Posted 14:51 by Mark Federman permanent link


In the current issue of Edge, there is a fascinating essay by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, and former Professor of Physiology at the UCLA School of Medicine. The Edge essay is Why Do Some Societies Make Disastrous Decisions? Diamond proposes the following: "First of all, a group may fail to anticipate a problem before the problem actually arrives. Secondly, when the problem arrives, the group may fail to perceive the problem. Then, after they perceive the problem, they may fail even to try to solve the problem. Finally, they may try to solve it but may fail in their attempts to do so. While all this talking about reasons for failure and collapses of society may seem pessimistic, the flip side is optimistic: namely, successful decision-making. Perhaps if we understand the reasons why groups make bad decisions, we can use that knowledge as a check list to help groups make good decisions."

This essay caught my attention because it speaks fairly directly to some of the work we are doing here at the Program. Diamond illustrates his checklist - failure to anticipate, failure to perceive, failure to attempt, failure to accomplish - with examples from cultural anthropology and contemporary social dynamics. Many of his examples resonate with me, as they are endemic throughout corporate and government practice. Moreover, they are precisely suited for the type of illuminative clarity that can be achieved by the judicious application of McLuhan thinking.

Some examples refer to processes of nature that are imperceptible to our senses, except over very long periods of time. However, many group or societal failures attributable to the dual failures of anticipation or perception are, in our parlance, failure to create an appropriate anti-environment. By directing our attention to the dynamics of Reversals and Obsolescences, failure to anticipate or perceive become deliberate acts of commission - choosing to ignore that which you have made obvious - as opposed to acts of omission.

Failure to succeed is often, as Diamond suggests, a matter of too little, too late. (Hello Mel. Hello Ernie. Hello Jean) More incidious, however, is the lack of accomplishment because we cannot perceive whether our attempted solution is, indeed, making progress. Sometimes, we want our approach to be successful to the extent that our perception is hampered. Sometimes, we have a vested interest in the approach itself, and use modern "spin" techniques to declare a success, while the evidence of failure is plain. In other words, we choose inappropriate ignore-ance over careful noticing. Here again, careful observation and consideration of Extension/Enhancement effects informed by Retrievals, as well as Obsolescences, become useful in sharpening our perception.

Diamond hopes, "that, by recognizing the sign posts of failed decision making, we may become more consciously aware of how others have failed, and of what we need to do in order to get it right." By applying McLuhan thinking - with which our researchers, facilitators and instructors can certainly assist - we increase our business's and governments' chances of getting it right.
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Posted 13:03 by Mark Federman permanent link


I've been hanging out at an interesting online community called marginwalker.org. For the moment, the original posters are invitees, although anyone can comment via the blog comment mechanism. While we are all getting to know one another, a thread on identities has emerged that is interesting. I took the liberty of hauling out a piece of the talk I gave at the EU-Japan Fest in February that dealt with identities in the digital world - our digiSelves. Here's what I wrote:

It is not surprising that the name used for God in Hebrew conversation is HASHEM, literally, THE NAME. It is in our names that we have our power and reputation. This is a common theme throughout many cultures. Last evening, for example, we were enjoying the DVD of Miyazaki’s Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, a.k.a. Spirited Away (highly recommended, btw). The protagonist, Chihiro, was (almost) controlled by the witch Yubaba, who took her name, and replaced it with the shortened “Sen.” Had Chihiro forgotten her original name, she would have been unable to escape the bath house of the spirits.


Online, and in the digital world in general, we have many identities. Our identity has, for many years, existed quite independent of our physical incarnation in government, financial and other institutional databases. We are not real to the bank or other authorities unless we can produce something that links our physical self to our “real identity” in their database. We have many versions of this digital identity — or digiSelf, as I like to call it — spread among many databases, each with its unique characteristics, and inferred behaviours. Each one is more real to the institution — and ironically, to the people in that institution — than our physical self, what we consider to be our real self. This is why, for instance, people feel so completely violated by the crime of identity theft, in which some other person “captures” an instance of our digiSelf and uses it to perpetrate fraud. The effect on us is more than the financial loss, although that in itself may be significant. Identity theft victims report feeling as if they had been personally molested, using language similar to victims of rape. The digiSelf is so real, and impinges so greatly on our physical world. The loss of our digiSelf creates the McLuhanesque anti-environment that enables us to take notice of its manifest reality.

Additional manifestations of our identity exist on the web, in chat avatars, among weblogs, web page postings and other digital media, and thereby create numerous digiSelves. What was once integral — our self, our person, our identity — is now split among our self in the physical world and our many digiSelves, each having an autonomous life of its own. Thus, we disconnect from the normal experience of physical and corporeal time and space when we live vicariously through our digiSelf on the Internet. This disconnection is significant and profound, as our consciousness becomes disconnected from our sensorium, extends in a real sense into the world’s electronic nervous system and thereby creates the unique experience of separating our identity, or self, from our body.

