that data, to identify individuals, their politics, proclivities, and personalities.
Page 51 - 52
"...Each stick of chewing gum we reach for is acutely noted by some computer that translates our least gesture into a new probability curve or some parameter of social science. Our private and corporate lives have become information processes just because we have put our central nervous systems outside us in electric technology."
McLuhan could have written this in the last few years, referring to privacy concerns online.
In reference to new technologies and media, McLuhan writes "They fact that they do interact and span new progeny has been a source of wonder over the ages. It need baffle us no longer if we trouble to scrutinize their action. We can, if we choose, think things out before we put them out."
But starting on page 246 of Here Comes Everybody, Shirky argues that products can be put out more quickly with social media advising the producers, and open source models reducing the economic penalties for putting out a bad product. "Open source doesn't reduce the likelihood of failure, it reduces the cost of failure; it essentially gets failure for free. This reversal, where the cost of deciding what to try is higher than the cost of actually trying them, is true of open systems in general." At the begining of the chapter, Shirky writes "The logic of publish-then-filter means that new social systems have to tolerate enormous amounts of failure. The only way to uncover and promote the rare success, is to rely, once again, on social structure supported by social tools."
Or, as longtime techie and salesman Guy Kawaski writes in Reality Check: "Don't worry about shipping an innovative product with elements of crappiness... If a company waits until everything is perfect, it will never ship, and the market will pass it by."
Shirky and McLuhan's ideas seem to be in conflict. Shirky argues that based on economics, new technology can be pushed out more quickly, because of the ease and prevalence of social media feedback and the lack of economic pain if a product fails because only volunteer time was invested in making the product. McLuhan might find fault with this approach, because if the new medium is going out the door more quickly, then there is probably no time to fully think out its implications for society, or how best it could be used. Shirky's answer might be that the increased speed of social media allows for people to consider the impact of their products as they are being released. Shirky might even argue that this could be one of the changes resulting from a break boundary, which McLuhan mentions in the previous chapter: The speed of interaction afforded by social media might allow us to more easily and quickly identify, analyze and (hopefully) respond to changes in society. These changes are themselves being sped up by the fluidity of thought provided by the Internet and its progeny. McLuhan might argue that it remains to be seen if intelligent thought can be carried out so quickly. Although there is no economic penalty for volunteers working together to quickly put out a bad piece of software, there can be a major penalty, if society is too quick to jump on the bandwagon of a bad idea hashed out too quickly in social media.
Page 51
"The present book, in seeking to understand many media, the conflicts from which they spring, and the even greater conflicts to which they give rise, holds out the promise of reducing these conflicts by an increase in human autonomy."
Does social media increase individual autonomy or decrease it? It increases autonomy by allowing everyone to become a publisher, and by allowing individuals to communicate with each other, potentially to challenge a dictatorship, as described in Belarus in Here Comes Everbody. Social media also allows users to express their personalities online, via everything from plain old homepages to a Youtube account.
But social media could decreases autonomy because it can be used by organizations, like a dictatorship trying better coordinate its efforts to put down a rebellion. And much of the information that people put online to differentiate themselves, can also be used by marketers, governments, or whoever else is able to purchase or collect that data, to identify individuals, their politics, proclivities, and personalities.
Page 51 - 52
"...Each stick of chewing gum we reach for is acutely noted by some computer that translates our least gesture into a new probability curve or some parameter of social science. Our private and corporate lives have become information processes just because we have put our central nervous systems outside us in electric technology."
McLuhan could have written this in the last few years, referring to privacy concerns online.
Understanding Media: Chapter 4 The Gadget Lover
Page 38
I suspect the internet is a break boundary, but I'm not sure how. I mean, I'm taking a class about it, so it must be important, right...!?! It seems to be at least as significant as the switch from the still photo, to the motion picture, which McLuhan mentions as a break boundary. Perhaps the "reversal of itself" will be that although we have access to vastly more information online, if old media structures go away and people stop going to books (as has been posited in our readings), we may have less access to reliable information.
