13 March 2011

Is the medium still the message?

On Twitter yesterday I said:
and Dr. Troy Hicks responded:











1910 France imagining the school of 2000





- Ira Socol


Brian Kuhn said...

Nice little history lesson embedded in your post... I think too often we think in black and white, either-or. I think each medium can contribute value even as new ones come along. I like to think in both-and terms. I like to read a newspaper (a physical one) sometimes, other times I use my iPad, I read on my laptop, I listen to the radio, I watch TV, I search youtube and live streams. It really does depend. I think students need to be fluent in multi-media and able to understand the difference and then choose for themselves which types they prefer.

It's an ever changing world we live in - we need to be adaptable for sure...

Anonymous said...

I've always thought that McLuhan's mistake was a confusion of aesthetic criticism. Going to a movie in a theater is a social experience, whereas watching the same movie at home on Hulu can be solitary. Neither experience is the same, even though the content (and maybe even the specific medium) is identical.

I think that a functional definition of literacy involves being able to identify propaganda, including seeing accusations of media bias as themselves potentially corrupt. I can understand teachers not wanting to take on this political minefield, and defining literacy in more neutral terms. Maybe teaching kids to lie effectively so they can understand when others do it...


Bill Genereux said...

This past week I was discussing with my college-level digital media students what I consider to be the essence of being an expert in digital media- having the ability to transfer and transform information from one form to another.

My class had just completed a digital sound recording assignment, and about half of them didn't submit digital audio recordings in the specified mp3 format, but instead turned in whatever default audio format was created by the device or software they used.

In the two decades I have been working with digital media, the most common task I have is simply getting the media into whatever format is needed. This fluency is nothing more than media literacy. And I agree with you Ira- schools that focus exclusively on print literacy are shortchanging students. I'm teaching my own kids these skills, and even though they are only primary school aged, they are remarkably adept learning this stuff when given a chance to try it.

However, I think many schools assume that because kids are growing up in a digital world, they will learn the media skills they need by osmosis. My recent experience with my college students (just one of many such experiences) demonstrates this isn't always a safe assumption.

Emily said...

I do believe that content/function is more important than form, but I also know that in "the real world," the one still more or less controlled by the oligarchy, form influences function. It's a matter of rhetoric. If you're trying to get your point across effectively to a certain audience, you have to woo them. You have to prove your clout by speaking in a language they deem acceptable.... Which makes me think about creating alternative acceptable forms just to drag down the powers that be. On the other hand, I do like having parts of my language common and understandable. I still maintain that there's nothing inherently "right" about formal, "correct" English, for example, but I do think that the rules we have (and frequently change, I might add) are "for the greater good." An agreed on but fluid canon of language law makes things simpler for all. This comment did not address your larger questions of genre, but the first few quotations of your post intrigued me ;-)