A Comparative Study About Mcluhan's And Debray's View Of Media

Culture can not be separated from communication,and the rapid development of communication technology has sharply renewed the media's ability to intervene in cultural resources.Nowadays,under the circumstance of Internet and new media technology redefining human communication,it is more meaningful to think about the realistic trends of culture from the media than think about the tool use of media from the perspective of culture.In academic circles,Mcluhan's and Debray's media theory are the typical example of cultural and social effect influence of media technology,therefore,they were selected as the author's comparative study subjects.Comparing the similarities and differences between Mcluhan's and Debray's media thoughts,it provides a very important theoretical reference for us to clarify the relationship between media and civilization.This article spreads from the following aspects: first of all,the author tries to start from two aspects of Mcluhan's and Debray's life background and theoretical origin to grasp the construction path of the two party's media theory;secondly,from the perspective of "Pan media theory",we compare two men's different definitions of media concept,and analyze two different choices of media technology in the form of single or plural form and space-time bias that result in different mechanisms of media on culture;thirdly,by comparing two people's stage of the history of civilization which takes the media as a sign of the times,we analyse the dissimilarity of about the relationship between man and technology given by the two in the course of the evolution of media;fouthly,investigating subject and spirit's absolute position of the two people in the two opposing propositions beyond the thinking / existence,then turning to discuss the effect of the impact of media technology itself,the research tendency,which is balance or subversion,resulting in a different understanding of the essence of civilization.Finally,the following conclusions are drawn.By comparing the similarities and differences between the two media views,the author believes that the development of media is an important symbol of the evolution of civilization,if we want to clarify the relationship system between media and civilization,we should cross over the mindset that simply regards technology as a neutral carrier or channel of transmission,and regard media as an influence mechanism and the power of change at the first.On the one hand,media,which is the carrier of civilization,is the record container,storage center and transmission network that make the thought's across-temporal inheritance possible;on the other hand,the arrangement of form is an important unit of civilization,the characteristics and deviations of the media determine the presentation and organization of information,shaping the individual psychology and collective consciousness,and adjusting social relations and power structure.At the same time,technological structure corresponds to institutional system and organizational behavior,cultural characteristics determine the variability of media effects,and media order is also a product of political culture.In a word,culture and technology interact as both cause and effect,which are independent and activated of each other.