Vidcon 2017: Youtube & What Would Marshal McLuhan say? - Page 3 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Language, bias, ownership, influence; all media related topics.
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#14822906
I have no idea who that is.

Being on Youtube is proof that you have webcam and an internet connection that is it, nothing else whatsoever. It is does not confer any legitimacy onto anybody, everyone is totally aware that almost anyone can make a Youtube video, no one notices someone has managed to upload something to you Youtube and thinks, well they must be really smart! They managed to sign up for a Youtube account!
#14822909
Does it ever cross your mind that you may be woefully mentally unequipped to participate in these kinds of discussions? We already know you have no idea who Marshal McLuhan is, or what his theories are about. We also now know that, in a thread entirely about youtube videos, you're not even aware of who Neil Degrasse Tyson is. Therefore, when you say that youtube does not confer legitimacy or that youtube is irrelevant, it seems to me that you are actaully stating is that you are horribly ignorant of the subject matter.

Decky wrote:Being on Youtube is proof that you have webcam and an internet connection that is it, nothing else whatsoever


If this is so, why are you in this thread at all? The premise of the thread is that in fact youtube has a complex media structure that is worthy of analysis. If you disagree with that premise (before even getting into the more complex aspects such as isomorphism, hyperreality, and so on), what are you even doing posting here?
#14822912
Youtube is not a peer reviewed journal, it is not a place where there is any kind of quality control whatsoever (aside form the removal of videos that break the law or that might reduce the profits of google, the owner or the site somehow).

Claiming that it confers any legitimacy whatsoever onto the people who use it is no different to claiming that the scrawlings on toilet stall doors confer legitimacy onto the authors or that graffiti at the bus stop gives some sort of boost to the intellectual standing of those who spray them there.

If this is so, why are you in this thread at all? The premise of the thread is that in fact youtube has a complex media structure that is worthy of analysis.


I am giving my analysis, if you don't like having to hear views from working class scum who exist outside of your ivory tower then than is a shame for you as I exist and I am here.

If you disagree with that premise (before even getting into the more complex aspects such as isomorphism, hyperreality, and so on), what are you even doing posting here?


What I am doing here? I am debating as it is a debate forum, if you want to make posts without anyone replying to them with anything but starstruck adoration what exactly are you doing here? Maybe you should be writing in a diary.
#14822932
Potemkin wrote:Noemon is right, Decky. Clearly, these people do think (falsely) that posting their videos on Youtube grants their inane ramblings an aura of legitimacy and respectability. In the far-off distant days before teh internetz, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, people like that would just bore the tits off everyone at their local pub by droning on in a loud voice about the nignogs and the lefties. Nowadays, they have a media platform complete with microphones and cameras from which they can propagate their contemptible nonsense, and have a potential audience in the millions. Their message is just as negligible and contemptible as always, but the medium now makes them look like an important personage rather than just an obnoxious opinionated bore, which is what they are. In that respect, the medium truly is the message, as Marshall McLuhan rightly said.


Actually why emphasize McLuhan to just YouTube? PoFo has it's fair share of nobodies who consider their opinion king and somewhat legitimate. The whole internet is a global media platform. Anyone can voice their opinion on it. And the more extreme someones viewpoint, the more vocal they are. Youtube is a platform. It is a way to sway someones opinion to your way of thinking. But so are forums... and so are twitter or facebook. And today politician's are realising the potential of social media. I genuinely believe Trump wouldn't have been elected had he not used social media (twitter) to spread his fake news to the gullible public. So it appears the old media (papers) empires are losing their power to influence. Social media is king. And this can be a good think. It puts power to the average joe who once had none. But of course there are dangers with the extremist spouting their bullshit too. I suppose the only way to control this is to regulate the Internet.
#14822935
Just saying it is so is not an argument. Being on youtube does not make anyone look like an important personage, it makes them look like someone that can afford a webcam. Evidently you and MB are far more easily impressed than I am. :eh:

The difference is that they can reach a potential audience of millions rather than just a few dozen of their cronies in the local pub. After all, here we are discussing the minutiae of the Youtube videos of Sargon of Akkad, a person whose rightful place in the world is holding court in a corner of a Wetherspoons pub. Something... unusual is clearly happening, and it's almost certainly to do with the nature of the medium being used by the aforementioned Mister Sargon.
#14822938
What on earth do mere numbers have to do with the perception of integrity Pote? :?: If someone sells 100 copies of a book or 100,000 I would still judge it on what was in the book not on the sales and I think most people any sense would do likewise. Have you had a look at the best sellers recently? It is all cook books and celebrity autobiographies.
#14822940
What on earth do mere numbers have to do with the perception of integrity Pote? :?: If someone sells 100 copies of a book or 100,000 I would still judge it on what was in the book not on the sales and I think most people any sense would do likewise. Have you had a look at the best sellers recently? It is all cook books and celebrity autobiographies.

