Kornelija Gudzeviciute

281 MC Digital Screen Culture

Student ID: 5824283

We all can see that the world is different than was hundred years
ago. Im talking not only about musics style, clothiers, and prices in
the shop but also about education system, technologies, societys
values and priorities. Today I will discuss the Marshall McLuhans
concepts Extension, Amputation, The medium is the message.
Also, I will talk about audience relationship between media texts and
them and what theories we need to apply if we want to understand
it. Moreover, Neil Postman will help us to see what part of our lives is
taken by television and what influence it has for us. I will discuss
about The Age Of Television and analyse book which called
Amusing Ourselves to Death published by Postman because there
will good examples about general publics priorities nowadays. Also,
it will great to know what media texts messages are about and
what effect they have for audience today.
To start with, Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan was a
charismatic and original thinker who inspired a lot of people and let
them know more about communications and media studies.
Philosopher was born in 1911 and passing in 1980 and had no
opportunity to know Web as we know it today but still he has a huge
influence on it. (J. Gross 2011). He is well known as academic
starter and media studies father because of his slogans the
medium is the message, hot and cool media, also global
village. These expressions are worldwide known and explored by all
other philosophers and theorists. Searching information in Internet,
McLuhan blogs and websites, we can see all different opinions and
knowledge about the famous theorists phrase The medium is the
message and what is it really means. Many people presume the
conventional meaning for medium that refers to the mass media
such as radio, television, the press and Internet. Furthermore,
concept message is different understanding as well because it
depends on media texts content and different peoples experiences.
Medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human
association and action (McLuhan, 1964, p.9). In other words, that
societys attitudes are changed and minds are controlled by
medium. As noted by Chad Nantais (2012) this expression means
that the only way to understand new technological environment is
by studying effect. To explain, we need to know more about what
effect technologies have for us. Is it helpful tool in our daily lives, is
it take a big part of our routines? When we get a response to these
questions then we could understand more about new technological
environment. Talking about McLuhan and his explanations about
medium and message. The content of any medium is always
another medium, it is like channel of communications. The
message, it seemed, was the content as people used to ask what
painting is about. Yet they never though to ask what a melody was

Kornelija Gudzeviciute
281 MC Digital Screen Culture
Student ID: 5824283
about. In such matters, people retained some sense of the whole
pattern, of form and function as a unity. (McLuhan,1964, p.14). To
demonstrate, nowadays, all media texts tell something to people,
they have an idea what to say to all print culture because all texts
are not about just to entertain society, it supposes to give
something more than that, to give inspiration, ideas, and something
beneficial and useful and helpful to improve our knowledge.
Equally important are Marshalls concepts amputation and
extension which are close related with concept the medium is the
message. It supplements each other. Starting with extension as
noted by McLuhan(1964) Any extension, whether of skin, hand, or
foot, affects the whole psychic and social complex. Some of the
principle extensions, together with some of their psychic and social
consequences, are studied in this book. For instance, electronic
books extend paper books, telephone extends our voice, and
automobiles extend our feet. Also, nowadays a lot of people use
selfie sticks which help to take photo from bigger distance.
Subsequently, this equipment extends arm because it was more
difficult way to take a selfie. All these things are replacement and it
helps us to overcome distance more easily because we have cars
and we dont need to walk a lot. We have computers and we dont
need television and we dont need to wait to watch our favourite
film. Besides, McLuhan sees the enormous implications of
development of language for humans. It is the extension of man in
speech that enables the intellect to detach itself from the vastly
wider reality. Without language human intelligence would have
remained totally involved in the objects of its attention (McLuhan,
1964). Thus, language is one of the most important tools which help
us improve ourselves and doesnt let us to become to technologys
zombies.
However, amputation is opposite than extension and it helps us
understand how much we loose. For example, people do not walk a
lot because they have cars and they forgot what the amazing feeling
is to overcome distance by feet. Example from McLuhan speech was
that you can not watch the real football game in the stadium
because there are a lot of big screens which shows all football
match and people choose screen instead of watch live game.
Moreover, come back to the medium and whole media, theorist
Marshall McLuhan invent a new concept hot and cold media.
There is a basic principle that distinguishes a hot medium like radio
from a cool one like telephone, or a hot medium like the movie from
a cool one like television (McLuhan, 1964, p.24). For instance, hot
media examples will be image or text which give us more
information and give just little space for our imagination and

