Effects of Audio

As I shape and refine my working/learning practices over the online workshop ‘Personal Knowledge Mastery‘, I have also discovered a sense-making tool, which Harold Jarche shares in this blog post: McLuhan’s media tetrad. New to me.

“I use Marshall and Eric McLuhan’s laws of media to ask better questions about how technology affects those who use it.

In the following presentation I have put together a number of tetrads, or hypotheses on the possible impact of social media, the internet, and other technologies.

In summary, the laws of media state that every medium (technology) extends a human property, obsolesces the previous medium (& makes it a luxury good), retrieves a much older medium & reverses its properties when pushed to its limits.”

One of the activities of the online workshop is to examine technology while using McLuhan Tetrad. Below is my take on one technology: audio.

This fun and thoughtful activity enables me to see audio technology with fresh eyes.

As an avid listener of podcasts on the go, I was not thinking about how it relates to other past and today’s technologies and their impacts on the world. The same thinking can be applied to smart speakers when I experimented and mulled over their automation.

Harold also asks this question for this activity:

“Would this kind of perspective be helpful in making business decisions or where to invest your energy?“

My energy is still invested in podcasts. Filtering the quality and what’s in it for me, each podcast takes exploration, effort and time.

After sharing this blog post in the private space of the online workshop, Harold commented with his analysis on the effects of the same medium:

“Here’s another tetrad for you, Rotana (you can make several on the same medium):
Medium: electric audio
Extends: our listening
Obsolesces: live performances
Retrieves: the salon
Reverses into: eavesdropping by the surveillance economy”