Media Theory Book

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Quantumedia
Cultural Considerations in the Age of Information

By Gregory O’Toole, Ph.D. (ABD)
Faculty, The Art Institute of Pittsburgh
Web Developer/Multimedia Specialist, Penn State University
Doctoral Candidate, Media & Communication, European Graduate School

Communicative media have always had the power of being an affective force on our social and psychological lives. Media are not only an extension of the self, as McLuhan stated, existing and functioning as an outer human central nervous system, between all people and social groups, but they simultaneously work to reflect and determine the self and society. This relationship has inherent in it an undefined set of benefits and dangers. It is the goal of this analysis to unearth some of these qualities. It is the aim of this book to theoretically investigate some of these effects in order to further our understanding of the role of media in relation to the self and the organization of society by drawing these observations against other important behavior and media theories such as Aristotle’s concept of function, ideas of the Frankfurt School thinkers, and Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory as a few examples in addressing the question “How is identity constructed, defined and maintained in a media saturated existence such as the one(s) we experience every day?"

At the outset we have the self. Beyond the self is the outside social world. How do our media communication technologies fit into this equation? Media, by affective nature and definition, are situated directly between the self and society and, at the same time, are indistinct of both, existing at a "quantum" social level, a phenomenon termed Quantumedia. No longer can media be separated out from either the individual or the community. Further, media act as a multi-layered communicative force field, an informational membrane between the two entities, and serve not only to reflect the self back onto the self, society back onto society, but also, and perhaps most importantly, as a point of interactive inversion where the self becomes part of society, and the society part of the self. This occurs only through a vast, complex layer of reflective light rays, analog signals, and binary code. It is in this way that a principle of mediated knowledge inversion comes to be.

To elucidate the reach of this affective nature of media, this study examines a range of political, cultural venues and events across history. Through these examples the work attempts to answer the questions: When did this inversion phenomenon begin? What are the signs of it taking place? Can or does community exist in the midst of our current media-based mass individualization and information glut, or are we going another route?

Due to reification, this principle occurs with a suggestive value on or emphasis of the self ("ideology of the self," McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy, 1962), and, more specifically, the image of the self in order to promote commodification. Simultaneously, it is necessary to emphasize that, in our growingly dynamic and information-saturated world one must put their own care into remaining attentive, focusing on the self as a vital and pertinent atomic particle in the much larger picture as defining element to the post-postmodern.

This study in no way claims to be exhaustive in naming the effects of mass media on culture, but is an investigative process of observation and recording of some of the perhaps less quotidian phenomena. Its purpose is to share these ideas with the wider fields of the humanities, social sciences, and beyond to promote further understanding of our growingly complex human-technological interactions.

All contents in this book are the intellectual property of the author, Gregory O’Toole, © 2010. ISBN Number Nine Books on file, March 2, 2010. Cover art adapted from the United States Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) division of the United States Department of Transportation pedestrian highway sign. © Gregory O’Toole, 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reused for any reason without consent of the author.