As we project various aspects of our lives into our continually expanding collection of digiSelves, we must become aware of the possible interactions and incursions between the digital and physical worlds that are now possible. A simple example: Who “owns” any given instance of my digiSelf? What rights do I have to participate in, or even block, its modification by a government agency or corporation? Is there a duty owed to the individual for appropriate care and sustenance of the digiSelf while an organization has possession of it? Who owns the digital copyright on my digiSelf, and what might be the licensing issues? We know that specific tracking technologies have already been implemented in the software that most of us use everyday — browsers, word processors, email clients and the like. Considerably more is on the way. These are efficient mechanisms to remove a right to privacy, freedom from unlawful search and seizure, anonymous free speech that exist today. Given the behaviour of the current administration in the United States, and certain surveillance initiatives that are underway in Canada, Australia and elsewhere, is it fair to speculate that these mechanism might already be in use? And what government, or government contractor, or even private corporation, anywhere on earth would be able to resist the temptation to indulge in just a little investigation? Physically, we are protected in law by habeas corpus — literally, “you have the body”. Is our digiSelf protected by habeas virtualis — “you have the effect”?
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Posted 15:36 by Mark Federman permanent link


An associate of the Program has been instrumental in creating an online forum that, in a practical way, begins to implement some of the aspects of citizen engagement in government policy.The Canadian Foreign Policy Dialogue is a place where Canadians can read Minister Bill Graham's foreign policy paper, answer some key questions that are raised in the discussion paper, and participate in threaded discussion groups.

The Minister is living up to the government's commitment, made last fall: In his welcome message on the site, Graham says, "In the Speech from the Throne of last September, the Government pledged to engage Canadians in discussion about Canada's place in the world. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, I am pleased to follow up on that pledge by inviting you to read this paper, consider the questions it poses, and share your views. Whether you choose to participate through our Internet forum, by sending a letter or by joining in public discussions, I am interested in hearing your comments." Well folks, give him your comments!
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Posted 14:58 by Mark Federman permanent link


I just love it when stories complement each other. Over at kuro5hin.org, there is this story that questions, once again, the veracity of the Bush Administration with respect to the reason for the war. The article notes that, "... the world can be quite sure that under no circumstances would the Bush administration ever admit their "absolute proof" of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is faulty. It is inevitable that the US will eventually come up with these hidden WMD's the war in Iraq was supposedly fought over. But can we trust that the Bush administration is above planting, or fabricating WMD's in Iraq?.

Then, at BusinessWeek, the ironically named Stan Crock (I kid you not) postulates that, "In another of the grand miscalculations that were the dictator's hallmark, Saddam feared U.N. weapons inspectors more than he did President George W. Bush. ... The smart course for Saddam? Bury whatever he had in some obscure corner of the country, where inspectors would never find it. But doing so meant that the weapons would be inaccessible if they were needed in a war."

And that's why all the King's horses and all the King's men, couldn't find the weapons of mass destruction again.

This is a classic case of winning the war and losing the peace. If U.S. forces come up empty and do not find caches of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, or their precursor components and fabrication facilities, the nominal justification... one of the nominal justifications... for the war is refuted, and what's left of America's credibility and respect in the rest of the world is irretrievably lost - at least for a generation or so. If the U.S. forces turn up said weapons of mass distraction (other than televisions, of course), the world will accuse America of once again prevaricating and falsifying evidence by having planted said weapons in the desert.

The challenge for the Bush Administration is to engineer a desirable, evolutionary reversal, as opposed to pushing their brand of nation-building to the extreme, and thereby forcing an undesirable reversal. What's the distinction? Undesirable reversals occured in countries like Chile (Pinochet), Iran (Shah of), Iraq (that's how Saddam got there in the first place) and most other places U.S. foreign policy seems to touch in this way. A desirable reversal might occur if America was to invite European and other countries to take the lead in rebuilding the country's economic and social infrastructure (oops... too late!) to create conditions for moderate leadership from amongst the primary distinct religious and cultural groups to emerge. This most courageous act on the part of an American administration would signal to the world that their fears about pax americana were unfounded, and the ends did, in fact, justify the means.
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Posted 01:08 by Mark Federman permanent link


It is always a fun excursion back in time to see the future from the perspective of 1940s and 1950s science fiction writers. We were to have had flying cars, robots to do our housework and a 5-day weekend by now. More interesting, however, is this gem, to which we were directed by Agnes, a McLuhan Program associate. This article by Dr. Vannevar Bush, then Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, that appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in July 1945, is considered a classic in Library and Information Science circles. It is remarkably forward-looking and closely predicts the coming of Steve Mann's Eyetap device, (including a version of the "vicarious soliloquy,") speech to text devices, optical recording devices like CD, and even a personal version of the world wide web, implemented as a desktop, with "slanting translucent screens, on which material can be projected for convenient reading." The article also describes our whole notion of modern computer running business applications, and even outlines a primitive-by-our-standards point of sale transaction recording cum inventory management system.

