inevitable progression

I like McLuhan.

Here's some of how I interpreted his discourse on film.

The Progression: We moved from one technology to the next. We progressed from the spoken word to the written word. From that came books, magazines, and short stories. Then, we had radio, television, and film. McLuhan talks about the birthing of short stories from idea articles in magazines and relates that to films conception from books. Films condense pages upon pages of written words in a shortened sequenced segment of visual and aural description.

A Counterintuitive Truth: Change invariably leads to loss. We cannot experience change without experiencing loss. For this reason, change is not simply additive in nature.

Implications: As words in books are now represented visually and aurally in films, we experience a loss of imaginative interaction. The sounds and pictures of film require less creative participation. The characters and actions and dialogues and settings (and MORE!) are given form. They have been defined in the film. We can no longer picture a character acting in such a manner or looking a certain way because it has already been identified as such. Film removes the imaginative participation that books create. However, film does require interaction. Participation from the audience is necessary; a literacy of films is needed to understand and interpret them.

 Another Counterintuitive Truth: The medium is the message. This is another one of McLuhan's main ideas, though not explicitly expressed in this sample of his literature. Any technology influences, shapes, and restructures more than the message's content. What is on the television is not as important as the fact that we are watching television and utilizing that particular media. There are consequences for utilizing media and we are subject to them, not independent from them (which is another counterintuitive truth). We are shaped, but we do not shape. Material forces shape us. The media that exist within our culture shape us. The media is the message; content secondary.

Technology!

FUTUUUUURREEE!!!!  --- Yes, that's a Spongebob-Squarepants reference.