I think you overestimate the intelligence and judgement of the general public Decky. Most people seem to regard the popularity of something as being a sound measure of its worth. For example, we had a poster on PoFo recently who cited the fact that the majority of comments to a Youtube video agreed with his opinion as proof that he must be right. Lol.
#14822945
Popularity is the most obvious component when discussing mediums like TV, radio, youtube and that is why your argument that "youtube does not matter but it actually matters enough for me to insist that it doesn't" has got quite ridiculous at this point and as MB. already pointed out it is not adding anything to the conversation.
#14822946
Fair enough Noeman I will vanish and leave MB to give us his opinion totally unchallenged like Moses descending from the mount with his tablets, I am sure that will add to the one way "conversation", adios.
#14822952
Decky wrote:Fair enough Noeman I will vanish and leave MB to give us his opinion totally unchallenged like Moses descending from the mount with his tablets, I am sure that will add to the one way "conversation", adios.


That youtube has empowered people that would otherwise be some idiots in a basement is not just his opinion, it is a matter of fact. These people enjoy millions of views and we are currently engaged in discussing about them in here. For some reason you want to shut down this discussion with your "youtube doesn't matter, these people don't matter, no one cares, no one should care, everybody shut up and move along", which then begs the question of what is the point of posting in this topic in the first place?
#14822969
The printing press empowered people outside the elite to express their opinions to a large audience. This was a challenge to the elite control of discourse and thus the agenda of politics. Film came along and returned control to the elite as they chose content and choice to view. TV and radio left content with the elite but gave the plebs the choice to change channels. Now we have the internet which gives back both content and choice of what to view to the plebs.

So what is MB's argument? There are some people who are wrong because they are bad people and they are using the internet to express themselves to an audience of their peers (who are also wrong because they are bad people). Therefore this phenomenon needs to be analysised.

To what ends? Controlling it? Censoring it? Or otherwise preventing it?

MB directs his criticisms at one group whose politics he seems to find threatening. It does come across as a call to arms. "Those damn plebs, they are expressing themselves again. Why don't they just shut up and believe what their betters tell them to believe." Why is the neck beard/fuggly guy/gaming culture so threatening that it demands deconstruction and analysis while other content of 'acceptable' political nature can be safely ignored?

This wouldn't be yet another excursion in western class conflict polemics, would it?
#14822970
Being made aware of the effects of a medium can be beneficial in itself. No action is necessarily required.
The effect is not limited to any group or individual.
"Stay tuned", "weather bulletin", "emergency broadcasting:, all have tuned us to believe what the medium is about to say and I believe this is carried over to the internet.
#14823280
I highly recommend The Laws of Media and Media and Formal Cause by Marshall Mcluhan, Eric McLuhan.

Now, I know I'm wasting my time posting this, because most of you are not serious thinkers... As McLuhan said in a private letter in 1951, "We prefer to compose human beings into bombs and explode political and social entities. Much more fun."
Sorry, just killing time waiting for @Rhetoric Thug to reply. :D

YouTube: From Cliché to Archetype, all is present, and the mundane becomes mythic.


When I explain McLuhan to university students or curious laymen, I usually strip search the Laws of Media and play peek-a-boo (tease, because movie goers love teasers) with its unified information field theory. I start by asking people to look at a picture, painting, or any two-dimensional pattern of information. Next, I ask them what it may mean, and as they engage in an information feedback loop through our mind-matter interface and 'touch' (interface, of the resonant interval as 'where the action is' in all structures, whether chemical, psychic, or social, involves touch) the relatively independent structure of awareness, I begin to deconstruct its vanishing point before the person can reach a personal (subjective, phenomenological) conclusion or get lost in the mythos of our human expression...
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“Signs and Symbols Rule the world."


Now, this particular structure of awareness is a compressed visual externalization of human experience (operating like any other communication tool). The data distributed through the painting may be lost during the process of translation (like language). Furthermore, any piece of information (visual, audio, etc) must contend with the time-space continuum as the painting's intrinsic (esoteric and exoteric) definition or purpose undergoes metamorphosis through the 4th dimensional sequencing event. In other words, the painting's original purpose may take on new and relatively different meanings as humans evolve inside the 3rd dimensional fold and naturally reconfigure their time/space conditions, thus the painting may be dislocated and then relocated through the retrieval process. When decoders investigate the encoded material they extend their human bias (ego & limited perspective) and power of cognition and therefore all possible interpretations dilute the original meaning or intention. Nonetheless, the inferred meaning or relationship the decoder decodes as a result of interplay inside the mind/matter interface is useless without a thorough investigation of the medium or transportation vehicle the content uses to 'touch' our sensorium. Ultimately, the explicit statement is the medium (the geometric structure of the painting), while the content is an incidental happening defined by the user or viewer's accumulated life experience.

