0:00:00.173,0:00:21.022 (Intro jingle) 0:00:21.022,0:00:22.604 I'm Paul Levinson 0:00:22.604,0:00:28.291 and welcome to Light On Light Through,[br]episode 93: 0:00:28.791,0:00:32.471 The Selfie and Marshall McLuhan. 0:00:33.534,0:00:43.760 Well, you might ask how and what did[br]Marshall McLuhan, who left this earth in 1980, 0:00:44.851,0:00:47.537 what did he have to say about the selfie, 0:00:47.953,0:00:52.935 which of course didn't even exist until [br]just a few years ago. 0:00:54.163,0:00:57.194 The answer, I think, is very interesting. 0:00:57.194,0:01:01.701 One of the real joys about [br]understanding McLuhan 0:01:02.167,0:01:07.935 is how what he wrote in the 50's, [br]the 60's and the 1970's 0:01:08.717,0:01:11.860 so accurately predicted 0:01:12.503,0:01:17.674 what our communications and media[br]are doing today. 0:01:18.384,0:01:26.312 And even better than that in some ways,[br]is the way that some people who have read McLuhan 0:01:27.049,0:01:35.459 compound insights, just in their everyday lives,[br]when they realize that hey, this is something 0:01:35.459,0:01:40.194 that McLuhan might have actually been[br]talking about, 0:01:40.194,0:01:48.045 and something that McLuhan's ideas[br]can help us understand and explain 0:01:48.644,0:01:53.606 in hopefully a unique and valuable way. 0:01:54.328,0:01:58.416 So, here is one of my favorite examples: 0:01:58.416,0:02:04.253 a true story, something that happened [br]to me about 5 or 6 months ago. 0:02:04.744,0:02:06.841 I actually wrote a blog post about it. 0:02:06.841,0:02:12.531 Now I'm finally getting around to doing [br]a podcast episode about this. 0:02:13.847,0:02:19.137 I posted a photo on Twitter, [br]of Marshall McLuhan, 0:02:19.596,0:02:27.114 his son Eric McLuhan and me[br]that was taken in the late 1970's, 0:02:27.447,0:02:32.485 when I had organized a conference[br]at Fairleigh Dickinson University, 0:02:32.485,0:02:37.280 which is where I was teaching then:[br]it's in Teaneck, New Jersey. 0:02:37.755,0:02:43.918 The conference was about the Tetrad[br]or the Laws of the Media. 0:02:44.381,0:02:47.935 Now, I'll get back to that in a moment. 0:02:48.305,0:02:52.382 But one of the first people [br]to comment on the photo 0:02:53.105,0:02:58.125 was a current media theorist,[br]by the name of Ian Bogost, 0:02:58.716,0:03:02.398 who said: 'Where is the fourth?' 0:03:03.504,0:03:08.055 Now, in order to understand why[br]Ian asked that question, 0:03:08.564,0:03:15.300 now, I'll explain to you what the Tetrad or[br]Laws of the Media are all about. 0:03:15.726,0:03:20.489 And they go back to the mid to late 1970s 0:03:20.863,0:03:27.142 when Marshall McLuhan began publishing[br]some short articles and talking about 0:03:27.499,0:03:32.692 what he was terming 'the laws of the media',[br]or 'laws of media'. 0:03:33.363,0:03:38.417 And in fact, there were four laws:[br]hence the word 'tetrad' 0:03:38.417,0:03:46.856 which is a way of saying 'four';[br]a triad is three, a tetrad is four. 0:03:47.757,0:03:51.599 And to give you an example, [br]you could do a tetrad 0:03:51.599,0:04:00.509 or apply McLuhan's Laws of Media to radio [br]and its impact, and how people used it. 0:04:01.331,0:04:08.682 And you can begin by looking at the first [br]consequence or effect of radio. 0:04:09.405,0:04:14.360 McLuhan called this first law, [br]this first law of the Tetrad, 0:04:14.693,0:04:18.296 enhancement or amplification. 0:04:18.941,0:04:25.707 And what the radio clearly does is[br]it amplifies or enhances 0:04:26.580,0:04:34.499 instant verbal, acoustic communication[br]across long distances. 