Saturday, 9 September 2017

Marshall McLuhan's Tetrad Diagram

McLuhan developed the idea of using tetrad as a way of understanding the effects of a technology on society. The idea behind them is simple that is to make sure that we ask the same questions in the same way about different media. The four laws, which he framed as questions on which to reflect, are as follows:


What does the technology enhance or intensify?

What does the technology displace or render obsolete?

What does the technology recover that was previously lost?

What does the technology produce or become when pushed to an extreme?

The ideas behind the tetrad are explained in more detail by Anthony Hempell. He describes 


  • Enhancement as “the amplification of effects” with a “focus on the practical”. It involves the “creation of vortices of power” and presents a “solution to previous problem”; For example radio amplifies news and music via sound. 
  • Retrieval as “the recovery of values and insight” previously “lost or eroded”. It can involve the “transition of ground to figure”; that is, the movement of a phenomenon from the periphery to the center of attention; For example radio reduces the prominence of print and visual. 
  • Obsolescence as “the erosion of formerly significant artifacts”. This reverses the transition above causing a “transition of figure to ground” in which some previously important phenomenon is moved to the periphery; For example radio return the spoken word to the forefront. 
  • Reversal as “the reverse of enhancement; the unexpected dissatisfaction. Pushed to its limits, the artifact flips on its user” and creates new problems. For example acoustic radio flips into audio-visual TV. 

In conclusion, we often use the word media as a shorthand for mass communication media that bring us news and information. According to McLuhan, all forms of technology act as media, not just those that communicate information. All inventions, artifacts and ideas are media through which human behavior is transformed.







Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrad_of_media_effects
https://www.owenkelly.net/984/mcluhans-tetrads/
http://www.joncallegher.com/blog/applying-mcluhans-tetrad-of-media-effects-to-facebook
https://medium.com/@andrewmcluhan/what-is-a-tetrad-ad92cb44d4af

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