INGLS II COMUNICACIN SOCIAL - TRABAJO PRCTICO N 1 Contenidos tericos a consultar: LA VOZ PASIVA. (pp.

. 90 a 94) TEXTO: LOGAN, ROBERT K. THE AXIOMATICS OF INNIS AND MC LUHAN. McLuhan Studies, Explorations in Culture and Communication, Volume I, 1991, pp. 85-88. 1- Lea los datos bibliogrficos, el ttulo, los subttulos. contenido de este texto. Reflexione sobre el posible

2- A medida que explore el texto identifique los casos de voz pasiva. 3- Explique las ideas vinculadas por not onlybut also en el primer prrafo. 4- Desarrolle el planteo sobre el doble nivel de abstraccin en la escritura introducido por el alfabeto fontico. 5- Descubra el referente de lo subrayado en los prrafos 2, 3 y 4. 6- Cul es el concepto empleado por Innis? Con qu propsito? 7- Explique las ideas vinculadas por but y rather en el prrafo 5. 8- Por qu es necesario estudiar las caractersticas de un medio de comunicacin? 9- Desarrolle el planteo de Innis en cuanto a la diferencia de las formas polticas de Babilonia y Roma. 10- Desarrolle las observaciones de Innis. 11- Explique las ideas vinculadas por but rather en el ltimo prrafo. 12- Elabore un resumen de no ms de 350 palabras teniendo en cuenta los siguientes ncleos temticos: El poder del alfabeto fontico. El doble nivel de abstraccin en la escritura. Efectos del uso de este alfabeto en distintas culturas. La importancia de la invencin de Gutenberg. La perspectiva de Innis para explicar la interaccin de una cultura de cara a sus tecnologas y medios de comunicacin. Diferencias planteadas en los abordajes de Innis y McLuhan.

THE AXIOMATICS OF INNIS AND MC LUHAN

Writing, the alphabet and the printing press 1 McLuhan attributed the phonetic alphabets power to its subliminal effects. Of all the writing systems, not only does the phonetic alphabet permit the most economical transcription of speech into a written code, but it also provides its users with the model for abstractness, analysis, coding and decoding which came to characterize Western thought. The phonetic alphabet introduced a double level of abstraction in writing. Words are divided into the meaningless phonemic (sound) elements of which they are composed and then these meaningless phonemic elements are represented visually with equally meaningless signs, namely, the letters of the alphabet. This encourages abstraction, analysis (since each word is broken down into its basic phonemes), coding (since spoken words are coded by visual signs) and decoding (since those visual signs are transformed back to spoken sounds through reading). 2 In an article entitled Alphabet, Mother of Invention McLuhan and I indicated some of the results of using the phonetic alphabet. The Mesopotamian phonetic syllabary inspired the organization of social mores into forms of codified law, the most famous of which is the Hammurabic code. The Hebrew alphabet was most probably transmitted by Moses whose father-in-law was Jethro, the high priest of the Midianites, the originators of the 22uniconsonantal writing system. Its impact was immediate and dramatic. In addition to bringing writing to the Hebrew children, Moses also brought them codified law or the Ten Commandments as well as a more abstract and completely monotheistic concept of God. These three developments occurred historically at the same time, as symbolized in the Bible by the story of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.
He gave Moses, when He had made an end to communing with him upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, two tables of stone, written with the finger of God. (Ex. 31:18)