Now, paintings are simple formulas, they always have 'ground' and 'figures' that create an information field. The objective and subjective resonance must be defined by the total package of information, because each figure(s) must be defined by the ground and the ground must be defined by each figure. If you take away the figure or ground, you change the total package of information on display. All forms of human expression must create a physical dialect (bridge of sensation, point A-B, 10101010) in order to code patterns of perception. Once a pattern is established the system or relatively independent structure of awareness (in this case, the image/painting above) can be transported and absorbed via biological circuitry, therefore the ecology of 'being' (being as a byproduct of consciousness that must be in one continuous exchange of information with the nature of the situation) must be in a state of active interplay with all information inside the dimensional folds of perception. Each system or pattern of perception, biological, social, technological, co-create or structure human awareness, because our chemical composure/living activity is a byproduct of environmental stimuli. We're in a living ouroboros of information, nature nurtures our nature and we nurture nature. The surface symptom(s) or any observable/measurable quality or quantity must be a side-effect of 'being' created by the multi-faceted undivided whole of reality. In other words, each system is a symptom of THE ENTIRE SYSTEM, creating an information singularity, and the human perspective must be enfolded inside of the colliding field of all 'things' in existence. Once you understand that last sentence, you realize how limited our human perspective can be, and you may also realize that the Shannon-Weaver model of communication is an accepted side-effect of a limited view of reality.

Page 86, Laws of Media
"The Shannon-Weaver model of communication, the basis of all contemporary Western theories of media and of communication, typifies left-brain bias."

See, this is what people fail to understand, McLuhan laid out a cosmology, combining early neuroscience, quantum physics, epistemology, biology, and other cutting edge topics. I mean, we're talking about a man that had tea with Bucky Fuller, wrote to Ezra Pound, and attended Bilderberg. His unified field theory is not just a communication theory, it is a bio-genetic evolution theory (I'll get to that). Anyway, back to page 86 of Laws of Media and The Shannon-Weaver model.

It is a kind of pipeline model of a hardware container for software content. It stresses the idea of 'inside' and 'outside' and assumes that communication is a kind of literal matching rather than resonant making.

Weaver interprets:
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The information source selects a desired message out of a set of possible messages... the selected message may consist of written or spoken words, or of pictures, music, etc.

The transmitter changes this message into the signal which is actually sent over the communication channel from the transmitter to the receiver. In the case of telephony, the channel is a wire, the signal a varying electric current on this wire; the transmitter is the site of devices (telephone transmitter, etc) which change the sound pressure of the voice into the varying electrical current... in oral speech, the information source is the brain, the transmitter is the voice mechanism producing the varying sound pressure (the signal) which is transmitted through the air (the channel). In radio, the channel is simply space (or the aether, if any one still prefers that antiquated and misleading word), and the signal is the electromagnetic wave which is transmitted. The receiver is a sort of inverse transmitter, changing the transmitted signal back into a message, and handing this message on to the destination...

In the process of being transmitted, it is unfortunately characteristic that certain things are added to the signal which were not intended by the information source. These unwanted additions may be distortions of sound (in telephony, for example) or static (in radio), or distortions in shape or shading of picture (television), or errors in transmission (telegraphy or facsimile), etc. All of these changes in the transmitted signal are called noise. (Shannon and Weaver, the Mathematical Theory of Communication, 7-8)


Claude Shannon presents his theory of communication in terms of left-hemisphere verisimilitude as 'first object': 'the fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point. Frequently the messages have meaning' (page 32). This is to ignore completely the ground of users and of sensibility. The Shannon-Weaver model and its descendants provide exact examples of Idols of the Theatre. In point of fact, the multiplicity of side-effects of any communication system forms an entire environment of interfacings, a kind of subculture which accompanies the central 'service' or channel of communication. For example, the side-effects of the Alaska oil pipeline are the subject of a larger report by the Berger Commission. The gist of this report is that the entire native population would be deprived of its environmental livelihood, were the pipeline built. In the same way, the side-effects of telephone or radio assume a complex system of electric technology and supporting services, the adoption of which serves as a new ground that transforms the entire user society. Equally, the system of manufacturers and roads and services that are the side-effect of the motor car alter the entire face (and odour) of any user-society.