0:04:35.618,0:04:41.164 The second law has to do with what[br]the new technology or media replaces 0:04:41.164,0:04:44.140 and McLuhan called this obsolescence. 0:04:45.091,0:04:50.925 So, you can clearly see that one of the [br]things that radio obsolesced 0:04:50.925,0:04:57.230 was the printed word, in a variety of ways: [br]say, newspapers. 0:04:57.623,0:05:01.781 They used to be the only way [br]that people received news. 0:05:02.136,0:05:08.758 Once radio came along, in the 1920's[br]and really began expanding in the 1930's, 0:05:09.054,0:05:14.816 people increasingly began to get [br]their news, not just from newspapers, 0:05:14.816,0:05:16.955 but from radio reports. 0:05:17.553,0:05:21.170 Or consider something [br]like a sporting event. 0:05:22.115,0:05:26.714 That's something where,[br]up until the introduction of radio, 0:05:26.714,0:05:32.977 people had to read about what their favorite [br]teams did, in the newspaper: 0:05:33.543,0:05:36.100 either later in the day, or the next day. 0:05:37.037,0:05:42.721 But what radio did is, [br]it also allowed people to listen to games 0:05:42.721,0:05:47.420 as they were actually occurring, [br]in real time. 0:05:48.688,0:05:53.103 The third law, or third part of the tetrad, [br]gets even more interesting, 0:05:53.103,0:05:57.608 because McLuhan said that [br]every new medium or technology 0:05:57.900,0:06:00.000 first of all enhances something, 0:06:00.432,0:06:05.874 second of all obsolesces [br]or eclipses something, something else, 0:06:06.123,0:06:11.288 and third of all, retrieves [br]some kind of communication 0:06:11.288,0:06:15.232 which itself had been previously obsolesced. 0:06:15.679,0:06:23.022 And so, again clearly, what radio does is[br]it retrieves the spoken word. 0:06:23.625,0:06:26.459 Now the spoken word, [br]of course, never disappeared. 0:06:26.703,0:06:31.855 So it's not as if this retrieval was [br]digging something up 0:06:31.855,0:06:33.492 which had been out of use. 0:06:33.492,0:06:38.449 The spoken word continued to be important,[br]and continues to be important right now. 0:06:38.744,0:06:41.189 That's the way it has been [br]throughout human history. 0:06:41.600,0:06:46.239 But there's also no doubt that [br]what the written word did 0:06:46.718,0:06:54.157 is, to some extent in some cases,[br]take emphasis away from the spoken word. 0:06:54.608,0:06:59.316 For example, once upon a time, [br]the spoken word was 0:06:59.316,0:07:05.256 a more important commitment, [br]in a contractual, legal sense, 0:07:05.506,0:07:07.381 than the written word. 0:07:07.779,0:07:11.351 But after the printing press, [br]for a variety of reasons, 0:07:11.884,0:07:18.851 the written word became legally much more [br]binding than the spoken word. 0:07:19.232,0:07:24.238 So radio obviously retrieves [br]the spoken word. 0:07:24.899,0:07:30.266 Now, in some ways, [br]the fourth law of the Tetrad, 0:07:30.266,0:07:35.086 or the fourth law in MacLuhan's [br]Laws of Media 0:07:35.086,0:07:38.972 I think is probably [br]the most interesting and fascinating, 0:07:38.972,0:07:45.881 because McLuhan said that eventually, [br]when a medium is pushed to its limits, 0:07:46.638,0:07:51.674 meaning that it can't do any more [br]as that media, 0:07:52.589,0:07:58.199 at that point, [br]it flips into something else. 0:07:59.057,0:08:01.436 And again, [br]if you look at the history of radio, 0:08:01.436,0:08:04.177 what happened with radio eventually? 