Media messages old and new

There is a memorable scene in the old Woody Allen movie, Annie Hall (1977), where a pompous professor in a movie line is pontificating about everything from Federico Fellini’s films to Marshall McLuhan’s media theories. Allen’s frustrated character can’t take it any more so he turns and tells the loudmouth that he doesn’t know what he is talking about. When the offending pontificator starts spouting off about his credentials and expertise of McLuhan’s work, Allen’s character produces Marshall McLuhan himself. Dr. McLuhan proceeds to tell the self-proclaimed expert, “You know nothing of my work.”

 

Marshall McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work is the title of a new biography of McLuhan, written by Douglas Coupland. I just started reading it and will finish on the long plane rides from California to Switzerland. So what does this have to do with BaKaFORUM? I’m reminded of McLuhan because he came up in a conversation with Robert Ruoff, BaKaFORUM’s former general manager. It was at BaKaFORUM in Basel in December of 2004. We had just heard a speaker describe the changing media environment. Robert and I turned to each other and acknowledged that we really do live in a “global village.” “Global Village” and “The Medium Is the Message” are two expressions McLuhan coined almost 50 years ago. This new biography notes that McLuhan anticipated today’s environment, with great clarity, long ago.

BaKaFORUM 2011 will focus on Enlightened Visions? Cross Media, and Digital Convergence and The New Face of Education. The question mark after enlightened visions is on the BaKaFORUM homepage. It offers an appropriate level of healthy skepticism for those of us who care about the state of the world and media’s roles in the future. What is most exciting about BaKaFORUM, and why it captures our attention and imagination, is that it promotes and celebrates those who strive to create enlightened visions. And it allows us to explore, today, what others anticipated and what we can anticipate in the years ahead. Our current technologies, those that allow cross media productions and digital convergence, are indeed, in McLuhan’s words, “extensions” of ourselves. These extensions, used for positive purposes, lead to the hoped for enlightened visions that BaKaFORUM will examine, next week.

As I pointed out in anticipation of last year’s BaKaFORUM, with credit to Neil Postman, technological advancement creates Faustian bargains; technology gives and takes away. As we are a year further along in technological advancement it is worth reflecting on what we gain and what we lose with each new device we connect. Whether it is large screen high definition, or small screen portable instant access, our cross platform environment compels us to consider the media messages we present and how those messages move across the universe. McLuhan's vision lives nearly 50 years later; what will our visions look like five decades from now?

Now, thanks to current technology, you can view the clip I referenced at the beginning of the blog. Enjoy. The McLuhan appearance is near the end of the scene. The clip runs 2:43. See you in Basel, or online.