Tasks Due Today from Week 6
- Review Context and Representation concepts and vocabulary
- Complete first draft of Research Essay – Stereotype in Advertising
This Week’s Topics
- Checkin
- Freewrite – Art of Noticing
- Research Essay- Feedback/Discussion
- The Medium is The Message
- Social Media is The Message
- Research Essay – Stereotype in Advertising
- Week 7 Agenda Checklist
Check-in (10 min)
Freewrite – The Art of Noticing (10 min)
Activity: Look at the person sitting across from you and create a contour drawing of their face. Don’t look at your paper. Put down your pencil/pen and VERY slowly trace the contours of you colleague’s face. Don’t pick up your pencil until the timer goes off. Notice every detail!
Prompt: In your language of choice, write continuously in your notebook for 10 minutes about what you noticed this week when completing the task. Don’t edit, or correct, don’t stop, just write. Feel free to share or not.
This Week’s Prompt by Mathews:
Find Something to Complain About
Look for the ugliest building (or car or sweater) of the day, the worst thing, the most broken thing, the thing that’s so bad it makes you mad. That which angers or irritates or annoys you need not conquer you. It may amuse you or inspire you.
ART OF NOTICING
Next Week’s Prompt by Patty :
Be a Local Tourist
Visit a tourist location in your neighborhood or somewhere in the NYC area that you’ve never visited before. Some examples might be a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, visit Brooklyn Bridge Park, a walk on the Highline, visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, take the Staten Island or Goverors Island Ferry, walk around Grand Central Terminal (look up!), go to Little Island, visit the main reading room at the New York Public Library- Midtown, walk around Times Square… Notice the tourists and their energy and excitement.
ART OF NOTICING
Help us Beta Test this Plugin
Help the OpenLab develop this simple open source text to speech plugin. From the dropdown menu what voices are available on your device? Are any of them any good? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks!!
Activities
Below, find the information covered in this session. Complete all of the following activities, videos, and assignments.
1. Research Essay – Stereotype Feedback and Discussion (30 min)
Let’s take a closer look at the Research Essay – Decoding Stereotype in Advertising Guidelines and address any questions.
In groups of three, take 20 minutes to share the first draft/outline of your essay and give feedback to your colleagues.
If you’d like additional feedback from me or if you have any questions or concerns, please contact me or schedule a meeting.
2. The Medium is the Message (1+ hours)
This week we will examine Marshall McLuhan’s theories about media, as television became the dominant medium during the 1960’s, His theories were radical at the time and have been influential in the study and practice of design and media theory. They are relevant now with the persuasive advertising model used by social media and the rise of AI. It seems like everyone is talking about Marshall McLuhan these days.
Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian professor and philosopher. He is known for coining the phrase, “The medium is the message.” This statement first appeared in his book “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man – The Medium is the Message, published in 1964.
And in his more experimental text, “The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effect, “co-created by McLuhan and Quentin Fiore in 1967. Note that the cover design was created by David Carlson aka the ‘Godfather of grunge’. Grunge was inspired by underground rock culture, and was all about breaking the rules of traditional graphic design (more on that in a couple weeks).
McLuhan died before the birth of the internet, but many believe that his theories about electronic media were prophetic, that he envisioned the internet decades before its arrival. He spoke about communication technologies as having the ability to create a “global village” and the increasing loss of privacy as a result.
McLuhan argued that we should focus on the medium of communication itself and he defined media as a technological extension of the body. He used the term “media” in a very broad sense, including the spoken word, the written word, the printed word, telephone, films, radio, television, etc.
There are many excellent interpretations and critiques of McLuhan’s ideas. Let’s watch a few videos to help us to understand his ideas in the context of today’s contemporary media.
Marshall McLuhan – A film by Daniel Savage
The media has the power to transform human nature and furthermore, no matter how powerful or persuasive the message, it’s the media that has changed our thought patterns and behavior. What does this mean for the “electronic environment” we inhabit? How do we decipher what media is fact and which is fiction? Discerning the difference is crucial now, more than ever.
Daniel Savage: The Medium of the Message – ADC LAUREN FESTA
What does “The Medium is the Message” really mean?
“The idea is that the mediums have a far greater impact on the fundamental shape and nature of society than any message that is delivered through that medium. What has had a greater impact on society and the way that we interact with one another, all the content of every Youtube video ever made OR the existence of Youtube itself? All the conversations that you’ve ever had OR the existence of your cell phone?… How do the mediums that you use help shape the world?”
The Medium is the Message explained by Dan Olson
This Is Marshall McLuhan – The Medium Is The Massage (1967)
“The electric age is changing you, it’s changing your family, it’s changing your neighborhood, it’s changing your education, your job, it’s changing your government, it’s changing your relationship to others. These little circuits are making our world go. The electric age is having a profound effect on us. We are in a period of fantastic change that’s coming about at fantastic speed. Your life is changing dramatically, and you are numb to it.”
This Is Marshall McLuhan – The Medium Is The Massage (1967)
Created in 1967, this strange documentary predicts a world that is eerily familiar.
While he didn’t foresee the negative effect on society, consider Marshall McLuhan’s prophetic theories about electronic media in the late 1960’s, specifically how technology is an extension of humanity.
McLuhan believed that media (in the broadest sense) is an extension of humanity, of the human body, and mind. How does media affect us? Our bodies? Our relationships? Our understanding of the world? Are we being changed right now?
If the camera is an extension of the eyes, what is the internet an extension of?
Our current attention economy, the backbone of social media, has long reaching effects and serious consequences due to our dependence on it. Next let’s take a look at this utopia/dystopia we live in.
3. Social Media is the Message
Tristan Harris, the founder of the Center for Humane Technology, believes social media as it exists now “is a simultaneous utopia and dystopia.” The utopia the user experiences is the dopamine hits and efficiency of on-demand everything, and the dystopia of the giant manipulative matrix that we are living in. How do we recognize the Matrix if we don’t know that we’re in the Matrix?
The Social Dilemma – Persuasive Media
In the documentary, The Social Dilemma, early leaders in social media, like Tristan Harris, have revealed that the medium of the internet, specifically social media, is becoming an existential threat to human society. They call social media, First Contact with AI. Next week we’ll look at Second Contact.
Angry in America: Social Media and political polarization in America
Resources from Human Tech
- Ledger of Harms – List of hidden harms caused by social media
- The Dark Side of Social Media – Infographic showing hidden harms
- Tech Experts speak about the existential threat of social media (Video)
- A New Agenda For Tech Presentation (video)
4. DUE NEXT WEEK: Research Essay – Stereotype in Advertising
Follow the assignment guidelines and prompts for Research Essay – Decoding Stereotype in Advertising
Bring a printed copy of you final essay to class to share for peer-feedback.
Week 7 Homework Checklist
Below are all of the tasks, big and small, for this week. The due date is Wednesday, 11:59 pm before our next Thursday class. Timely completion of these tasks will contribute to your success in this course.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.
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