Page 41
The passage on Narcissus could easily apply to social media. Sites like MySpace or Facebook can be all about the user, and the user's friends. Tools like blogs or Twitter can show the user his or her own reflection, by allowing him or her to associate with similar people. The Narcissus myth can almost literally come true for some people online, as social media and other tools eat up all their free time, the way television used to.
On a tangentially related note, this is a not-so-serious look at online addiction, which is also a completely serious advertisement. I had no idea it was an ad until the last 10 seconds, although I was marveling at how well done it was. I have seen more and more of these kinds of videos on Youtube... Perhaps this is the economic model of content on the internet: Advertisers create the content, or hire an agency which does so.
Page 42 - 43
This did not end well for Narcissus. Although, I guess if you turn into a flower after you die, that's not TOO bad.
The associated myth of echo seems to have a useful warning for heavy tweeters and bloggers: "Echo had one failing; she was fond of talking, and whether in chat or argument, would have the last word."
Page 47
"In the electric age we wear all mankind as our skin." This could apply to the increasing communications on the internet, and the increasing amount of information transmitted. Perhaps the digital age will change our "strategic numbing," and make us aware of new things, as McLuhan said the electronic age made us aware of technology as an extension of our bodies, and gave us guilt associated with social consciousness. What that new revelation might be I have no idea.
I suspect the internet is a break boundary, but I'm not sure how. I mean, I'm taking a class about it, so it must be important, right...!?! It seems to be at least as significant as the switch from the still photo, to the motion picture, which McLuhan mentions as a break boundary. Perhaps the "reversal of itself" will be that although we have access to vastly more information online, if old media structures go away and people stop going to books (as has been posited in our readings), we may have less access to reliable information.
Page 41
The passage on Narcissus could easily apply to social media. Sites like MySpace or Facebook can be all about the user, and the user's friends. Tools like blogs or Twitter can show the user his or her own reflection, by allowing him or her to associate with similar people. The Narcissus myth can almost literally come true for some people online, as social media and other tools eat up all their free time, the way television used to.
On a tangentially related note, this is a not-so-serious look at online addiction, which is also a completely serious advertisement. I had no idea it was an ad until the last 10 seconds, although I was marveling at how well done it was. I have seen more and more of these kinds of videos on Youtube... Perhaps this is the economic model of content on the internet: Advertisers create the content, or hire an agency which does so.
Page 42 - 43
The stimulus to new invention is the stress of accelerations of pace and increase of load. For example, in the case of the wheel as an extension of the foot, the pressure of new burdens resulting from the acceleration of exchange by written and monetary media was the immediate occasion of the extension or "amputation" of this function from our bodies. The wheel as a counter-irritant to increased burdens, in turn, brings about a new intensity of action by its amplification of a separate or isolated function (the feet in rotation). Such amplification is bearable by the nervous system only through numbness or blocking of perception. This is the sense of the narcissus myth. The young man's image is a self-amputation or extension induced by irritating pressures. As a counter-irritant, the image produces a generalized numbness or shock hat declines recognition. Self-amputation forbids self recognition.Essentially, McLuhan is arguing that any significant new media causes a shock to its viewers or users, similar to falling a few feet. He argues that the body's response it to go into shock, and become numb. Therefore, people become like Narcissus, obsessed with whatever the new tool is that has been introduced, and unable to turn away.
This did not end well for Narcissus. Although, I guess if you turn into a flower after you die, that's not TOO bad.
The associated myth of echo seems to have a useful warning for heavy tweeters and bloggers: "Echo had one failing; she was fond of talking, and whether in chat or argument, would have the last word."
Page 47
"In the electric age we wear all mankind as our skin." This could apply to the increasing communications on the internet, and the increasing amount of information transmitted. Perhaps the digital age will change our "strategic numbing," and make us aware of new things, as McLuhan said the electronic age made us aware of technology as an extension of our bodies, and gave us guilt associated with social consciousness. What that new revelation might be I have no idea.
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