What is Media Determinism?

The concept of Media determinism is so closely associated with technological determinism, it may be helpful to first consider a definition of technology.
At its most basic level, technology was defined by Monsma (1986), who used the Greek word technologia, to mean, "the systematic treatment of an art." Monsma also made reference to Rhetoric in which Aristotle used technique to refer to "a systematic treatment of grammar or speech" (p. 11). In the forward to The Technological SocietyRobert Merton defined technique as, "any complex of standardized means for attaining a predetermined result" (p. vi). Jacques Ellul (1964) defined technique as "the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency in every field of human activity" (p. xxv). Ellul also offered communication theorist H. D. Lasswell's definition of technique as, "the ensemble of practices by which one uses available resources to achieve certain valued ends" (p. 18).Determinism is a philosophical system, mainly concerned with axiological issues, for analyzing cause and effect and the individual's freedom to choose. The spectrum ranges from existentialism on one extreme, to fatalism on the other (Hunnex, 1986), or from libertarianism to hard determinism (Geisler, 1980). * Hard Determinism:
Hard determinists hold that the universe is rational and that cause and effect relationships permit us to know future effects with certainty. The ethical issues raised by questions of determinism revolve around the individual's ability to choose, and the notion of "ought." Some hard determinists believe that since we are not free to make choices, we are absolved of the responsibility that comes with freedom. Others argue that knowing what will result from certain actions acts on us to influence us toward or away from such actions. Hunnex argued that, "those who invoke the naturalistic-fallacy argument assume (from Hume) that the 'ought' cannot be derived from the 'is'" (p. 28). * TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM
The phrase "technological determinism" may have been first coined by Thurstein Veblen in his The Engineers and the Price System (Ellul, 1964, p. xviii). The issues raised by technological determinism question the role of technology in shaping our future. To what extent do the tools we make and use determine our behavior?According to Hunnex, one of the tenets of hard determinism is that "the world is a mechanism" . Ergo if one believes in technological determinism, one could say that "mechanization is a mechanism", i.e., the creations of our hands determine our future. By creating technology, we create our future, which cannot be avoided. Those who fear the impact of technology are often the most ardent believers in technological determinism and are outspoken about our need to promote our humanity while at the same time subjecting technological progress to rigorous critique. Critics of technological determinism counter that the technology is not the sole determinant of change. Rather, it is the technology working within a complex social structure. * MEDIA DETERMISNISM
Media determinism, a subset of technological determinism, is a philosophical and sociological position which posits the power of the media to impact society. As a theory of change, it is seen as a cause and effect relationship. New media technologies bring about change in society. Much like the "magic bullet" theories of mass communication, media determinism provides a somewhat simplistic explanation for very complicated scenarios. Cause and effect relationships are reduced to their most basic premise, and explained as such. Techno-centrist theories make everything explainable in light of the media's relation to technological developments. Two leading media determinists are the Canadian scholars Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan.Some questions that this philosophical position might seek to answer are as follows. If indeed culture is shaped by technological developments, and more specifically by media technology, how might the World Wide Web impact society as we know it?What philosophical underpinnings are inherent in this new form of computer-mediated communication? And how might an individual's world-view impact one's decision to participate, and determine the level at which one participates, in this revolution?

MEDIA DETERMINSM ACCORDING TO MARSHALL MCLUHAN
Marshall McLuhan, media theorist, was born in Canada in 1911 and died in 1980. Here are some of his beliefs and theories on the effect of the media on humans ...

The medium is the message
Most feel that a technology/medium isn't inherently good/bad and it's the way they're used that determines their value - McLuhan disagreed. He felt a medium's real content is the medium itself. He was particularly fascinated by the medium of television, calling it a "cool" medium, noting its soporific effect on viewers. He took great satisfaction years later when medical studies showed that TV does in fact cause people to settle into passive brain wave patterns.

Implosion of society & homogenization
Literacy is a technology of uniformity, which in addition to the electric speed of modern media is causing all of our lives & cultures to become more homogenized (ie squeezing out cultural differences).