Again on Page 90-91, Laws of Media.

All Western 'scientific' models of communication are, like the Shannon-Weaver model, linear, logical, and sequential in accordance with the pattern of efficient causality.

These are all in the figure-minus-ground mode of the left-hemisphere, and in contrast do not relate to the effects of simultaneity and discontinuity and resonance that typify experience in an electronic culture. For use in the electric age, a right-hemisphere model of communication is necessary, both because our culture has nearly completed the process of shifting its cognitive modes from the left to the right hemisphere, and because the electronic media themselves are right-hemisphere in their patterns and operation. The problem is to discover such a model that yet is congenial to our culture with its residuum of left-hemisphere tradition. Such a model would have to take into account the apposition of both figure and ground instead of concentrating solely on an abstract sequence or movement isolated from any ground.

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McLuhan sees our thoughts as ecological organisms which manifest physical phenomena (technologies) and reshape the entire interconnected eco-system. Please check out over my "Beyond One & Zero" thread for videos on this topic.
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=170332

Personally, I metaphorically see the Shannon-Weaver model as the classical mechanics theory and McLuhan as the quantum mechanics theory of communication.
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If the medium is the message and each message is a medium, consciousness would be the ultimate medium, and our thoughts would be side-effects of conscious activity. In short, thoughts operate like software programs in a feedback loop with various hardware components (systems of information colliding with systems of information). We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us. The metaphoric matrix is a malleable field of interactive information, and we can intelligently guide our evolution.
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I'm not going to address MB's original post, because it is filled with trivial labels and appears to be obsessed with fixed perspectives and political babble which shall be buried by time like any other outdated chemical combustion. Like McLuhan said, "It doesn't much matter what you say on the telephone, the telephone as a service is a huge environment, and that is the medium. And the environment affects everybody, what you say on the telephone affects very few." The internet is an early/primitive telepathic building set (we're in the electric stone age, trapped by crude wires and whatnot) and we're well on our way to something I described earlier on PoFo...

Telepathy will replace all forms of hardware which naturally distort or incidentally transform human software information (the evolution of ancestral/genetic information compiled through time & space). We shall return to a very naturalistic process that had been installed over the course of our evolution. We will establish & understand the connection between the mind, will, & its manifested representation. We shall bridge the quantum gap, locally grasp nonlocal experience, and conquer time & space during this new age of quantum reason. This process or understanding of process, will be wholly aligned with the very nature of reality… As we extend our human senses through the frequency or elements of sensation itself. For if we bond with the chemical experience of all experience which is responsible for the thing in itself, we shall be just as real & immediate within the NOW as the river that flows up/downstream or the ocean that caresses infinite sand particles with each roaring rolling wave.
#14823292
Interesting post, Rhetoric Thug, thank you for taking the time to get into this, which i do appreciate. If I understand your post correctly, you're saying that my initial assumptions are too limited, in that youtube isn't really the medium in question, but rather the internet as a whole. As such, the content of youtube is basically as irrelevant as the phone chatter described by McLuhan.

And internet is itself a layering atop the fundamental communication technologies of Western civilization, which themselves are reflective of the entire heritage of western thought- as you quoted from Laws of Media, "linear, logical, and sequential in accordance with the pattern of efficient causality". The internet, after all, was an attempt by the US defence complex to circumvent command linearity (the term "chain of command" certainly is approriate!) by introducing a cybernetic system of command.

Without going into Agora land, I do want to ask you something that I've been thinking about for some time now. I'm friends with some biologists and I've recently proposed the notion that our brains are themselves quantum processes rather than traditional mechanical systems- this is a model derived from the work of the "new idealists" notable amongst them, Bernardo Kastrup. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but do you think McLuhan would agree with that notion?

It also seems to me like the major limiting factor is language, which itself is of course the earliest biological technology evolved by humans. I really like this notion of linearity being the limiting factor. Ted Chang in his short story, "The Story of Your Life" addressed this by imagining a quantum language. A similar concept was introduced by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. when he dreamed up "4th dimensional" beings able to communicate telepathically.
#14823310
Interesting post, Rhetoric Thug, thank you for adding your perspective, which i do appreciate.
I do enjoy civil discourse :)
If I understand your post correctly, you're saying that my initial assumptions are too limited, in that youtube isn't really the medium in question, but rather the internet as a whole. As such, the content of youtube is basically as irrelevant as the phone chatter described by McLuhan.
Correct.

