Las leyes de los medios

This text ennontiates and explains the four laws of the media which analyze the evolution and the genealogy of every form of human communication.Ce texte analyse les quatre lois des média que analysent l’évolution et la généalogie de toutes les formes de la communication humaine

Marshall McLuhan's Theory of Communication: The Yegg

In this paper the methodological implications arising from Marshall McLuhan's classic refrains - "I don't have A Theory of Communication" and "I don't use theories in my work" - are discussed. Absent a theory, the other way to work is by observation and investigative technique: first the evidence; then later, much later, the theory - if indeed one is necessary by then. Without a theory as a guide McLuhan was influenced by artists and poets in developing the analytical and conceptual tools he relied upon to examine media and communication. He referred to his procedure as starting with a problem and digging into the toolkit for something to open the matter up for elucidation. Chief among his tools of analysis was Practical Criticism, which he viewed as a kind of critic's Swiss- Army Knife that worked equally incisively across all of the arts and through all areas of culture, from high-brow to low. The argument that emerges from this analysis of McLuhan's investigative techniques is that many of the conundrums of modern media and culture are understood most effectively through research that transcends the constraints imposed by seeking to make the case for or against the truth of a particular theory. Begin with theory, you begin with the answer; begin with observation, you begin with questions

St. Thomas Aquinas, Dramatist?

The article begins with the statement that there is one aspect of St Thomas’s work that has not received due scrutiny as a literary form, one with solid dramatic qualities and structure: the Article. The Article is as Thomistic as the syllogism is Aristotelian. This particular mode of argument was evidently original with St. Thomas: he did not derive it from the work of any other writer, yet its inner movement is of the essence of dialectic, from the opening proposition to opposing objections, then “to the contrary” position as found in orthodoxy, and then the writer’s resolution, and so on. It is a variation on the classic sic-et-non, a reasonable, balanced to and fro of the sort beloved by disputants. No parallel or even parody of this Article is to be found in any known literature before or since the thirteenth century. The author aims to show that part of the sheer power of the Article resides in the fact that it has two levels of operation. The surface is composed of the dialectical to-and-fro adumbrated above. But under that surface lies a rhetorical structure constructed along the lines of the five divisions of the rhetorical logos as laid out by Cicero and Horace

City as Classroom: Then, Now, Next

City as Classroom arrived in the 1970s and plunged the user into what has subsequently become known as inquiry-based learning. The technique of asking openended questions used then was much freer than inquiry nowadays. No answers were given at the back of the book; this disturbed teachers at the time. Now, a great many schools and boards are adopting the inquiry-based approach and trying to adapt it to existing procedures: an awkward fit, a round peg in a square hole. The next phase of educational development will see the student becoming more actively involved in testing, gaming, and working as an environmental activist with regard to innovations and technologies of communication—all as an integral part of the learning process