Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

PDF Link: Annotated Bibliography

Levinson, Paul. Digital McLuhan: A guide to the information millennium. Routledge, 2003.

In this book, the author concludes that the obscure theories presented by McLuhan in old era could be applied to the modern digital society. He tried to user this book to provide guiding and orientation to the digital era. The author’s argumentation shows that the soft and dialectical criticism to the McLuhan’s theories of medium. The philosophy research methods for the McLuhan’s theories included anthroposophy which emphasize the person is the host of the medium to create the content of medium and have selective abilities. The emphasizing on the people who could run functions in the medium transmission process provide useful resources to the study of people who play essential roles in the medium.

Meyrowitz, Joshua. “We liked to watch: Television as progenitor of the surveillance society.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 625.1 (2009): 32-48.

Meyrowitz argued that in the modern society the changes of medium would bring lots of influences to the changes of society, the changes of society would lead to the changes of human’s physical actions or phycological presentation. Especially in the electronic medium, the author asserted that it could effectively and dynamically bring lots of influences to the audiences. The author systematically connect the medium the changes of the society and human’s actions and analyzed the relationship between the variable media circumstances and human’s behavior from dynamic aspect. The essentials of the author’s argument is put the changes of audiences’ behavior into the medium situation analysis. I will use this article to provide and support and examples to show the medium did have vital effects to the human’s behavior. 

Postman, Neil. Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show business. Penguin, 2006.

The part 1 of this book reported the related meaning to the McLuhan’s theories of media and his own understanding to the signified implication of medium is the messages. The author’s unique interpretation included every kind of medium provide new platform for consideration, presentation and emotional expression. Through this extent analysis, the author asserted the specific medium could create particular symbols and characters. In fact, he pointed out the medium is similar to the metaphor that could help us to define the media world through hidden and effective ways. The theories of medium is metaphor presented by author are really useful for the paradigm of analyzing for the function of medium that vividly present the media world where we can controlled and influenced by it.

Stevenson, Nick. Understanding media cultures: Social theory and mass communication. Sage, 2002.

According to the argument in the chapter 4 in this book, the author explained the the most significant part of the medium is that special and effective transmission methods rather than the carried culture or social problems. However, the author thought that culture is transmitted by the the mass communication medium. The research of mass communication medium could relate to other respects of the society and different communicated medium could change social and interpersonal relationships. The book suggested the diversified of medium culture could set up a profound meaning to the mass communication area. The study about  presentative form of medium can be applied to the study of transmission pattern of medium. 

Wasser, Frederick. “Current views of McLuhan.” Journal of Communication 48.3 (1998): 146-152.

In this short paper, Wasser examined the deep connotation and profound understanding of five published books about the theories of McLuhan. Through diversified perspective and various observation angles, the author gave his comments which represent fair analysis and objective attitude to the different argument about the theories of McLuhan. Although these five books pointed out that the effects of McLuhan’s theories has lead the trends of research methods about mass communication influences. Some of them regard McLuhan as a linguist, or literate analyst even poet. The major interpretations and reviews for these papers revealed the deliberate re-thinking about the essential point of McLuhan’s theories. The reliance on the rational thought about the numerous scholar discussions provided a deep and continuous thinking to the new meaning of McLuhan’s theories in the changeable media background. The positive and affirmative comments for McLuhan’s research methods have significant implications and useful reference.