Kornelija Gudzeviciute
281 MC Digital Screen Culture
Student ID: 5824283
interpretation. All details are disclosed and it is the state of being
well filled with data (McLuhan, 1964). On the other hand we have
cool concept which posses little information and require more
attention from audience and have a chance to be more involved to
it. Cool media examples will be cartoon and the television. In the
simply way as noted by Marshall (1964) the hot form exclude, the
cold one includes. McLuhan gives us non-verbal examples which
have different forms of media. It will be radio and telephone.
Starting with radio, it will be hot media that doesnt need our
participation in it. We can just listen our favourite radio station and
relax. We can get all information that is needed to us. Talking about
telephone which is cold media form, more involved us and need
efforts to get an information. A cool or low literacy culture cannot
accept hot media like movies or radio as entertainment. They are, at
least, as radically upsetting for them as the cool TV medium has
proved to be for our high literacy world (McLuhan, 1964, p.33).
Therefore, McLuhan media theories not only helped to learn more
about medias texts but also it was tool to analyse audience as well.
To continue, audience is one of the biggest and necessary parts in
all media. In other words, it does a big influence for all medias
texts. Term of it is describe as a group of people who reads media
texts. Additionally, all media is changing with her audience is
changing as well. But to start from audiences history the concept of
audience and the evolution of different forms and platforms of
media are intertwined, their growth, develop, changed and it is close
related and connected throughout history. The modern concept of
the audience as the receivers of messages from a centralized
source of transmission, then, was not present at the birth of the
modern media but has emerged in tandem with their development
and, in part, as a product of their own practices. (T. Bennett,
2015). Actually we can say that audience is a new term because it
was better know in early XX century where all technology such as
television, radio started to take bigger part in societys lives and reformed the way audiences were conceived. In other words, audience
is engaged with media because actually people can not live without
media nowadays. Furthermore, audience got a little attention in the
middle of the nineteenth century but it was more for popular
entertainment in highly public places.(E. DAntonio, 2015) While,
popularity of films and radio rapid increased and politicians and
advertisers started to influence voting and buying, broadcasters
interests were to know more about audience. The y paid attention
more to peoples age, sex, education, and occupation, class. They
were more specific and put audience in particular sections. Then,
producers observe that audience and their responses decide the
success or failure of a media product. (E. DAntonio, 2015). Different
public has specific group, taste, values, and before broadcasters

Kornelija Gudzeviciute
281 MC Digital Screen Culture
Student ID: 5824283
create something new they have to know more better their target
audience.
Moreover, there are types of audience such as mass audience, Niche
and individual. Mass audience means group consuming commercial
TV programmes. Niche will be people with unique interest, specific
genres of films, newspapers or magazines. Third one is individual, it
means that few people like it.
Equally important are three theories which we can apply to help us
to understand relationship between texts and audience. First one
will be The Hypodermic Model where media texts have a big effect
upon the audience, public are passive and powerless, and the power
lies with the message of the text. Second model will be the Uses
and Gratifications which is opposite of the first one. In there,
audience is active, public uses the text for its own pleasure. Third
one is Encoding-Decoding Model where producer constructs a text it
is encoded with a message that the producer wishes to convey to
the audience. Decode means that audience understand that
meaning correctly. (K. Wilson, 2000-2011). Also, audience can reject
that message; as well even they understand it correctly. Moreover,
you can see more and more differences from audience between
hundred years and now because now they are more active than
there were before.
In addition to audience analysis Stuart Hall developed that there are
three ways of decoding the meaning of the message. One of them is
dominant reading means where the audience understand texts
message and what creators wants to say and agree with it. For
example, person hear the speech about feminism on the Internet,
he/she press like, comment how she/he totally agree with it, and
share this link on his/her Facebook page. Also, dominant reading can
be person who does not like your opinion but he will be dominant
reading then when producers expect negative feelings from public.
Furthermore, we have negotiated reading where the audience partly
agrees with the text. For example, person is watching videos and
clips on Youtube. He saw one video which shows how group of young
people covered all wall in the city centre with graffiti. You think that
it is really bad and do not like this video, but you will see that it is a
beautiful painter and maybe it was one of the citys projects. Third
reading is oppositional where audience completely disagree with
products message and are reject for cultural, political or ideological
reasons. For instance, there is a McDonalds advert on television
which shows what delicious and amazing a new hamburger is with
fresh meet and everything. Oppositional reading says that all
McDonalds hamburgers are unhealthy, because of this food are
dying a lot of chickens and that this restaurant should be closed.