The ironically named Dr. Bush's closing comment is quite apropos for Bush-the-Younger to contemplate:

"The applications of science have built man a well-supplied house, and are teaching him to live healthily therein. They have enabled him to throw masses of people against one another with cruel weapons. They may yet allow him truly to encompass the great record and to grow in the wisdom of race experience. He may perish in conflict before he learns to wield that record for his true good. Yet, in the application of science to the needs and desires of man, it would seem to be a singularly unfortunate stage at which to terminate the process, or to lose hope as to the outcome."
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Posted 10:41 by Mark Federman permanent link


Declan McCullagh's column on C|Net informs us about Cisco's "proposal that describes how it plans to embed "lawful interception" capability into its products. Among the highlights: Eavesdropping "must be undetectable," and multiple police agencies conducting simultaneous wiretaps must not learn of one another. If an Internet provider uses encryption to preserve its customers' privacy and has access to the encryption keys, it must turn over the intercepted communications to police in a descrambled form."

However, Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center notes that, "The laws that permit 'lawful interception' typically incorporate both components--the (interception) authority and the means of oversight--but the (Cisco) implementation seems to have only the surveillance component. That is no guarantee that the authority will be used in a 'lawful' manner."

Indeed. History is rife with governmental authorities all over the world that have engaged in illegal wiretaps, mail interceptions and other forms of spying on its own citizens. However, there is little to do with domestic spying that is illegal left in the United States, thanks to Attorney-General John Ashcroft and the USA PATRIOT Act, and the congressmen and women who were asleep at the switch when they passed it without debate, dilligence or careful consideration.

Fred Baker, a Cisco fellow and former chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force, was interviewed by McCullagh for the article. Here is a telling interchange:

Q: Do you have any moral problems with helping to make surveillance technology more efficient?
A: I have some moral and ethical issues, but I think quite frankly that the place to argue this is in Congress and in the courtroom, not a service provider's machine room when he's staring down the barrel of a subpoena. There are two sides. One is that Cisco as a company needs to let its customers abide by the law. The other is the moral and ethical issues. There are two very separate questions.

Congress's record on anticipating non-obvious consequences of legislation passed in hasted, and influenced by outside events, is rather shoddy of late. It would behoove the country that is seeking to turn democracy into an export commodity to carefully reconsider legislation and regulations that serves to force its Constitution into reversal.
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Posted 10:24 by Mark Federman permanent link


You just know this is going to be Slashdotted, Blogsphered, Technoratied and Daypopped. Revolution is not an AOL Keyword* is a wonderfully brilliant homage to the protest anthem "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." Read both, and think...
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Posted 19:48 by Mark Federman permanent link


Talk about serendipity. I came across the delightful parody, The Ballad of Marshall McLuhan at Everything2.com while looking for something else completely, but that's the charm of sites like Everything2. Arising from an ongoing discussion about collaborative software, I have the strong intution that combining weblog, wiki and content management (hello Jonathon!), with a graphical interface that shows linkages, would be an exceptional offering. As I hyper-hopped in contemplating the issues involved, I landed at Everything2, a site I remember from its inception several years ago. My, how it's grown up. Like Wikipedia, Everything2 is a shared, collaborative effort with attributions, based on the wiki model. Unlike Wikipedia, Everything2 has instituted a community evaluation and moderation system in an analogous fashion to the very successful Slashdot community. The experience of both endeavours are well worth examining by anyone interested in teh dynamics of collaborative environments. And the Ballad of Marshall McLuhan is just plain fun!
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Posted 19:00 by Mark Federman permanent link


We noticed this on Boing Boing Blog: "Audi-Oh(tm) is a revolution in stimulation technology for men or women. Sound is converted into infinitely variable pulses of pleasure. Audi-Oh* can use ambient sound, like the music in your favorite club, or direct audio input from devices such as portable CD players, MP3 players, your PC or home audio and video systems. You'll find a million ways to use Audi-Oh!"

This is synaesthesia in action! And what a cool experience!
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Posted 22:01 by Mark Federman permanent link


I just finished reviewing, adjudicating and grading the student presentations from my course on Applied McLuhanistics this term. What a interesting and thought-provoking afternoon! The students outdid themselves this year, with McLuhanesque explorations on virtual church communities, the nature of morality, press infographics, digital art and others. If you are interested in a glimpse at how McLuhan thinking can lead to new realizations among diverse fields, drop by here.
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Posted 17:41 by Mark Federman permanent link


Gianluca, one of our McLuhan Fellows, sends this item along:

I've seen this in a newspaper and I tought it was nice to share, at the Leonardo da Vinci museum they have built his project for Long distance communication for the first time. It is a system of copper pipes with amplification on the path. It was invented to connect towers of a castle. In the article there was also this quote from his Codice Atlantico, written in the year 1500:

"Parleransi li omini di remotissimi paesi l’uno all’altro e risponderansi e parleransi e toccheransi e abbracceransi li omini, stanti dall’uno all’altro emisperio, e [in]tenderansi i loro linguaggi."

