Topic 6 :: Tetrad of Media

As for this week's topic:

Using McLuhan's "Tetrad of Media" (see diagram below), choose a medium or media application or tool (e.g. newspaper, books, radio, tv, film, internet, computer games, handphone, instant messaging, blogging, online advertising, youtube, facebook etc.) and explain its media effects? Please refer to Week 9's lecture notes plus your own research to discuss this topic.



According to the Week 9 lecture and the notes included,

• "What does it (the medium or technology) extend?"

• "What does it make obsolete?"

• "What is retrieved?"

• "What does the technology reverse into if it is over extended?"

From there, it is understood that the medium holds many possibilities of uses to us and not to forget it's effects on us. Using McLuhan's "Tetrad of Media", we can identify the media effects of a certain medium.

In this case, i'll pick blogging.

Critical reflection 1:

"What does it (the medium or technology) extend?"
In the case of a car it would be the foot, in the case of blogging it would be the mouth trying to share stories among others.

"What does it make obsolete?"
The car makes walking obsolete while blogging makes writing in books or discussing/talking among friends and family face to face as something no longer needed or not frequently done.

"What is retrieved?"
In this case, what is retrieved is that blogging allows individuals to connect with one another without any hassle of meeting up for lunch or spending hours and hours updating each other on what has happened in said person's life and such.

"What does the technology reverse into if it is over extended?"
If blogging is over extended, people might not have a social life outside of the computer/internet range and the things written in their blogs might as well be truth or just made up to portray someone they'd want to be depending on the situation.

Critical Reflection 2:

Through McLuhan's "Tetrad of Media", we can clearly see how blogging affects us in 4 laws. First being that it replaces a way that we have come to use before the existence of the media itself where it replaces our ability to speak to people about what has happened as blogs allow more space for us to express..

Second, being that after using the said medium, it clearly shows how we are no longer used to doing something in a certain way and are more prone to do it in ways that are more connected to the growth of technology as blogging erases the need for us to write letters to people to tell about what has been happening, the need to write diaries to remind us of what has happened, as a form of identity for us to show to the society connected to us virtually.

Third, what is retrieved gives us more than what we retrieved from the old way of doing things therefore leads us to produce more productivity for a better lifestyle where in this case, blogging allows us to retrieve information of friends and acquaintances and even act as a form of information-sharing department among society.

While fourth leads us to the pros and cons of the medium whereby blogging might lead to an individual to being someone indoors rather than engaging in real-time conversations and meet-ups with various individuals in the society to share information about their lives. In this case, it might make us rely too much on blogging to spark excitement in life which leads to more spending time in front of the computer and maybe even more ridiculous blogging of something that didn't exactly happen at all. In contrast, blogging also helps us to connect with one another easily with just a click of a button and maybe even connect with people we haven't met for years. Or maybe you can just use blogging as a medium to stalk people on the net, which is, something most people would rather do and never admit.



Personal Reflection:

Sometimes, i find class to be very noisy.
And i dislike how the chairs are all.... erm. All over the place.
But in another case,
Class is fine, i have no issues about it.
I guess that's all.








Oh essay, how i need to finish you.