Kornelija Gudzeviciute
281 MC Digital Screen Culture
Student ID: 5824283
Therefore, all these theories and knowledge help us to know more
about our audience and give them what they want the most
because only them are able to tell what is popular today.
Additionally, we have other theorist Neil Postman who was inspired
by Marshall McLuhan and who started to study the new technology
world. He an American critic and educator which interests were
education and media, as can we seen in one of the famous books
Amusing Ourselves to Death published in 1985. Postmans career
was mostly dedicated to work as an educator. He spent 40 years as
a professor at New York University, where he was founder by
department of Paulette Goddard Chair of Media Ecology .His book
called Amusing Ourselves to Death is historical narrative which
explains how printed word was changed by television, how all
society are into the Internet, mobile phones, how people can not live
without technology and media anymore. You are not busy enough
writing e-mails, returning calls, downloading tunes, playing games
(online, PlayStation, Game Boy), checking out Web sites, sending
text messages, IMing, Tivoing, watching what you have Tivoed,
browsing through magazines and newspapers (N.Postman, 1985,
p.7). Also, he looks more into how media of communication affect
human understanding, feeling, values and how difficult will be
survive without media nowadays. Moreover, Neil Postman mentions
about Orwells and Aldous Huxleys Brave New World dark visions.
Orwell were those who would ban book, However Huxleys vision
was that there wont be reason to ban books because people will not
want to read them. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of
information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that
the truth would be concealed from us.(N. Postman 1985, p.20). In
his book, he has to ways to look at our world but the truth is that
this book agrees more with Huxleys vision, not Orwell.
Moreover, in his book Postman mention that our world is different
than was before. Young people have a closest relationship with
television then ever before. They spend a lot of time to look to
computers screen, video monitor, and mobile phones. According to
Postman(1985) Multitasking is standard . Our new world doesnt
have silence anymore because it was replaced by background
music. We no not read old books, or even know about theorists who
were famous in the past. Also, Age of oral culture has discourse as
entertainment. In other words, that everything around us is for one
reason to entertain us. However Age of Print had introduction of
the alphabet, books introduced a logical structure and organization
for conveying information and stimulating reflection. (Nniccoollee,
2009).

Kornelija Gudzeviciute
281 MC Digital Screen Culture
Student ID: 5824283
Talking about The Age of Television brings a lot of confusion, and
people started to look differently to politics, all society, religion and
education. For example, that sense of historical facts ad significance
is lost, news industry created crises as news, religion becomes
entertainment, and priests become celebrities. Americans no longer
talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange
ideas they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions;
they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials (N.
Postman 1985, p.30-44). Indeed, world which does not get useful
and interesting information which could help improve their
knowledge. Also, people are also not interested about history, about
facts, about science. They just want to have fun and watch, listen
things that entertain them. Moreover, society will be upset if they do
not get it and sometimes they are confused why one or other media
texts say something important. Additionally, broadcasts does not
give new though, ideas and they do not educate people because
they understand that public does not need that. Entertainment has
become the content of all of our discourse, so that the message
itself is less important than the entertainment value of its deliver.
Coupled with all these theories and concepts, my group and I got a
task to create a video and the only requirement was to get as many
views as we can. My group which was called Enter the Medium
decided to create a disgusting clip How to cook a chicken.
Nowadays, these type of videos are really popular and we though
that it will help us to get more views. Our video we analysed by
Laswells model. Firstly, video was created by Coventry university
students who has YouTube account called How to JR. Secondly, our
video does not have that particularly message to the world, however
it shows way of life and how people carefree can be and do not take
thing seriously. This is shown by the way how chicken was treated
and contempt for food. Moreover, we take our target audience that
it will be males and teenagers between 15-30 who are from highschool, university students, people who have more time to watch
YouTubes videos. Also, we shared our video in a lot of different
media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, against food websites,
blogs. Of course, we expected more negative opinion than positive
because the purpose was to get more people more involved that
they will share and talk about video and in this way to get more
views. Furthermore, we used McLuhan concepts Extension and
Amputation. We know that YouTube is one of the most popular and
favourite websites in nowadays but now people create more and
more applications which are easy to use and can replace YouTube.
For instance will be Google Chrome applications such as Freemake1
music box1, video downloader, ITunes. Moreover, we use the one of
the theory Uses and Gratifications because it helped us to know
relationship between our video and audience. Enter the medium

