I must say, I was off to a slow start with this blog post after watching the two recommended videos. But after watching them a second time, and browsing through the other interviews, I became enthralled in the discussions. I even chose to post one on my Facebook page. It was a bit difficult to follow the lecture by Dr. McLuhan about "Living in an Acoustic World". And I think it was because he spoke on the topic from a point of view that we are not familiar with. Although he did bring up some major points about society that still apply today, and I believe that it applies on a larger scale.
One of the topics that stuck out to me during this lecture was when he was telling jokes and talking about the way they change. It probably resonated with me because I love telling jokes. He talks about how jokes changed from having a story line to being one-liners, because that is all anybody has the attention span for. I think this really applies to today in the sense that people don't have the attention span to focus on something longer than a few seconds. This can apply to so many mediums, not just for a joke. He discusses this concept in a few of his other interviews as well. I really enjoyed his interviews about television and news media. In his interview, "What Television Does Best," he discusses the fact that in news/television media, "there is no follow through," "there is no sequence," "it's just all now." He's basically discussing how television media throws information at its viewers and jumps to the next topics. There is no rhyme or reason to the way the information is presented, and it is only presented to touch on the surface of the topic. Rarely does the coverage go deep into the topic, exposing all of the details involved. I think that is what he intended to be his analogy with jokes; that we only want to hear a punchline, and not the entire story to go with the joke. Get to the good stuff and leave out the rest.
Some other bits that caught my attention while looking through Dr. McLuhan's interviews was the one titled, "Violence as a Quest for Identity." Immediately while watching this interview it didn't bring me into the past, it brought me to the here and now. If you haven't already viewed this interview, I suggest you do. It brings to light the way that media gives identity to those seeking it. While I was watching it, I couldn't help but think about the movements going on right now in support of Black Lives Matter. While I'm not going to debate this topic, I want to discuss it briefly in relation to this interview. Many times we can see protests in our news feeds on social media, where people are being destructive in the name of this movement. Many people, like myself, will say that these acts of violence and destructive behavior do not reflect the black lives matter movement, but they are gaining attention based on their actions. Whether it is good attention or bad attention, they are still getting views on social media and on news media. McLuhan states that "all forms of violence are a quest for identity" and I truly believe that. He even discusses terrorists and hijackers, these people were without an identity until media exposes their story. I could go on with examples of people performing acts of violence to get attention from the media as I'm sure anybody could. It seems like it's all we see on the news. Snippets of badness it seems is all we see on the news, in social media, and in the newspaper (if there are people that are still reading it).
I could go on, talking about all of these interviews, but that would make for one long blog post. I hope to hear what you all think about the interviews as well and maybe a discussion will stem from it. In all seriousness, if you didn't look into the other interviews, you should definitely check out "What Television Does Best," "Violence as a Quest for Identity," and "Predicting Interactive Communication via the Internet"
I keep returning to the "requirements" for our blog posts, and the question about whose responsibility it is to teach critical media literacy. And honestly, I'm not sure whose responsibility it would be in these cases. People want to be a part of the news, they want to feel important; and if that is at the expense of their individuality and private life, they will do whatever it takes regardless of being taught how to view media, whether it is social media or news media, or other, through a critical lens.
References:
http://www.marshallmcluhanspeaks.com/
Marshall McLuhan Speaks Special Collection: Living in an Acoustic World
Marshall McLuhan Speaks Special Collection: Television News Is a New Mythic Form
Marshall McLuhan Speaks Special Collection: Violence as a Quest for Identity
Marshall McLuhan Speaks Special Collection: What Television Does Best
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