Feb
25
If only McLuhan was still alive…
Filed Under Uncategorized
After watching the video that Dr. Campbell presented to us in the last part of class this past Thursday, I went to Youtube to see more of McLuhan. The clips the video showed were just brief snippets, so I had an urge to watch McLuhan with the full context attached. I came across this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZF8jej3j5vA
Essentially, McLuhan states that the media was not doing its job when they aired the debate between Carter and Ford. He said, “this was an incredible show of incompetence and misuse of that medium.” Some of the arguments he made was that the three moderators were too “authoritative,” which disallowed the two candidates to have spontaneous and open-minded conversations between each other. McLuhan believes that the best way to execute the debate would have been to have “unscripted” and open conversation much like the conversation McLuhan and the other two journalists were having.
Considering this is election year, I’d be curious to see what McLuhan would have to say about our debates. Have they progressed? Well, based on his arguments against the debate, practically nothing has changed from my perspective. You still have candidates up there leaning on a pedestal being asked “scripted” questions for which, I’m sure, they have prepared answers for. The reason for this, as McLuhan points out, is because the candidates are too engrossed in their public image that having free and open conversations would be impossible because candidates are too afraid to misstep and say the wrong thing that could ruin their bid for office.
Sure, we may have those CNN/Youtube debates that create the illusion that the people have a say, but in reality, I’m sure there is some filtering process that goes on to try and find the questions that the moderators would have asked anyways. I bet McLuhan would be disgusted with the way our debates have remained static, where candidates are forced to talk in sound bites to keep their image strong, while not really contributing to the conversation about where they stand, and why.
Now, obviously, when talking about politics, you enter dangerous territory, but unfortunately, the ONLY candidate in our presidential race who has said anything remotely controversial and dangerous is Ron Paul, and he doesn’t even have a chance of winning. Wonder why? Well, McLuhan said in the end of the first video that Ford sounds better than Carter if you listen to him on the radio. However, when you watch Carter and Ford on a colored television set, Carter looks better, which, according to McLuhan, may have a strong impact on the way voters make their opinions about candidates.
If Ron Paul was on the radio, and people couldn’t see the skinny, aged, and fragile man, and just listened to what he had to say, would Paul actually get more votes? McLuhan probably thinks so. I encourage everyone to watch the below video.
Skip to 3:25 and just listen to his voice. He actually advocates exactly what McLuhan advocates.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2WLGMLpA-20
I bet McLuhan jumped out of his grave and gave a standing ovation for Dr. Paul after that.