OBJECT AS VORTEX: MARSHALL McLUHAN & MATERIAL CULTURE AS MEDIA OF COMMUNICATION Roman Fedorovych Onufrijchuk B.A. Simon Fraser University, 1982 M.A. Simon Fraser University, 1985 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the School of Communication O Roman Fedorovych Onufrijchuk 1998 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY April 1998 All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without permission of the author. National Library Bibliothèque nationale R*m of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. nie Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Canada Canada Your fi& Votre référence Our lüe Notre rel&enu, The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, disûiiuer ou copies of this îhesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la fome de microfiche/f%n, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. 1 am a student of Harold lnnis and am carrying on his work. Marshall McLuhan. This dissertation explores contributions made by Marshall McLuhan to the study of communication in general, and material culture as media in particular. We investigate what McLuhan had to Say about the "ground" of media, that is about material culture as a medium of communication. We will introduce a distinction between what we nomally cal1 media -- here we will cal1 them explicit media -- and material culture writ large which we will cal1 the implicit media. We will use this distinction to re-read McLuhan in the interest of sketching what his work might contribute for our understanding of Our emergent material culture, Our 'lively stuff." We, in the "First World," live in an age of unprecedented material diversity and abundance. Our material culture has become proliferant, pervasive, programmed and programmable, increasingly performative, and permutative (that is to Say, semi-autonomous in some ways). If, as McLuhan said, Our species has become the "sex organs" for our materiality, then what sort of "species" are we serving to reproduce and advance? This study is "impelled" by McLuhan's ideas, but we will also need to explore the matters missed in what McLuhan said. We will tum to disciplines outside of main-stream communication studies to accomplish this -- specifically anthropology, consumer studies and the histoty, theory and critical literature on design. Having done this, we will return to Our new technologies and see what McLuhan's insights offer by way of tools for pragmatic persona1 and public deliberations on the place of our material culture in our past, present and future. We explore an aspect of McLuhan's work. My own research, reported here, is based on the published McLuhan corpus, readings in related critical and interpretive literature as well as original documentary work done in the McLukn collections at the National Archives of Canada in Ottawa. Sometime in the mid- to late 60s, TV and periodical coverage of McLuhan's ideas attracted me to a career in mass media; a CBC fdeas series on Innis' analysis of the history of communication on the FM radio service in the late 70s drew me into scholarship. I returned to the university an "adult leamer." The tum to scholarship came about in the firm belief that there was more to knowledge than a three minute item and the desire to engage what 1 then vaguely understood to be a uniquely Canadian contribution to scholarship in communication. Prior to that 1 had been variously a switcher, telecine operator, photographer, announcer, executive producer, an editor, writer, broadcast programming director and comrnunity animator. For a period of four years during my doctoral studies I waç retained as a continuing studies programmer and adult educator in arts and design. As the writing of the dissertation began I had accepted a position às a director of TV programming and executive producer with British Columbia's public education broadcaster, the Knowledge Network. Yean in the mass media, as well as childhood and youth as a son of a landscaping architect and horticulturist, had taught me the importance of design in ail projects and undertakings. I was surprised that the field of communication had little to report on design and welcomed an opportunity to examine its role in industrial and commercial applications for my master's work. When it came time to choose a doctoral dissertation topic, I elected to work within the Canadian tradition which, due to my studies in the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, had corne into much sharper definition for me. It was the absence of the designed material world, however, which became the question with which I approached McLuhan and Innis. I am deeply grateful to Dr. William Leiss, my supervisor, and the members of my cornmittee, Drs. Paul Heyer and Martin Laba, for their patience and letting me work within what still remains a sornewhat uncharted area of the Canadian tradition in the study of communication. The years of scholarship and teaching have been rewarding. I am grateful to al1 those who made the study possible and who lent their various, patient and generous support to the struggle that finally produced this report. I am particularly thankful to Stephanie Fitzgerald who helped get the original drafts into the electric element and then into the printer. I will never be able to thank my friend Brent Gibson enough for his encouragement, warmth and strength during the demanding period of planning and sketching the dissertation. Dr. lan Angus deserves special mention for his guidance and moral support of my efforts in grappling with Continental thought and its contributions to the work I had undertaken. The many the discussants at the "Calabria Campus," Nicodemo and Frankie Murdocco hosting us, who through the late 1980s, helped me formulate and articulate the ideas reported here are to be thanked. 1 am very deeply indebted to Rita and Miko Arhipov, my wife and son, and to Ludmila Onufrijchuk, my mother, who al1 kept me focused as I worked through the dissertation "ordeal." This work is dedicated to the memory of my father, Fedir Fedorovych Onufrijchuk (1904-1 988) who's art of environment, verdure and flowers helped turn Yorkton, Saskatchewan, into one of the greenest and most beautiful of prairie cities in Canada and who taught me the importance of both design and songful spontaneity. TABLE OF C0-S Approval page ii. ..- Abstract 111. Preface V. Table of Contents vii. 1. Marshall McLuhan and Material Culture as Media of Communication. 1 2. McLuhan and the Explicit Media. 23 3. The "McLuhan Method." 59 4. Missing Matters. 90 5. The Implicit Rhetoric of Things; Entelechy. 116 6. From Mechanical to Cybemetic Paradise. 135 7. lnto The Age of Lively Stuff. 163 8. Needful Things: Coda . 197 Appendix 1: Discarnatisrn, Death and Stuff. 21 O Bibliography 228 CHAPTER 1 Marshall McLuhan and Material Culture as Media of Communication Stonehenge Much Older Than Thought London - Stonehenge, Britain's ancient circle of stone blocks, could be far older than had been thought. The mysterious stones originally were thought to have been assembled between 21 00 and 1100 BC. Now a new rnethod using more precise radiocarbon dating has pinpointed 2500 to 1600 BC as a more accurate date range for the wortd heritage site, its managers said yesterday. "For the first tirne, we are able to put a proper date on Stonehenge and we realize that rnuch of the previous data had been wrongly anaIyzedln said Dr. Geoffrey Wianwnght, chief archeologist. "Al1 the information from previous studies was pure conjecture." The new research also shows that most of the work on the monument was completed in about 50 years, indicating that ancient Britons must have lived in a more ordered and structured society than historians originally thought. The dating rnethod was pioneered by scientists at Oxford University and Belfast's Queens ~nivenity'. Marshall McLuhan (191 1-1980) presented the world with one of the first full blown theories of the effects of media and technologies of communication and its broader implications in the Modem Age. Beginning his training as an English literary scholar and critic, McLuhan focused his attention on media which transmitted the work of human consciousness as expressed by means of language or words. Throughout McLuhan's work we find a great deal of attention allocated to the printing press, the radio, the telephone and television -- and of communication in primary and secondary oral societies. These media are al1 characterized by their self-effacement in the interest of what is being transmitted through them, a large portion of which is made up of language. - - - - 'staff. 'Stonehenge Much Older Than Thought."Vamouver Province 1996. As McLuhan increasingly explored the expressive/communicative aspects of media, the communicative properties of material culture also becarne ever-more apparent to him, and he expanded his own intellectual interests to reflect this: He wrote about clothing and cars, cigarettes and furniture, architecture and gadgets. Many of his critics pointed out that it seemed unclear whether McLuhan was interested in an account of media, technology, or al1 human artefacts.