Is in ancient italian and translated it sounds more or less like this:

"They will talk, men from superfar countries, the one to the other, and they will answer to each other, and they will touch and hug each man, located in the one and the other hemisphere, and they will understand their languages."

Amazingly, this long distance communications infrastructure was conceived by Leonardo only 50 or 70 years after the invention of the printed page
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Posted 15:11 by Mark Federman permanent link


It is an interesting coincidence of time that juxtaposes Passover, the Jewish holiday of liberation and freedom, with the nominal liberation of the Iraqi people. As most people know, Passover celebrates the exodus of the Israelites from Biblical Egypt, and their freedom from the oppressive tyranny and slavery imposed by the Pharaoh. The major part of the Passover celebration is the seder, that is, the ceremonial family gathering at which interpretations of the exodus are discussed and we experience the symbols and metaphors of the holiday through sight, smell, sound, taste and touch (a cool media experience). As part of the ritual, we recall how God heard the cries of the oppressed Israelites, and brought them out of Egypt, "with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, and with great awe, with signs and with wonders." (Deut, 26:8, translation from The Family Haggadah, Artscroll Mesorah Series) Further, in Joel 3:3, the "wonders" are described as "blood, fire, and columns of smoke."

The reader can clearly make their own connections between the biblical liberation of the oppressed Israelites and the modern liberation of the oppressed Iraqis, even to the use of strong hands, outstretched arms, great awe, signs and wonders that include the aforementioned blood, fire and columns of smoke. The biblical allusions, of course, would not be lost on the born-again crew that directs public policy from the White House. But, we must not forget God's intention behind the exodus. The Israelites were not merely freed to go about their lives unrestricted. There was a purpose. Repeatedly, the exhortation to Pharaoh from God via Moses is, "Let my people go that they may serve Me." (Exod,7:16, 7:26, 8:16, 9:1, 9:13)

Thus, with a ground of the Passover celebration, we gain a new view of the figure of the war in Iraq, and the liberation of the Iraqi people.

Using the thinking suggested by the Laws of Media tetrad, we see that the biblical chronicle of the exodus from Egypt is a clear Retrieval. Freedom and self-determination are Enhanced and Enabled. Slavery, oppression and persecution are Obsolesced. The Reversal, however, indicates that freedom and self-determination can reverse into lack of freedom and imposed servitude if freedom is extended beyond the limit of its potential. In the religious context, this is generally taken to mean that with freedom and self-determination comes responsibility and obligation; in the case of Judaism, the obligation to follow the precepts of the Ten Commandments that were given shortly after the exodus. Without moral guidance, freedom quickly devolves into anarchy, destructiveness and licentious behaviour. The immediate looting of Baghdad, and destruction and theft of precious artifacts in the National Museum is a clear example of this.

But service to God – that is, living a morally just and righteous life – is a very different matter than the potential service to Iraq's liberator, the United States. As well, the elimination of the secular Ba'ath Party may give way to a democratically chosen Islamic fundamentalist regime that could be as oppressive to the people – remember Afghanistan's Taliban – as was Saddam's dictatorship.

The warnings provided by the Laws of Media are clear: Liberation and self-determination are not absolute. Even the best of intentions – even if we allow, just for a moment, that there are a few altruistic souls among the American establishment – have a risk of unintended, and very dire, consequences.
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Posted 21:59 by Mark Federman permanent link


Some time ago, we wrote about how the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act is being used to for all sorts of unintended purposes, such as preventing aftermarket supplies for printers, and potentially, eliminating the aftermarket for appliance and car parts. That's old news. In today's Slashdot, a new use for DMCA emerges: preventing apparently incompetent companies from being shown as such. Two security researchers were about to present a paper on the security flaws in a widely used on-campus ID card system. This system, popular throughout the United States, is used for everything from cash-card transactions to building and dorm access to signing-in at exams. The researchers discovered several relatively straight-forward exploits that could defeat the system. However, they were served with a cease and desist order by the company's lawyers, citing violations of the DMCA an the Economic Espionage Act.

The Slashdot thread suggests that the company could possibly be sued for false advertising: representing their system as secure when it seems to be anything but. However, in order to gather the evidence to prove the allegation, one must first violate the DMCA. In fact, most of the security being used throughout all software has been honed through activities that would, in fact, be violations of said DMCA.