And internet is itself a layering atop the fundamental communication technologies of Western civilization, which themselves are reflective of the entire heritage of western thought- as you quoted from Laws of Media, "linear, logical, and sequential in accordance with the pattern of efficient causality".
Sure, Harold Innis influenced MM, so empire and communication go hand in hand. We're uploading Western civilization to the cloud (noosphere), and we're trying to augment the entire globe. The Shannon-Weaver model of communication resembles classical mechanics (localized cause & effect) because its focus is on the motion of information under the influence of a fixed system of communication, whereas McLuhan used an approach similar to quantum mechanics (nonlocal, relative, and simultaneous) to describe the motion of information under the influence of a system of communication. In Gutenberg galaxy, MM linked the mechanization of the printing press to our social-biological evolution, but critics dismissed his thought provoking theory as 'technological determinism.' In reality, technology may be the only thing that can transcend natural selection (and yes, I know, I know, we create tech from our natural inventory so technically we can never escape natural selection). For instance, the Promethean flame changed humanity. With fire, we can cook, make pottery, etc. Fire influenced our social-biological evolution and reorganized time/space. Simple discoveries shift our trajectory. What do you think, do you think Newton could of discovered his laws of gravity without the alphabet? See, we're everything that came before us, and we will change the future by participating here right NOW.
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Without going into Agora land, I do want to ask you something that I've been thinking about for some time now.
This is what print does to our mind, it compartmentalizes time-space and forces men to become specialists. Of course, since modern society had been created through typography, we set up our civilization to mimic print. For pattern seeking creatures living under the 4th dimension, compartmentalized patterns are far more easier to grasp than kaleidoscopic patterns of awareness. Nonetheless, It seems rather silly to include (to me, at least) "Without going into Agora land," because it is an inescapable topic if we're to discuss the nature of man. Of course, I understand your responsibility as a member of this forum, but in reality, you can never go off-topic, because we're topical thinkers. Instead of vertical pillars of discipline/study, I try to imagine our knowledge base as one holographic sphere.

I'm friends with some biologists and I've recently proposed the notion that our brains are themselves quantum processes rather than traditional mechanical systems- this is a model derived from the work of the "new idealists" notable amongst them, Bernardo Kastrup. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but do you think McLuhan would agree with that notion?
Well, perhaps 'quantum' is the closest word/concept we can use to describe our brains, but I think it is more advanced than any metaphor in use today. If you consider the mind-matter interface, it is hard to ignore the fact that we are incapable of true invention, we simply rearrange the material world in our image. For instance, in order to leave earth we must take earth with us, we didn't invent a spaceship, we discovered it. Surprisingly, the human imagination is not confined by anything physical or time-space.
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McLuhan secretly barrowed Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's Noosphere. In The Divine Milieu, Pierre constructed his own teleological argument, stating that man will technologically achieve 'Christ-like consciousness' through evolution. Interestingly, McLuhan tried to keep his faith separate from his intellectual probing, but he did implement the noosphere as a fundamental feature of the electric/information age.
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MM repeatedly suggested that we're 'sleep walking' through our evolution and believed that we can intelligently guide it once we realize what we're doing when we discover new modes or perception.

Now that I think about it, this is a perfect example:
A Human-Made “Bubble” of Radio Waves Could Be Shielding Earth From Radiation. Very Low Frequency radio waves have created a protective bubble around the planet

There’s hardly anything on Earth that has escaped human influence—from the oceans to the atmosphere. But a new study suggests that human activity is also influencing the space around our planet; this is on top of the space junk already swirling around out there. Very Low Frequency (VLF) broadcasts have created a planetary cocoon, shielding the planet from high energy particle radiation, according to a NASA press release.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new ... 180963369/

The medium really is the message. Once we stop sleepwalking, we can intelligently design our VLF shields. :D Of course, on the other hand, is this teleological serendipity? Perhaps man is cocooning like a caterpillar, and you know, "There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly." What will unfold and can we intelligently guide our evolution or are we being guided by incomprehensible forces? Tune in next time and watch the present become our past and future simultaneously.

It also seems to me like the major limiting factor is language, which itself is of course the earliest biological technology evolved by humans. I really like this notion of linearity being the limiting factor. Ted Chang in his short story, "The Story of Your Life" addressed this by imagining a quantum language. A similar concept was introduced by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. when he dreamed up "4th dimensional" beings able to communicate telepathically.
Why do you think I say 'Beyond the One and Zero...' Hmmm, I'm in a hurry typing this, I'll return soon. Cheers.
#14823318
Surprisingly, the human imagination is not confined by anything physical or time-space.

