The Tribal Age: An Acoustic Place in History

The Tribal Age: An Acoustic Place in History

 

In this age, the senses of hearing, touch, taste and smell were far more strongly developed than the ability to visualize. It encourages high involvement, passion, and spontaneity in interactions.

According to McLuhan, the tribal village was an acoustic place where the senses of hearing, touch, and smell were developed far beyond the ability to visualize. In untamed settings, hearing is more valuable than seeing because it allows you to be more immediately aware of your surroundings. With sight, we are limited to direction and distance. We can only sense what is clearly in front of us.

Communication is most likely to be difficult because this is nothing but mouth and gestures. Somehow, communication in Tribal Era was more meaningful just like when our ancestors tell stories and pass it to the different generation of the family.  Listening to someone speak in the group is a unifying act. Everyone hears at the same time and everyone can enjoy it at the same time.

Spoken words or ideas are only alive when uttered and we can deeply feel the thoughts when we hear it. We can understand things when we hear it. Hearing gives us freedom of interpretation and perception.

McLuhan claimed that “primitive” people led richer and more complex lives than their literate descendants because the ear, unlike the eye, encourages a more holistic sense of the world. There is a deeper feeling of community and greater awareness of the surrounding existence. The acoustic environment also fosters more passion and spontaneity. In that world of surround sound, everything is more immediate, more present, and more actual.

To know more about Tribal Age here's the clip made by Chard Ampo (Jan 8,2017)

Introduction to the Evolution of Media

The Evolution of Media is unique in that it treats both mass media and interpersonal media. The evolution of media, from old media to new media, has transformed the way we understand the world around us. New media is interactive and is user-generated while old media is a more traditional way of communicating through television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, etc. (Lecture Notes. January 12, 2011).

The evolution of media is continuing to develop with much new and efficient way of entertaining. The rise and fall of each evolution is always in motion.

According to McLuhan, it’s not technological abnormality that demands our attention, since it’s hard not to notice the new and different. Instead, we need to focus on our everyday experience of technology. A medium shapes us because we partake of it over and over until it becomes an extension of ourselves. Because every medium emphasizes different senses and encourages different habits, the engaging medium day after day conditions the senses to take in some stimuli and not register others.

The evolution of the media has been fraught with concerns and problems. Accusations of mind control, bias, and poor quality have been thrown at the media on a regular basis. Yet the growth of communications technology allows people today to find more information more easily than any previous generation. Mass media can be print, radio, television, or Internet news. They can be local, national, or international. They can be broad or limited in their focus. The choices are tremendous. (LumenLearning)

Complexity of Environments

In the “An Inconvenient Truth”, Gore offers scientific evidence that the planet is experiencing a critical change in climate. Even when global warming skeptics grudgingly admit a rise in average temperature, they suggest that there is no direct relationship between this change in climate change and the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses from human activities.

A MEDIA ANALYSIS OF HUMAN HISTORY

McLuhan was critical of social observers who analyzed the Western world but bypassed the effects of symbolic environments – be they oral, print, or electronic. He specifically accused modern scholars of being “ostrich-like” in refusing to acknowledge the revolutionary impact of electronic media on the sensory experience of contemporary society.

In the figure above, McLuhan divided all human history into four (4) periods, or epochs – a tribal age, literate age, print age, and an electronic age.

The Different Kinds of Ages in Media Evolution

1.    The Tribal Age: An Acoustic Place in History

2.    The Age of Literacy: A Visual Point of View

3.    The Print Age: Prototype of Industrial Evolution

4.    The Electronic Age: The Rise of Global Village

5.    The Digital Age: Rewiring the Global Village

6.    Ethical Reflection: Postman’s Faustian Bargain