This ill-conceived act, heavily pushed by the Recording Industry, and Motion Pictures, Associations of America, was intended to preserve the security of these two industry associations' products. However, as we all know, the principle of reversal applies to the DMCA as a medium. When pushed beyond the limit of its potential, security reverses into insecurity, when new security measures cannot be tested under independent fire because of this law. In fact, had the DMCA been in place ten years ago, we would not now have sufficient security on the Internet to enable most e-commerce and online shopping.

And wouldn't that be a trip up the Amazon without a paddle...

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Posted 16:19 by Mark Federman permanent link


The importance of Retrieval in the Laws of Media, the aspect that McLuhan called "the dominant mode of the tetrad," is that it directs us to historical precedence. We can probe the famous George Santayana cliché, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it," by noting the effect of Retrieval: Those who repeat history are doomed to learn it.

This brings us to the latest installment in the ongoing soap-opera that is The Reversal of America. Today's episode is another of the many examples of "free speech, so long as I agree with what you are saying." As reported in Saturday's Globe and Mail, Alliance Atlantis, the Canadian movie production and distribution company, fired producer Ed Gernon for comments he recently made in a TV Guide interview concerning his upcoming TV drama, Hitler: The Rise of Evil. The CBS network, on whose stations the miniseries is scheduled to air, seemed to have had some influence on the decision, noting that Mr. Gernon's "personal opinions are not shared by CBS and misrepresent the network's motivation for broadcasting this film."

What were Gernon's offensive comments? Comparing America's fear about terrorism and the ensuing war on Iraq with the attitudes of pre-Nazi Germany in the 1930s, Gernon said, "It basically boils down to an entire nation gripped by fear, who ultimately chose to give up their civil rights and plunge the whole nation into war. I can't think of a better time to examine this history than now . . . When an entire country becomes afraid for their sovereignty, for their safety, they will embrace ideas and strategies and positions that they might not embrace otherwise."
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Posted 09:50 by Mark Federman permanent link


Here's one I missed in yesterday's Globe and Mail. Russell Smith, writing in his column,Virtual Culture, points us to a two-year-old book called Remediation: Understanding New Media. The book defines the term "remediation" as 'the representation of one medium in another' and they argue that this is 'a defining characteristic of the new digital media'. Their premise is that all new media take over and re-use existing media. Smith is agog at this revelation, and finds examples of it "delicious."

There's really nothing very new in this idea. Marshall McLuhan told us in 1964 (and several times thereafter) that the first thing a new medium does is replicate the old medium that it displaces. Thus television was "radio with pictures," and the Internet was seen variously as shopping mall, television and library. The true effects, or message, of a medium is understood only later, from the anti-enviornment created either by the passage of time, or the application of McLuhan's famous thinking tools.

What is interesting about Smith's column, is his noting how the desktop metaphors with which we are all familiar - mouse cursor, pull-down menus and the like - have become ubiquitous in advertising, book cover illustrations, newspapers and television news programs. One of the laws of media tells us that ubiquity is a tell-tale sign of a medium in obsolescence, that is, one that ceases to have power, influence and dominance towards our behaviour or actions in society. This is an important observation - but one that has been clearly made by the various researchers in alternative computer interfaces.

For the rest of us, and in particular, those who work in graphic design and marketing, the days of the cursor/pull-down/windowing interface are over. It's time for something cooler.
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Posted 12:09 by Mark Federman permanent link


Ben Hammersley directs us to this absolute gem from Honda in the U.K. Anyone who has taken my course in Applied McLuhanistics and remembers the advertisements from the seminar on Media Hot & Cool should have a look at this one.

Update Adam Greenfield brings this to our attention. Apparently the Honda ad is somewhat derivative, an observation with which Adam has some difficulty.

But this raises an additional interesting issue: I thought that the basis of innovation and continued sustainable creativity is derivation - building new things on the foundation of work that has come before. Isn't that the whole idea behind the Creative Commons? How do we draw a distinction between deriviative works that should be met with scorn and derision, and those that should be applauded?

Update 2 Britain's Daily Telegraph brings us the story of how it was done.

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Posted 19:55 by Mark Federman permanent link


Lest some readers of this blog think that I focus too much on the negative aspects of what is happening in the United States of America and their drive to bring freedom and liberation to the beleaguered people of Iraq, allow me to say that I agree with Ellen Dunst, when she writes I Should Not Be Allowed To Say The Following Things About America.