@RhetoricThug
Something must confine it or direct it. One reason I enjoy Pofo is because you intellectuals supply me with material I am totally unfamiliar with (I have never read McLuhan), but I have drawn many of the same conclusions on my own. I am a firm believer that the knowledge really is already resident in our brains. People who spend time thinking about such things seem to come up with basically the same Conclusions. Our arguments are usually about the 'noise' affecting our different versions, but the conclusions are similar. If our brains were not confined or directed then we would have a universe of options to choose from and similar conclusions would be rare.
Yes, I see you actually said it is not confined by anything physical or time-space. so I am not really disputing your statement, just commenting on it because I like to see myself in print. :D
#14823695
One Degree wrote:@RhetoricThug
Something must confine it or direct it. One reason I enjoy Pofo is because you intellectuals supply me with material I am totally unfamiliar with (I have never read McLuhan), but I have drawn many of the same conclusions on my own. I am a firm believer that the knowledge really is already resident in our brains. People who spend time thinking about such things seem to come up with basically the same Conclusions. Our arguments are usually about the 'noise' affecting our different versions, but the conclusions are similar. If our brains were not confined or directed then we would have a universe of options to choose from and similar conclusions would be rare.
Yes, I see you actually said it is not confined by anything physical or time-space. so I am not really disputing your statement, just commenting on it because I like to see myself in print. :D
Parallel perception discussing and dissecting nuance. Hmmm, yes, DNA activation, and gene-washing... I will elaborate further, but I'd like to reserve this post...

@MB. , tell your biologist friends that technological environments interact with an organism's genotype and can impact its phenotype. By intelligently structuring the environment, humans can use convergent evolution to incrementally modify our characteristics. Forget brainwashing, content is social psychological and superficial, gene-washing is the name of the game. Do you understand what I'm saying? Man-made information fields can rewire our physiology. Call it 'the epigenetic consequence of technology.'

@Decky , let me dumb this down... When you drink alcohol, the medium is the message, your behavior is an incidental happening defined by your personal image.
#14823733
MB wrote:Do you guys lack the required knowledge of Mcluhans media theory to make informed comments on the actual content of my post? Or are you just perfectly happy with the way Internet shit heads constantly complaining on YouTube are destroying informed discourse?

Well, to be fair, you didn't set your post up in a manner that would have sparked a discussion on YouTube within the context of McLuhan's theories. You characterized only two types of videos. Think about some punks who beat someone up, video it on their phones, and then upload it to YouTube only to get arrested. What kind of video is that? It's not the loser in the basement, etc. classifications you provided.

For example, how do you characterize YouTube videos? Are they hot or cold? As an extension, what does YouTube extend?

I think many of the political commentary videos are cold, meaning they are all based as reactions to world events or media stories that the viewer might already know about or would have to go review a media story to find out.

For example, Gary Franchi's "Next News Network" uses green screen and news desk backdrops to create the impression of a news outlet, while his content is a reaction to existing news. His click bait is typically consistent with his story, but I would say he spends too much time on his branding. I would characterize him as cool. His production, is backdrop slick, but content a little thin.

By contrast, Shirvan Neftchi's "Caspian Report" uses maps, b-roll, voice over, and a narrative supporting a thesis to provide geopolitical analysis. He provides enough supporting information that it is not required to put much effort into interpolating meaning. I would characterize his channel as hot by comparison. However, Caspian Report isn't as reactive. Neftchi takes time to make his videos.

In other words, I would disagree with McLuhan's general premise. In the 1960s, audio at the movies sucked and there were no video players. Today, audio at the movies is quite sophisticated, but people can get a movie and watch a scene over and over. The "hot" context in this case is overwhelmed by newer technology like DVDs. I watch old movies with a buddy, and he constantly pauses it to give his commentary like you might in a film class.

On the other hand, I disagree with McLuhan's critics that he overemphasizes technology in describing cultural change.

YouTube levels the playing field. No longer is a Jeff Bezos able to put out propaganda via the Washington Post in a way that the public no longer sees it. No longer is Bill Gates able to put his Microsoft NBC message out there with MSNBC. Mass media has always been designed to reach a mass audience, but it was always controlled by wealthy narrower interests. YouTube democratizes this process.

A more primitive video format is Mark Dice's commentaries. He often depicts himself as observing media and then reacting to it. His stories are consistent with his hook bait, and usually fairly concise.

Wellsy wrote:It really reminds me of TV itself in that any time I stop watching TV for a bit and have come back to see the types of shows on it. It's disgusting and utter shit that I wondered how I was able to waste any time on it and was entertained other than the thought that it was aversion to everything else and to fill up boredom in not doing anything.

