The article, Understanding Internet – Extension of Media is interesting for the idea in its title, which it explains well on a practical level, e.g. Net phone extends the phone. However, the authors do not appreciate the fullness of their insight. Media is the extension of man, and the Internet is the extension of media! That is powerful if we think of the potency of McLuhans insight in the first place.
Media = extension of our senses
Internet = an extension of Media
The implications (which the article does not explore) of McLuhan’s insight included the way media impacted our sense ratios and how, as it extended, it also amputated.
As media extends it amputates old media. The music recording industry for example is running around like a wounded bull. And what happens to the sense ratios in “man” under this exponential eruption!
It has been noted by a more than a few who try to place the Net in McLuhans sensory schema that the Internet is an extension of the nervous system. Well, it has stopped making sense. We have moved into a realm where this exponential leap has finished off the senses and is now working on the psyche, cyberspace is an extension of the soul.
It is for this reason that simply looking for a metaphor that will fit in the way metaphors have worked for other phenomena will not satisfy. How does Psyche in the story of Eros and Psyche relate to the psyche? Could she be the goddess of cyberspace? How is Psyche extended? What is amuptated?
More sites on this theme:
http://www.hans-hass.de/Englisch/Energon/6_Appendix_3.html
http://www.hoboes.com/html/NetLife/Children/Addicted.html
http://www.peak.sfu.ca/cmass/issue2/july.html
Item last updated Monday, 26 August 2002.