(Can I take my hand off my heart now?)
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Posted 18:28 by Mark Federman permanent link


This story is so multi-faceted, and so interesting, that I don't even know where to start commenting on it. Julian Dibbell, a fellow at Stanford's Center for Internet and Society, (and a colleague of Lawrence Lessig), recently spoke at Stanford's Internet Law Program. His talk on property rights in virtual worlds is blogged here, and seriously worth the read. He describes how virtual worlds, created in games like Everquest, Ultima Online, Nexus The Kingdom of the Winds, and even Neopets for the younger set, create their own systems of commerce, and hence, systems of property. However, sometimes these virtual systems transcend the virtual world, and translate into a "real" economy via eBay, on which virtual items from cyber-places like Everquest trade for real dollars. The crux of his story, however, goes far beyond that: "Black Snow Interactive is a group that works these games for all they are worth. They found out all the tricks of the game--ways to be more efficient at extracting value from it. They worked a number of games. They eventually ran up against a limit; the games took their valuable time. Finally they had the brilliant idea to farm out the labor. They rented out office space in Mexico. They connected a high speed line to this office. They hired unskilled Mexican laborers to play video games all day long. Black Snow invented thereby the fanatasy sweatshop."

In true legal fashion (even though he is not a lawyer), Dibbell raises the issues: Are these property issues or intellectual property - copyright and trademark - issues? And what does the Digital Millennium Copyright Act have to say about it? (A fair amount, as it turns out.)

Dibbell also has a story in the January issue of Wired that discusses this topic.
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Posted 17:58 by Mark Federman permanent link


An oldie, but definitely a goodie! Here is a great illustration of a cool medium - one that works by having us "fill in" the missing information. In the case of the Checkershadow Illusion by Edward H. Adelson, our visual responses fill in what turns out to be erroneous information. One of the best optical illusions I've ever seen. On the page, there are also links to some fun Flash animation of other, similar, optical illusions based on Adelson's work. Well worth the click-through!
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Posted 17:08 by Mark Federman permanent link


Over at Joi Ito's blog, there's a commentary that is More on Andrew Orlowski article about googlewashing that I wrote about several entries ago. A fellow by the name of Lawrence weighed in with a comment that, in part, wondered, "All this talk of blogs changing the world leaves me with the vague impression that people advocating their amazing properties are modern snake-oil salesmen or people woefully disconnected from reality... What makes a 'blog' more useful or amazing than an oft-updated personal webpage, the likes of which we saw in the early days of the net? Is it because they're all linked together in a kind of 'we rock!' incestuous lump? Am I missing something or are you 'bloggers' delusional?"

No, I don't think we're delusional. Instead, I would ask Lawrence, what's the big deal about Google? Why, when I started on the 'net, we had the CERN What's New page, and after that, Lycos and Yahoo and AltaVista and Excite and...

Of course the difference is one of critical mass, connectivity and connections. All of the early examples of search facilities were, in one way or another, implementations of a hierarchical index or taxonomy of information that were hallmarks of literacy-dominant technology. But, of course, the major effect of instantaneous communications is to effect the reversal of literacy-dominance into a culture of orality; hence, the effectiveness and subsequent popularity of Google, the incarnation of an orality-based search engine. (If you want to know why, you can ask me.)

Weblogs exhibit a similar phenomenon. Sure, we had web pages that housed private musings. In fact, early web pages, you will recall, were little more than private musings and links to a few of my favorite things. Weblogs, and more specifically, their conversational nature involving commentary and trackback-like features, subtly change personal web pages from a literacy-dominant to an orality-dominant mode. Such a change, almost imperceptible to the unskilled ear, nonetheless results in an explosive change when accelerated by the natural orality of the internet as ground.
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Posted 16:10 by Mark Federman permanent link


It saddens me considerably whenever I write or talk about the reversal of the United States of America. In the latest chapter of the Decline and Fall of a Once Great Nation, American authorities once again cast their constitution into the fire (amendments V and VI, if I recall correctly) with the Arrest of Mike Hawash. Briefly, Hawash was arrested and detained as a "material witness" on March 20 when he arrived at his place of employment in Sheridan, Oregon. "Material witness" is the terminology used by the Ashcroft and his stormtroopers (and I use the hyperbole with justification) to excuse their arrest of an individual without a warrant.. excuse me... with a "sealed" warrant, and to hold him in solitary confinement, without charge, recourse to the courts, or advice of counsel for an indefinite period of time. The Slashdot discussion of this case is here, and you will be able to find additional commentary all over the blogsphere and the 'net in general.

What is particularly sad about all this is that Hawash isn't the first, and he won't be the last. Could someone tell me the substantive difference between government "A" whose agents arrest someone it doesn't like (for whatever reason), and holds them without recourse to a justice system, and government "B" whose agents arrest someone it doesn't like (for whatever reason), and holds them without recourse to a justice system?

Answer: Government "A" never actually said that its citizens have a right to a speedy trial, right to counsel, protection of habeas corpus, and all those other cumbersome trappings of democracy...
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Posted 14:30 by Mark Federman permanent link


Several people (thanks Paula and Susan) have directed me to this well-written article that recently appeared in the New York Times. It is a thoughtful application of McLuhan's understanding of television to the coverage of the war in Iraq, and notes the interesting reversals that have resulted: TV audience become the weapons and soldiers; soldiers in the literal "theatre of war" become TV audience, watching CNN for live updates.