0:08:04.607,0:08:09.332 Well, by the end of the 1940's, [br]radio flipped into television, 0:08:10.086,0:08:12.429 which has a lot of similarities to radio: 0:08:12.429,0:08:14.835 it's broadcast, it could be live, 0:08:16.216,0:08:21.267 but it's very different from radio, [br]because you have a visual component. 0:08:21.516,0:08:28.764 And in a way, what television does is, [br]it retrieves the visual component 0:08:28.764,0:08:32.349 that radio had formerly obsolesced. 0:08:32.771,0:08:35.929 Now, one of the nice things of the Tetrad [br]is, you can apply it 0:08:35.929,0:08:40.505 to many different threads [br]of media evolution. 0:08:40.505,0:08:45.317 And that's something that I've been doing [br]ever since I first wrote the preface 0:08:45.594,0:08:49.992 to the publication of [br]McLuhan's 'Laws of the Media' 0:08:49.992,0:08:54.511 back in 1977, in Etcetera magazine, 0:08:54.511,0:08:59.551 and I did that when I was actually [br]a Ph.D. student at New York University. 0:09:00.413,0:09:03.257 But one of the things that [br]didn't exist back then 0:09:03.863,0:09:07.945 was what you're listening to right now:[br]the podcast. 0:09:08.236,0:09:12.845 And so, one of the things that radio [br]verses into is the podcast. 0:09:13.155,0:09:17.024 Like television, the podcast [br]has similarities with radio. 0:09:17.593,0:09:20.124 It's the spoken word, it's sound. 0:09:20.451,0:09:24.187 But unlike radio, [br]anybody can do a podcast. 0:09:24.840,0:09:26.939 I'm a professor, I'm an author, 0:09:26.939,0:09:32.691 but I certainly have no [br]radio professional experience. 0:09:32.691,0:09:36.889 I've been on a few radio shows: actually, [br]probably dozens over the years, 0:09:36.889,0:09:39.392 but I've never had my own radio show. 0:09:40.309,0:09:45.638 I'm not a professional, I'm not considered [br]a professional in the radio business. 0:09:45.910,0:09:50.422 But that doesn't matter, [br]because anybody can do a podcast. 0:09:50.759,0:09:58.618 So, one of the things that radio has [br]recently flipped into is the podcast. 0:09:59.171,0:10:03.679 So, now let's go back to what [br]Ian Bogost was asking 0:10:03.679,0:10:09.683 when I posted this photo of [br]Marshall McLuhan, Eric McLuhan and me, 0:10:10.013,0:10:14.546 taken at the conference [br]at Fairleigh Dickinson University 0:10:14.546,0:10:23.673 where we were considering the Tetrad[br]and the Laws of Media, back in 1977. 0:10:25.585,0:10:30.563 Well, why was Ian Bogost saying [br]"Where is the fourth?"? 0:10:30.563,0:10:36.314 He was talking about [br]the Tetrad having four parts 0:10:36.314,0:10:39.607 and he only saw three people [br]in the photograph. 0:10:39.992,0:10:42.277 So that was a pretty clever question. 0:10:43.015,0:10:46.306 But as soon [br]as I read that question on Twitter, 0:10:46.885,0:10:49.965 the answer popped into my head immediately. 0:10:50.820,0:10:54.864 The fourth in that photograph is the selfie. 0:10:55.501,0:11:00.138 Now, actually, somebody else, [br]Mary-Lou Bale, one of my students 0:11:00.138,0:11:01.502 took that photograph. 0:11:02.274,0:11:10.651 But nowadays, you can clearly see that [br]the photograph has flipped into the selfie. 0:11:10.651,0:11:13.286 So let's do a Tetrad for the photograph. 0:11:14.000,0:11:16.967 What does it enhance or amplify? 