| This dissertation is an intellectual history and critical analysis of medium theory investigations of communication technologies. The more common approaches to viewing technology as savior or slayer are a consequence of the technological sublime in our time of technological saturation. It is argued that the way to break out of this technological sublime-induced grand dichotomy is to follow the lead of medium theorists who investigate the unintended consequences of a particular medium on consciousness and culture, and to follow the lead of marxists who place technological developments within the larger dynamic of a system based on the drive for profit.; Intellectual influences and theoretical implications of the work of prominent scholars such as Harold Adams Innis, Herbert Marshall McLuhan, Joshua Meyrowitz, James Carey, Walter Ong, and Neil Postman are analyzed throughout the dissertation. The main contribution of medium theorists has been their ability to analyze the impact of unintended consequences of a particular medium on consciousness and culture; their collective weakness has been a tendency to slight important social factors such as the drive for profit, inequality, and class. To correct this problem, it is argued that medium theory should be merged with an activist marxist tradition. A synthesis of activist marxism and medium theory, it is argued, will give to marxist scholars a better sense of unintended consequences and to medium theorists a better sense of the drive for profit, inequality, and class.; Finally, it is argued that scholarship in general, and marxist/medium theory scholarship in particular, is most fruitful when scholars are actively aware of, and engaged in, significant struggles of the day. Just as activist marxists argue for theoretically informed activism, scholarship would benefit from activist informed theory. It is at the point of praxis, theory informed action and action informed theory, that thought and action converge to enhance understanding of our world and to make the world a better place. |
