MIDTERM ON CHAPTER CAPTIONS , HEADLINES ,DIGITAL JOURNALISM

Visual Culture Theorists

Marshall McLuhan Walter Benjamin

Laura Mulvey

Common Grounds and Difference between 3 visual culture theorists

• Walter Benjamin, Marshall McLuhan, and Laura Mulvey focused on the role of technology.

• Walter Benjamin main article was related to the mechanical reproduction.

• Marshall McLuhan prominent contribution is the role of visual media in society.

• Laura Mulvey’s major concern is cinema.

Introduction: Who is Marshall McLuhan?

✓ Herbert Marshall McLuhan, born on July 21, 1911, died on December 31st, 1980.

✓ Canadian

✓Graduated from University of Manitoba in western Canada in 1928 with BA in English.

✓MA in English from University of Manitoba in 1934, and Ph.D. from Cambridge U, UK.

McLuhan Books

The Mechanical Bride (1951) The book is an analysis of newspapers and magazines articles. McLuhan explained the aesthetic side: The analyses bear on aesthetic considerations as well as on the implications behind the imagery and text.

The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) In this book, McLuhan focus on printing technology, and its effect on culture. McLuhan talked in this book about the role of ‘type’ (Movable type) in effecting our cognition and our minds.

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964) McLuhan discusses the differences between media and the ways that one medium translates the content of another medium. Briefly, "the content of a medium is always another medium."

McLuhan Ideas

• The Movable Type: Printing technology framed our minds, people started looking for homogeneity, and organization.

6

McLuhan Ideas • In the Global Village (1964), McLuhan predicted

the Internet, calling it “The extension of consciousness”.

McLuhan said: The next medium, whatever it is it may be the extension of consciousness—will include television as its content.

7

McLuhan Ideas • In the Global Village (1964), McLuhan

predicted that television will transform television into an art form.

8

McLuhan Idea: Television as an art form

9

McLuhan Major Contribution to Visual Culture

The Medium is the Message • In addition to his ideas, his famous theory that the Medium, Not the content that they

carry, is the Message. A good example that proves McLuhan’s idea is Typography

McLuhan Major: The medium is the message

• No matter what content you will consume, a medium –Like Iphone or Google glasses – become the message

McLuhan Major: The medium is the message

Introduction: Who is Laura Mulvey?

o Laura Mulvey, born on August 15th,1941.

o British

o A professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck, University of London.

o educated at St Hilda's College, Oxford.

o She worked at the British Film Institute for many years.

Mulvey Books

Death 24 X A Second Stillness and the Moving Image • Its about new media

technologies, such as video and DVD, have transformed the way we experience film, and the viewers' relationship to film image .

• The manipulation of the cinematic image by the viewer also makes visible cinema's material and aesthetic attributes. By exploring how new technologies can give new life to old' cinema”.

Visual and Other Pleasures • published in 1989. • this book reflect some of

the commitments and changes during the period that saw the women's movement shift into feminism and the development of feminism's involvement with the politics of representation.

Laura Mulvey Ideas • “New technologies can give new life to ‘old’

cinema” related to her book (Death 24 X A Second).

Titanic 1997 Titanic 1953

Laura Mulvey ideas

• The technologies, including home DVD players, have fundamentally altered our relationship to the movies.

Introduction: Who is Walter Benjamin?

• Walter Benjamin was born on July 15, 1892 in Berlin, Germany. He passed away in September 26, 1940 in Catalonia, Spain.

• He was a German Jewish philosopher and cultural critic.

• In 1912 Walter enrolled in the University of Freiburg but his love for philosophy drove him to go back to University of Berlin to continue.

• He was elected as president of Free Students Association.

Walter Benjamin’s main ideas

• The most important idea of Walter Benjamin was the “concept of the Aura”.

• Aura is the distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person, thing, or place.

• Benjamin believes that the “aura” of art is lost in its reproduction.

1- The loss of the Aura

2- History and images

Examples of The loss of the Aura

An example of The loss of the Aura

Walter Benjamin’s main ideas

Walter Benjamin believes that history breaks down into images, not into stories.

2- History and images