While the images broadcast via videophones and from the "tank cams" are notably cool - with their grainy, jumpy images reminiscent of a simpler time when communications speeds were far slower than today - the reversals still reflect the overheating of television as a compelling medium in our society, and how it has affected us. Despite the coolness of the transmitted images, CNN, and other all-war-all-the-time broadcasters are doing their best to keep television hot, by continually replaying short clips, for instance. One effect of a hot medium is to induce a trance-like, or hypnotic state; hence it best serves as a vehicle for propaganda.

What? You thought the embedded journalists were showing us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
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Posted 11:18 by Mark Federman permanent link


A bit of a bruhaha raised over at Slashdot yesterday that involves weblogs, language and "Googlewashing." It seems that the relatively conservative/right-leaning The Register registered its objection to the hijacking of the meme "Second Superpower." Apparently, Patrick Tyler, writing in the New York Times on February 17, used this term to capture the influence that the emerging anti-war protests might have on the world's last remaining superpower, namely the United States. Regardless of how one feels about the potency of simultaneous global voices rising more or less in unison, Tyler's meme caught on and was even echoed by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Then, a curious thing happened. James F. Moore wrote a short article entitled The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head and began a weblog. Several well-known bloggers picked up on Moore's article and, because of all the linking that normally accompanies well-followed weblogs, Google searches on the term "second superpower" returned its highest (of over 800) hits linking to Moore's article and blog entries about Moore's article. Patrick Tyler was, alas, left out in the virtual cold. (Would the New York Times Online's policy of requiring registration to access the page have any effect on linking, and consequently, Google PageRank(tm)?)

The Register's columnist, Andrew Orlowski, moaned about how a small cabal of "A-list webloggers" were able to hijack the Google rankings (although none of Orlowski's so-called "A-list" are among the links on the first few pages of the Google search) and hence "Googlewash" the original meaning and intention of the second superpower meme.

Regardless of the common observation that Tyler's usage, and that of Moore, are as Tweedledee is to Tweedledum, there is another interesting observation that can be made here. We tend to pay very close attention to the technologies that enable, enhance or extend our memories. We instill in them tremendous value and importance. Consequently, those people who find their way into mnemonic technologies are considered worthy of note.

Our most common of these technologies is the book. In order to achieve credibility throughout most of the 20th century, it was necessary to be published. Most importantly, one had to be published in a way that was reviewed, either by an editor/editorial board for a book, or by a peer-reviewed journal or juried conference. (By the way, have I mentioned that my book, McLuhan for Managers, will be available, in Canada and online only, this September? Credibility, here I come!)

But we have shifted from a society whose key influences are dominated by literacy, into one that is dominated by the influences of orality. This means that technologies of orality, as explored for instance by Senior McLuhan Fellow Twyla Gibson, are now the mechanisms whereby people and ideas gain their credibility and influence. Google is indeed a retrieval of an oral mnemonic technology. (The GoogleURL, for example, is the medium that retrieves the story of Simonides and the banquet at the court of Skopas, in which Simonides was able to identify the victims of a roof collapse by remembering the place at which each person sat.) In the instance of the "second superpower" meme, Google bestowed relative importance and influence on Moore and his article, despite the fact that it was originally coined, in print by Tyler. Google, in turn, was influenced by the weblogs, once again, a powerful retrieval of a technology characteristic of an oral society.

Does Google have a significant influence on our world? Without a doubt, it has become the de facto index for our collective modern memory. I would be willing to bet that there is not a company, government, NGO, agency or connected individual anywhere in the world that is not influenced, directly or indirectly, by Google's search results. What is then the power of a medium that can influence Google? (As an aside, do we now understand why Google bought Pyra Labs, the maker of Blogger?)

Those who still believe that weblogs are merely an exercise in vanity publishing remain focused on their content, and not their message, that is, the effect that the medium has on us and on society.
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Posted 10:30 by Mark Federman permanent link


Hey, Mother Nature! A joke's a joke, and we know that joking enhances good feelings. But remember - when extended beyond the limit of its potential, joking reverses into bad feelings. So can you please stop with the ice pellets and freezing rain in April? Please?
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Posted 12:55 by Mark Federman permanent link


I recently had occasion to respond to an inquiry about whether I might be able to help facilitate a strategy consulting session with a large international corporation. As it turns out, facilitating connected thinking sessions about strategy is a major part of the consultancy, or rather, anti-consultancy activities of the McLuhan Management Studies unit here at the Program.

The inquirer later declined my services, noting that, "one of your particular areas of speciality is sales related; as I discussed with you, the main thrust of the session is Management Strategy and Strategic Planning, and we have been able to find a facilitator whereby we consider there is a better fit with this particular requirement." My pitch to the company focused on using McLuhan thinking tools and techniques to promote both (McLuhan Program Director Derrick de Kerckhove's) "connected intelligence" collaboration, and new insights and awareness about complex business issues. Thus, it was curious to hear that they had concluded that my "particular area of specialty is sales-related."