Kornelija Gudzeviciute
281 MC Digital Screen Culture
Student ID: 5824283
group understand that every single reader has their own
experiences in life, have different values, habits and priorities. Our
group got reflects from audiences and we have three type of
reading, we got negotiated, dominated and oppositional. Mostly it
was dominate. We had comments which show us that people liked
this video, also we had negative comments which commentators
and their thoughts we called dominated reading because we wanted
that our audience will have negative feelings for it, and they get it.
We understood that it is easy to control audience and their minds
because with our video we affect our public as well. Enter the
Medium group proved that these theories are working and it is sad
to know how all media texts and platforms can affect all of us.
In conclusion, we can say that present is totally different than the
past because everything has changed. For examples, technologies
develop really fast; societys values and priorities change often.
Also, people look to the same things differently now. They do not
treasure old books anymore as my grandmother did in the past, also
people are too busy with works, technologies, and do not have time
enough to spend with family. According Postman education, religion
are important to everyone but even it is just for entertainment.
Furthermore, media is always with us and take a big part of our
lives. Everyday when we read articles from newspapers, when we
watch television in the evening, when we watch videos on YouTube,
we got a lot secret message from these media texts, and it shows
our close relationship with media. I would like to finish with Marshall
McLuhan quote: In this electronic age we see ourselves being
translated more and more into form of information, moving toward
the technological extension of consciousness. (M. McLuhan, 1964).
He and other theorist Postman knew what the future would be. That
technology will shape and change us. We are general public who let
others control us. Media can change our priorities, opinion, even our
mood and majority of us do not see it and they think that everything
is how it suppose to be. People talk that they have rights, they have
their own opinion but they do not understand that this idea or
though was introduced by media.

Kornelija Gudzeviciute
281 MC Digital Screen Culture
Student ID: 5824283

References:
DAntonio,E.(2015)Audience|TheChicagoSchoolOfMediaTheory
[online]availablefrom
<https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/audience/>[7
December2015]
MarshallMcLuhan(1964)UnderstandingMedia.London:Routledge
Nantais,C.(2012)WhatIsTheMeaningOf"MediumIsTheMessage"
ByMarshallMcluhan?Quora[online]availablefrom
<https://www.quora.com/WhatisthemeaningofMediumisthe
MessagebyMarshallMcLuhan>[7December2015]
Postman,N.(2006)AmusingOurselvesToTheDeath[online]20thedn.
London:PenguinBooks.availablefrom<https://libcom.org/files/Neil
%20Postman%20%20Amusing%20Ourselves%20to%20Death.pdf>[7
December2015]
Postman,N.(1987)AmusingOurselvesToDeath:PublicDiscourseIn
TheAgeOfShowBusiness.London:Methuen
Ruddock,A.(2001)UnderstandingAudiences.London:SAGE
Slideshare.net,(2009)AmusingOurselvesToDeath[online]available
from<http://www.slideshare.net/nniiccoollee/amusingourselvesto
death>[7December2015]
Wilson,K.(20002011)MediaknowallAS&ALevelKeyConcepts
Audience[online]availablefrom
<http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/alevkeyconcepts/alevelkeycon
.php?pageID=audience>[7December2015]

Kornelija Gudzeviciute
281 MC Digital Screen Culture
Student ID: 5824283