Abstract
With digital media, not only are media extensions of their human users, as McLuhan posited, but there is a flip or reversal in which the human users of digital media become an extension of those digital media as these media scoop up their data and use them to the advantage of those that control these media. The implications of this loss of privacy as we become “an item in a data bank” are explored and the field of captology is described. The feedback of the users of digital media become the feedforward for those media.
Highlights
The idea that our tools are extensions of our body dates back to the latter half of the 19th century.Ralph Waldo Emerson [4] in 1870 wrote, “All the tools and engines on earth are only extensions of man’s limbs and senses.” And Henry Ward Beecher [5] in 1887 wrote, “A tool is but the extension of a man’s hand and a machine is but a complex tool.” This idea was picked up in 1923 by C
Applying the Laws of Media to digital media, we find that
More Reversals with Digital Media. There is another flip with digital media in addition to the reversal where the users become the extension of their media
Summary
The idea that our tools are extensions of our body dates back to the latter half of the 19th century. The users of a digital information system literally become an extension of that technology (i.e., de facto, the content of the medium with which they are interacting) This content is different than the “content” McLuhan referred to in his one-liner “the user is the content.”. It is interpreting the users who literally become the content of that system as their keystrokes and the data those keystrokes represent are incorporated into the Big Data that comprises the system with which they just communicated This way, we become an extension of that medium and it somehow seems to fulfill a sentiment McLuhan [8] (64) prophesized when he wrote, “In this electronic age we see ourselves being translated more and more into the form of information, moving toward the technological extension of consciousness.”. Leasing our eyes and ears and nerves to commercial interests is like handing over the common speech to a private corporation, or like giving the earth’s atmosphere to a company as a monopoly
Published Version (Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have