I'll be 50 in December. I sometimes enjoy getting on to Hulu and watching shows that I watched as a kid to see how times have changed. One of the things that changed is that show content is much shorter now. An hour long program used to have 50 minutes of content and 10 minutes of commercials. Now they have 40 minutes of content and 20 minutes of commercials.

Shows with plot lines were much more elaborate in the past. Shows with situation comedies were more poignant. For example, I find "All in the Family," "Sanford and Son" etc. far more entertaining while providing a subtext of social change, whereas I cannot even sit through 10 minutes of Madam Secretary, because it is nothing more than propaganda purporting to be drama.

I listen to a few minutes of news and as soon as they get on Trump/Russia, I think to myself "waste of time" and turn it off. I just don't see a lot of value in it.

Wellsy wrote:Listening to someone on youtube isn't necessarily all that better than those on TV, here in Australia we got a fuckwit Andew Bolt, in the states they had their Rush Limbaugh's, Bill Maher and other figures to talk shit for people's entertainment. And I think that's it, that it is merely entertainment regardless of how substnative it's content is that functions well for a society in which the economy dominates aspects of our civil life.

I think you are missing MB's point, and that's largely MB's own fault for inserting his/her own bias into the discussion, rendering it somewhat still born. Rush Limbaugh is a radio personality. If the medium is the message, Rush Limbaugh is tribal, because radio is aural, like Norse sagas or something. Television is video. That's why FoxNews programs hotties. That's why CNN uses a homosexual anchor.

Wellsy wrote:Because television is meant to be perpetual to keep one watching it forever, so real character development or what ever only happens at a finale, which is simply expected in a movie.

A book that impressed me in a similar manner to McLuhan's was "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" by Jerry Mander. He extends McLuhan's theory but restricts it to television and indicates that it cannot be reformed, because of the technology itself.

Wellsy wrote:Youtube is perhaps an example of this expansive spectacle and its reach is far further than any TV of the past in it's advertising and people watching it for hours a day.
Things are much faster on the internet and youtube has become a replacement of TV itself.

Well, that's a salient point. Television is a broadcast medium, whereas YouTube is a user-selected demand. While television has changed--thousands of channels fragmenting the market of viewers--and incorporating the ability to record and pause, the content is still produced by larger organizations. YouTube levels the playing field. It gives low capital voices the same standing as high capital voices.

Wellsy wrote:And then the whole culture of piss taking with remixes and that, I love watching the remixes of Alex Jones because he's just hilariously entertaining and that gets views.

I can't watch Alex Jones, and I think that's a medium/message construct. Jones' icons and click bait link is a "promise" if you will, and when you click on it he is rambling about something totally different. I frequently find myself asking, "When is he going to get to the point" based upon what the "promise" was on the link. Stefan Molyneux does this too. Whereas, I find Lauren Southern gets to the point much faster. Mark Dice is typically right to the point. Cenk Uygur is usually to the point too.

Wellsy wrote:SO like the TV never changing philosophy because one needs to keep watching, kept on the merry go round which hopefully simulates some emotional fevor in you that is addictive because it's a small amount of excitement in one's life, because what can be more constantly over stimulating than the friggin' internet as an enhanced version of the already over stimulating TV.

I don't remember whether it was McLuhan or Mander, but one of them supposed that TV is good at defining conflict. So we get these absurd political dialogs like whether or not Obama is a Muslim or whether Trump collude with Russia. They simply have to go with that sort of a narrative in the news business. But then, Archie Bunker and Fred Sanford were also backdrops for defining social conflict, albeit far more entertaining than news outlets.

Decky wrote:This is just a simple fact, anybody with a webcam can record a Youtube video and everyone knows that anyone with a webcam can record one.

Well that is the point, isn't it? In McLuhan speak, YouTube levels the playing field between high capital media and low capital media. For example, the interplay between Alex Jones and Megyn Kelly is really a conflict between high capital media (Kelly) and low capital media (Jones). Kelly did the hitpiece, because she is doing the bidding of her high capital masters. MB's frustration is that Alex Jones is more popular than some television channels. While I am probably more in line with Jones politically than I am with Kelly, I find Jones unappealing because he's long winded, rarely gets to the point quickly, and is overly emotional and practically paranoid. By contrast, Megyn Kelly has nice legs, but her tits aren't big enough. :)

Decky wrote:Your entire argument hinges on the idea that Youtube confers some sort of legitimacy onto people and you have provided no evidence for this (as none exists).

The left has long thought that if they could shut down right wing media, their utopian age would arise out of the ashes. So they are deeply frustrated that right wing voices are metastesizing on the internet, and YouTube is a big source of it.