Depersonalized
On the telephone a person is totally abstract - they don't have a body, only low-bandwidth sound (with a HF cut-off of 7kHz most voice character and emotion is removed) and intelligence. In addition the telephone doesn't relate to natural law which transforms the user's psychology. The major message is the speed at which the information is sent. On all electric medium the sender is sent –that is the message– but with no identity, they are nobody.

Isolated & uninterested
The more technologically advanced we become the more the individual is isolated. The effect of technology was at first anxiety, which has descended into boredom.
Detached
Shock induces a generalized numbness or an increased threshold to all types of perception. Each extension of man through technology adds to the numbness of the individual and society.In experiments in which all outer sensation is withdrawn, the subject begins a fill-in or completion of the senses that is pure hallucination. The overload of one sense tends to effect hypnosis, and the deprivation of all senses tends to result in hallucination.

The Cycle
The technological world provides man with wealth. In his greed Man –as the reproductive organs of the technological world– reciprocates, enabling the formation of ever new forms.

Modern man is suffering mental breakdown of varying degrees as a result of inundation with new information and new patterns of information. Man has to numb the central nervous system when it is extended and exposed, or it will die. Thus the age of anxiety and of electric media is also the age of unconsciousness and of apathy. Remember this is strong media determinism.

McLuhan Quazy Quote:
The 'content' of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind - Marshall McLuhan (Understanding Media)

Understanding Media (1964) * McLuhan's most widely known work, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964), is a pioneering study in media theory * .McLuhan proposed that media themselves, not the content they carry, should be the focus of study—popularly quoted as "the medium is the message". * McLuhan's insight was that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not by the content delivered over the medium, but by the characteristics of the medium itself. * McLuhan pointed to the light bulb as a clear demonstration of this concept. A light bulb does not have content in the way that a newspaper has articles or a television has programs, yet it is a medium that has a social effect; that is, a light bulb enables people to create spaces during nighttime that would otherwise be enveloped by darkness. * He describes the light bulb as a medium without any content. McLuhan states that "a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence. * More controversially, he postulated that content had little effect on society—in other words, it did not matter if television broadcasts children's shows or violent programming, to illustrate one example—the effect of television on society would be identical. * He noted that all media have characteristics that engage the viewer in different ways; for instance, a passage in a book could be reread at will, but a movie had to be screened again in its entirety to study any individual part of it.
"Hot" and "cool" media * In the first part of Understanding Media, McLuhan also stated that different media invite different degrees of participation on the part of a person who chooses to consume a medium. * Some media, like the movies, were "hot"—that is, they enhance one single sense, in this case vision, in such a manner that a person does not need to exert much effort in filling in the details of a movie image. McLuhan contrasted this with "cool" TV, which he claimed requires more effort on the part of the viewer to determine meaning, and comics, which due to their minimal presentation of visual detail require a high degree of effort to fill in details that the cartoonist may have intended to portray. A movie is thus said by McLuhan to be "hot", intensifying one single sense "high definition", demanding a viewer's attention, and a comic book to be "cool" and "low definition", requiring much more conscious participation by the reader to extract value. * "Any hot medium allows of less participation than a cool one, as a lecture makes for less participation than a seminar, and a book for less than a dialogue. * Hot media usually, but not always, provide complete involvement without considerable stimulus. For example, print occupies visual space, uses visual senses, but can immerse its reader. Hot media favour analytical precision, quantitative analysis and sequential ordering, as they are usually sequential, linear and logical. They emphasize one sense (for example, of sight or sound) over the others. For this reason, hot media also include radio, as well as film, the lecture and photography. * Cool media, on the other hand, are usually, but not always, those that provide little involvement with substantial stimulus. They require more active participation on the part of the user, including the perception of abstract patterning and simultaneous comprehension of all parts. Therefore, according to McLuhan cool media include television, as well as the seminar and cartoons. McLuhan describes the term "cool media" as emerging from jazz and popular music and, in this context, is used to mean "detached”
This concept appears to force media into binary categories. However, McLuhan's hot and cool exist on a continuum: they are more correctly measured on a scale than as dichotomous terms.