0:11:17.244,0:11:22.900 Well, capturing the visual world [br]as it actually is. 0:11:23.909,0:11:29.378 And that clearly points at what [br]the photograph obsolesces: the painting, 0:11:30.017,0:11:35.993 in which what is on the painting [br]is dependent on the talent of the painter, 0:11:36.429,0:11:41.322 in contrast to the photograph, where [br]the photographer has to have some talent 0:11:41.790,0:11:45.942 but the essence of the photograph is just the purely 0:11:45.942,0:11:50.522 -- originally, photo-chemical process -- [br]now digital process 0:11:50.522,0:11:56.482 in which the light bounces off the real world or [br]whatever you are taking a photograph of, 0:11:56.727,0:11:59.234 and you then have a photograph. 0:11:59.729,0:12:07.680 So the painter, the pen-and-ink sketcher, [br]is obsolesced by the photograph 0:12:07.680,0:12:09.227 and by the photographer. 0:12:10.128,0:12:14.171 Well, what does the photograph [br]and the photographer retrieve, 0:12:14.171,0:12:16.077 which had been previously lost? 0:12:16.462,0:12:19.131 Well, you can look into a pool of water. 0:12:19.566,0:12:26.178 And in fact, McLuhan talked about this when he [br]talked about the Greek myth of Narcisus 0:12:26.568,0:12:32.279 who stared at his reflection [br]in a crystal-clear pool of water. 0:12:32.689,0:12:36.994 That's in effect what [br]a photograph is retrieving, 0:12:36.994,0:12:43.653 because that's not an artist's interpretation,[br]that's an actual reflection of the world. 0:12:44.191,0:12:45.784 And so, we get to the end: 0:12:45.784,0:12:51.226 What does the photograph, let's even say, [br]the still photograph, 0:12:51.226,0:12:53.006 what does it flip into? 0:12:53.006,0:12:55.949 Well, over the years, [br]it has flipped into many things. 0:12:56.508,0:12:58.859 It's flipped into motion pictures, 0:12:59.545,0:13:05.202 it's flipped into the Kodak photograph[br]which could be taken by anyone: 0:13:05.405,0:13:09.274 the first photographs were only taken [br]by professional photographers. 0:13:10.265,0:13:14.545 It's flipped into the polaroid, [br]which is an instant photograph. 0:13:15.259,0:13:18.749 And of course, it's flipped very recently [br]into the photographs 0:13:18.749,0:13:21.368 that we all take with our phones. 0:13:21.681,0:13:28.670 But I think the selfie most epitomizes what [br]the photograph has currently flipped into. 0:13:29.362,0:13:34.603 Because as we all know, millions of photographs [br]are now taken by simply pointing 0:13:34.936,0:13:40.512 the camera in our smart phone at ourselves. 0:13:41.293,0:13:47.734 And so, that's what the photographer, [br]I think, has flipped into. 0:13:48.625,0:13:57.189 Anyway, you can read more about McLuhan [br]and the Tetrad in many places. 0:13:57.189,0:13:59.077 I'll recommend one of my books, 0:13:59.077,0:14:04.231 "Digital McLuhan - a Guide to [br]the Information Millennium" 0:14:04.231,0:14:08.204 which I wrote back in 1999. 0:14:08.837,0:14:12.581 You'll find a link to that [br]on the podcast page, 0:14:13.991,0:14:24.307 which is lightonlightthrough.com. 0:14:25.432,0:14:30.959 And by the way, Light On Light Through [br]is a term I also got from McLuhan. 0:14:32.563,0:14:39.771 So, if you ever have a chance, read not only [br]my books and other books about McLuhan 0:14:39.771,0:14:43.595 but read some of McLuhan's [br]original works themselves. 0:14:44.433,0:14:46.859 Some people find them [br]a little hard to get into, 0:14:46.859,0:14:54.613 but if you give them some time, you'll be [br]rewarded by a cornucopia of insights 0:14:55.077,0:15:04.500 and tools that we can use to help make [br]sense of our rapidly evolving media age. 0:15:05.066,0:15:07.216 (Female voice) The Light On Light Through podcast 0:15:07.535,0:16:18.745 (Music and announcements) 0:16:18.746,0:16:44.704 (Outro jingle)