MB wrote:Well it couldn't be clearer that you have no desire whatsoever to discuss McLuhan's theories as they apply to youtube, which is the purpose of this thread. You are obviously mistaken about the nature of my "argument".

I think Decky is spot on. What bothers you is someone like Mark Dice absolutely mocking the mainstream media. He'll routinely show that his videos get more views than MTVs for example, and then he'll mock MTV mercilessly. In a McLuhan sense, Dice is declaring victory and taking a victory lap for low capital media in its war with high capital media.

Potemkin wrote:Noemon is right, Decky. Clearly, these people do think (falsely) that posting their videos on Youtube grants their inane ramblings an aura of legitimacy and respectability.

I disagree. MB is lamenting primarily alt-right voices. There's all kinds of shit on YouTube that has nothing to do with MB's analysis. For example if you watch Linus Tech Tips channel, it's basically a small crew that makes videos about technology in a manner that is a hell of a lot cheaper than C-NET. That doesn't make Linus an imbecile. It just means that you don't need a big corporation to make interesting tech videos. That's why I say that YouTube doesn't confer legitimacy so much as it confers a platform to reach a mass audience to anyone who can upload a video. Reaching the mass audience depends on people liking the content.

Potemkin wrote:Nowadays, they have a media platform complete with microphones and cameras from which they can propagate their contemptible nonsense, and have a potential audience in the millions.

See? That is what you are missing. They have a media platform, but it doesn't matter what their content is. That's McLuhan. Linus can give tech tips to millions. Is he left of center, right of center, a communist? It doesn't matter? Is he gay, straight? Doesn't matter. The media of YouTube gives him a platform to reach millions without spending a dime for that reach. He only has to spend money on a camera, backdrops or green screens, video editors (open source ones like kdenlive are free), and write a decent story board.

SolarCross wrote:Youtube is a big tent, most of the original content stuff on there is funny cat vids, inane jokes or video game playthroughs.

That's exactly it, but MB chose to focus on alt-right vloggers. Do cat videos have legitimacy? It doesn't matter. What matters is the "You" in YouTube. You have a platform to reach millions.

Decky wrote:Being on Youtube is proof that you have webcam and an internet connection that is it, nothing else whatsoever. It is does not confer any legitimacy onto anybody, everyone is totally aware that almost anyone can make a Youtube video, no one notices someone has managed to upload something to you Youtube and thinks, well they must be really smart! They managed to sign up for a Youtube account!

Technically that's correct. That's not what's eating at MB. As I said, Megyn Kelly is big capital media, and Alex Jones is small capital media. That Kelly decided to do a hit piece shows that big capital media knows they are losing ground on the one hand. However, what shocks the mainstream media is that Donald Trump has called in to Alex Jones before. Did Donald Trump get in touch with Alex Jones, because YouTube made Jones legitimate? Not really. What is happening is that high capital media is losing influence, and they had a big influence over politics. They were not able to stop Trump. One of their big frustrations is that Trump tweets. That means Trump bypasses high capital media and their political filter. So does Alex Jones.

B0ycey wrote:Actually why emphasize McLuhan to just YouTube? PoFo has it's fair share of nobodies who consider their opinion king and somewhat legitimate. The whole internet is a global media platform. Anyone can voice their opinion on it. And the more extreme someones viewpoint, the more vocal they are.

Well that's exactly what I mean. Your notion of "nobodies" is basically "low capital." They don't exist as the face of billion dollar corporations. I find that interesting when some of you socialists are debating Decky on this, because you are in effect defending the ultra rich and taking a shit on the poor.

B0ycey wrote:And today politician's are realising the potential of social media.

Well, that's what it's really about isn't it? It's not really about understanding YouTube and McLuhan, but trying to analyze why Trump won over Clinton.

B0ycey wrote:So it appears the old media (papers) empires are losing their power to influence.

Spot on. Trump spent 1/10th of what Hillary spent, and he beat her. Big capital lost the election. High capital media wasn't a difference maker. Low capital media won the day, and unlikely names like Alex Jones unseated much bigger names like MSNBC. A political novice like Donald Trump schooled 16 Republican contenders and the Democratic nominee, all of them with far more political experience than Trump. I heard that Kid Rock was entertaining a run for the senate, and that has the establishment in a dither. They realize now that he actually could win, because they are realizing they are disconnected from the public and people like Kid Rock know mass audiences and their tastes and preferences better than politicians do.

foxdemon wrote:The printing press empowered people outside the elite to express their opinions to a large audience.

Well, it took power away from the Roman Catholic Church. That was the elite as such when it came to written texts. The press has typically been upper middle class or better in capital requirements. Until very recently it became such that anybody can get a book published.
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