Medium Theory

Meyrowitz, J. (1994). Medium Theory. In D. Crowley & D. Mitchell (Eds.), Communication Theory Today. Stanford University Press. Chap 3, 51-77

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First - Generation Medium Theorists

• Harold Adams Innis:

  • Control of communication media brings social and political power

  • Medium requires special encoding or decoding has more potential to supposrt hierarchical structure

  • Most communication medium is either time biased (last long) or space biased (easy to move). Time biased led to relative small stable societies and space biased led to large but unstable empire.

• Herbet Marshal McLuhan

  • Three major period: oral, writing/printing and electronic

• Other topics:

  • script to print

  • electronic media effect in social organization

  • etc.

The History of Civilization from a Medium-Theory Perspective

• Traditional oral societies:

  • space restrict communication

  • closed in terms of size and no individuality

  • tend to conserve existing culture

• The transitional scribal phase

  • Writing start to separate (enable people to have different experience) and unit (reading the same material brings connection) people

• The rise of modern print culture

  • Divides people into separate communication system

  • Aural sense loose to sense of sights and it reflects to how peole think, talk, and physical settings.

• Global electronic culture

  • brought back senses that was popular during oral culture.

  • Foster and define new types of shared experience and identity

Information-system Theory: An Example of Second-generation Medium Theory

• Role as information network:

  • social identity rest in social relations

  • social role is determined by the access pattern to social information and situations ( More situations and participants are segregated, the greather differentiation in status and behavior)

• The Role Triad:

  • Group identity: affiliation. Based on shared, but secret information

  • Socialization: roles of transition or becoming (e.g.: children to adult). Based on staggered access to situations and information

  • Hierarchy: roles of authority. Based on non-reciprocal access to information

Three Phases of Social Roles

• Oral conceptions

  • lack of role distinctions (harder to separate different media spheres due to oral medium)

• Literate forms

  • Widen the gap between literate and illiterate,

  • promote social hierarchy, role distinction because now there are dictinct access rules to media and behaviors

• Electronic form:

  • Wold is more homogenized at macro, societal level due to information availability

  • Individual becomes more heterogeneous due to selective access of information. People are segregated not based on behaviour, but by common set of options.

Relative Strengths and Limits of Medium Theory

• Overlook the significance of content

• Ignore medium developed by institutions with political and economic agenda

• Non-deterministic. It does not claim to predict outcome, but generally nudge it.