Well, as the aphorism goes, "the evil men do live on long after they are gone." In this case, the evil I did might well reside in some relatively ancient writing that appears on my old, personal website. (Actually, there is some not bad stuff there, if I do say so myself!) This little object lesson was actually useful proof for several key tenets of our current research:

(1) One of the effects of the Internet is to create what I call an "ever present presence;" our experience of cyberspace is that everwhere is here, and every-when is now. The person who was "due-ing" their dilligence on me experienced the almost 10-year-old writing as current, and drew their conclusions accordingly.
(2) The person they chose for the assignment apparently had specific, easily-identified experience with strategy and strategic planning, which was nominally the theme of the meeting. But the actual circumstance of the meeting involves considerably more subtle dynamics than mere strategic planning. Multiple business leaders from multiple units around the world, representing diverse corporate and national cultures, must be encouraged to collaborate towards achieving the goal of instituting a significant change in the way the global organization works together. In other words, they hired to the requirements of the job - strategic planning - not necessarily the role - collaboration, anticipating the effects of major change, bridging the effects of diverse cultures.

Taking this approach - hiring for the job as opposed to the role - is not, unfortunately, atypical. Companies often hire according to the job requirements, based on résumé claims, without actually considering the nature and effects of the role the new-hire will be playing, or the corresponding "natural mode" of the individual. This is why many companies typically hire the wrong person for the wrong position. Are you frustrated by, and perhaps even hate, your job? Perhaps you are being asked to work against your natural mode, or play a role for which you are indeed ill-suited, even if you meet the specifications of the job.

McLuhan noted, "in the new age of electric-information, role playing restores leadership as a service environment." Take Today, The Executive as Dropout
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Posted 11:36 by Mark Federman permanent link


The Association for Media Literacy is holding what promises to be an interesting panel on Corporate Media: Issues of Ownership, Control and Cultural Sovereignty. Join the AML on April 9th, from 5:00 to 7:30 p.m. at the National Film Board (150 John St., Toronto) for a tour of the NFB’s new facilities and a panel discussion of corporate power and the media. (The tour will take place at 5:00; the panel discussion will begin at 5:30 p.m.)

Panelists include: Barrie Zwicker, media critic and founder of Sources;
Gordon Pitt, Globe and Mail business reporter and author of the critically acclaimed book Kings of Convergence: The Fight for Control of Canada’s Media; and Trina McQueen, former president of CTV and the Discovery network, and former Vice President of Programming for the CBC.

Admission is free for AML Members. Non-members' admission is $10; students, $5. For more information, call 416-233-8282.
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Posted 17:29 by Mark Federman permanent link


Over at Joi Ito's blog, he points to a wonderful Flash animation from cartoonist Mark Fiore called Liberation. It answers the question, "So how is Afghanistan faring now that it's been liberated?" Well worth the click-thru!
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Posted 15:48 by Mark Federman permanent link


Yes, that really is snow in our Blog Pic of the Day. Mother Nature played an April Fool's joke on Toronto by providing us with a nice white blanket for early spring. Ha ha ha...

The April fools who recently removed Peter Arnett and Geraldo Rivera from active reporting duty in Iraq were attempting to maintain tight control of the news coming from the battlefield. Unfortunately, they did not contemplate the reversal effects: By taking such drastic action, NBC (for Arnett) and the Pentagon (for Rivera) emphasize that embedded journalists are not quite free to report news that does not serve the American interests. Does this, perchance, mean that the there may be a patriotic reporting bias that governs the coverage (he asks innocently...)?

What is the purpose of television reportage in Iraq? Our obvious answer is, "to inform the public about what is occurring during the war." But, of course, very few people are convinced that what we see 24 hours a day, 7 days a week across the various news networks is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Actually, the truth is information, that is "in formation" - more or less made up as we go along according to how the action on the battlefields is progressing.

Television today is very much a political medium. We understand that obviously from its use during election campaigns. Less obvious is its use to convey politically-influenced messages, that would, for example, lend White House support and funding to the "war on drugs" or an anti-tobacco campaign via TV scripts. Today, the embedded journalists' role seems to be to reinforce patriotic feelings back home, and, as much as possible, support the mythologies that provide the justification for this war. If there is an Iraqi receiving food, water or medicine, we'll see it, live. If there is an Iraqi waving the Stars and Stripes, we'll definitely see it. Iraqis waving AK-47s or holding American POWs? Such an event is not news, it is "providing comfort to, and abetting, the enemy."

Whether that is true is arguable. It most certainly provides discomfort to the American public, and thereby, to the Pentagon and the White House.
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