3 The introduction of the phonetic alphabet into Ancient Greek society had an equally dramatic effect on their culture. Within five hundred years of the transmission of the alphabet from the Phoenicians, the Greeks developed the main intellectual concepts which have formed the foundation of Western civilization. They created, for the first time in history, abstract science, formal logic, axiomatic geometry, rational philosophy, representational art, and individualism. While not suggesting a causal connection between these developments and the alphabet it is claimed that the alphabet, by serving as a paradigm for classification, analysis and codification, created the conditions that made these ideas possible. It also explains why abstract science began in the West and not the East despite the superior achievements of the Chinese in technical matters such as the invention of silk, paper, gunpowder, metallurgy, porcelain, animal harnesses and irrigation systems. 4 The most dramatic communication revolution to follow the introduction of the alphabet was the Gutenberg printing press. The revolutionary changes brought about by this technology have been documented by Marshall McLuhan in The Gutenberg Galaxy. There

he shows the impact of print on such major cultural transformations as the rise of science, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the rise of nationalism and the Industrial Revolution. The invention of typography confirmed and extended the new visual stress of applied knowledge providing the first uniformly repeatable commodity, the first assembly-line, and the first mass production. Innian space-time 5 Harold Innis exploited the Einsteinian concept of a four dimensional space-time continuum to describe the interplay of a culture with its technologies and media of communication. Innis did not use Einsteins mathematical formulation of the theory of relativity but he did develop his own dynamic links between space and time. As in Einsteins theories, space and time no longer act as passive containers of the dynamics of a culture; rather, they actively shape the nature and spirit of that culture.
A medium of communication has an important influence on the dissemination of knowledge over space and over time and it becomes necessary to study its characteristics in order to appraise its influence in a cultural setting. According to its characteristics it may be better suited to the dissemination of knowledge over time than over space, particularly if the medium is heavy and durable and not suited to transportation, or to the dissemination of knowledge over space than over time, particularly if the medium is light and easily transported. The relative emphasis on time or space will imply a bias of significance to the culture in which it is embedded. (Bias 33).

6 Innis attributed the difference in the political forms of Babylon and Rome to the difference in the use of clay tablets and papyrus for writing. The permanency of clay tablets gave the Babylonians command over time and hence made for a conservative and traditional society but never a world empire. The Roman use of the more portable papyrus gave them command over space and military control over vast tracts of lands. The lack of permanency of papyrus also made for a more fluid society which was constantly changing with time. The priestly bureaucracy of Babylon controlled and contracted time through the permanency of their records. The military bureaucracy of Rome, on the other hand, controlled and contracted space through the speed with which it was able to dispatch its messages. Lightweight papyrus and the system of roads shrank the world. The medium and the code 7 Both Innis and McLuhan believed that each form of writing had its own effect on the development of culture. They varied in how they formulated this idea, however. Innis gave greater emphasis to the physical effect of the medium while McLuhan generally focussed on the nature of the code used to transcribe the spoken word into visual signs. Innis was concerned with whether the medium was clay, parchment or papyrus whereas McLuhan was interested in whether the writing system was hieroglyphic, syllabic or alphabetic. These two approaches actually overlap because of the influence of the physical medium on the development of a particular form of writing or code of transportation. Innis noted that:

Writing on stone was characterized by straightness or circularity of line, rectangularity of form, and upright position, whereas writing on papyrus permitted cursive forms suited to rapid writing. (Empire 16) The dominance of stone as a medium of communication left its stamp on the character of writing, and probably checked its evolution after the introduction of papyrus and the brush. (22) Since moist clay was necessary and since the tablet dried quickly it was important to write with speed and accuracyEconomy of effort demanded a reduction in the number of strokes, and the remnants of pictorial writing disappeared. As a medium, clay demanded a shift from the pictograph to formal patterns. (26-27) The Egyptians with an abundance of papyrus and the use of the brush had worked out an elaborate system of writing and the Babylonians with dependence on clay and the stylus developed an economical system of writing. (Bias 7) The Canaanite Phoenician alphabet was possibly influenced by cuneiform writing in the emphasis on short straight lines and by the papyrus and the brush in the emphasis on curving lines. (Empire 42) The contact between papyrus and the brush and cuneiform writing probably contributed to the process of analysing out of an alphabet of twenty-two consonants. Distinctiveness was combined with simplicity of form. (43)

The unique form of the alphabet was not, according to Innis, an abstraction invented independently of the media in which writing developed but rather a product of those media and their interaction.