Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 24, No 2 (1999)

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Abstracting the Later McLuhan: Television's Cool Role in the Creation of the Global Village

Michael Antecol (Stanford University)

Abstract: Television, for many, is still the ultimate in electric progress. If it is bringing the changes hypothesized by McLuhan, how exactly is it achieving these ends? How does participation in the medium of television effect changes in viewers, and therefore society? How does the involvement necessary to "fill in the gaps" lead to changes in behaviour at a level most are not even aware of ? This paper attempts to answer those questions as follows: first, by ascertaining how the global village may actually be developing by relying on the ideas of Joshua Meyrowitz, Erving Goffman, and Edward Hall; second, by drawing a link between watching television and interpersonal interaction; and, finally, by explaining why viewers pay attention to television in the first place.

Résumé: Pour plusieurs, la télévision demeure l'exemple ultime de progrès électrique. Si elle est en train d'inaugurer les changements anticipés par McLuhan, comment précisément est-elle en train d'atteindre ce but? Comment la participation au médium qu'est la télévision change-t-elle les téléspectateurs et, par extension, la société? Comment l'implication nécessaire de la part des spectateurs pour "combler les trous télévisuels" mène-t-elle à des changements de comportement dont la plupart ne sont même pas conscients? Cet article essaie de répondre à ces questions de la manière suivante: d'abord, en évaluant comment le village global est en train de se développer, recourant pour ce faire aux idées de Joshua Meyrowitz, Erving Goffman et Edward Hall; deuxièmement, en reliant l'activité de regarder la télévision et l'interaction personnelle; et enfin, en expliquant pourquoi les spectateurs portent attention à la télévision en premier lieu.

Introduction

Television is cool. Print is hot. Hot is the past. Cool is the future.

The hot medium of the phonetic alphabet is the basis upon which Western society was built; it is past. From the semantically meaningless letters that correspond to equally meaningless sounds, a hot visual society developed out of the tactile-auditory societies that existed in pre-phonetic eras. Phonetic language is hot because it extends one sense, the visual, in high definition at the exclusion of others. As such, it is low in participation because all of the essential information is provided to that one sense. The extension of the visual sense, in turn, led to linearity of thought. With the Gutenburg innovation, the visual society was extended through mechanical repeatability with the result that the printed book intensified linearity, fixed perspectives, and definite points of view (McLuhan, 1994). It is at this point that space came to be seen as visual, uniform, and continuous. It was something to be conquered: the continual improvements of linear-based mechanical technologies led to perpetual expansion and centre-periphery arrangements. The same is true of time (Hall, 1981; McLuhan, 1994). The Gutenberg advance became the vanguard of all future mechanical advances; subsequent mechanical innovations represented linear expansions of our physical bodies with the unspoken goal of almost complete uniformity, repeatability, separation, and specialization of function. As Marshall McLuhan (1994) stated, "socially, the typographic extension of man brought in nationalism, industrialism, mass markets and universal literacy and education" (p. 172).1 But exclusive emphasis on the visual sense also led to the disassociation of human sensibilities. Western man gained the ability to be detached and uninvolved in the world. It became possible to act without reacting (McLuhan, 1994).

Electric technology is "contradiction," it is the future. With its advent, the overall pattern of development has been radically changed because "the American stake in literacy as a technology of uniformity applied to every level of education, government, industry and social life is totally threatened by the electrical technology" (McLuhan, 1994, p. 17). It is a threat to phonetic literacy because, as extensions of our nervous systems rather than our corporeal bodies, it turns man inside out. For that reason these technologies are, in contrast to the linear-mechanical ones, all encompassing, organismic, circular, tactile, emotional, and affective. In that sense they are cool media: there is low-definition input to all the senses rather than just one, meaning information is necessarily incomplete. This leaves the participant to fill in the gaps. As such, these new technologies must, by necessity, lead to unstoppable changes to individual and societal thinking and behaviour. Progress in this direction will continue with or without permission or consciousness of the effects it will bring to society.2

McLuhan hypothesized that those changes would lead to implosion, not explosion. The world, he said, would fall in on itself. The globe would become joined through the blood system of electric wires that would shrink the planet into a single community with an all-inclusive nowness. Through implosion people on one side of the globe become the brothers and sisters of people on the other side of the globe. And a smaller world obviates time, its relevance no longer important to a worldwide society where nothing or no one ever stops. The entire world is awake as all of it sleeps. Time and space become timelessness and spacelessness. The global village, based on a single consciousness in the oral tradition, emerges. Mankind becomes committed regardless of point of view because mankind itself becomes our skin (McLuhan, 1994). As society returns to the tribal, man's behaviour must mirror that pattern.

Television, for many, remains the ultimate in this electric progress. It is the ultimate because, unlike the newer computer technologies, far more people have televisions, and those who do not (e.g., in the developing world) are likely to purchase one before they buy a computer. But if television is bringing the changes hypothesized by McLuhan, how exactly is it achieving these ends? How does participation in the medium effect changes in viewers, and therefore society? How does the involvement necessary to "fill in the gaps" lead to changes in behaviour at a level most are not even aware of ? This paper will attempt to answer these questions as follows: first, by ascertaining how the global village may actually be developing by relying on the ideas of Joshua Meyrowitz, Erving Goffman, and Edward Hall; second, by drawing a link between watching television and interpersonal interaction; and, finally, by explaining why viewers pay attention to television in the first place. This focus necessitates a concentration on McLuhan's later work, namely, Understanding Media, and on only one side of the dialectic between cultural studies and political economy. Notions of political economy are recognized but are not considered in detail here.

The global village: Living in a placeless and spaceless world

Frames and situational behaviour defined McLuhan (1994) argued that the previous mechanical technologies based upon visual linearity had made man essentially physically and socially static. Electric technology, however, was seen as the catalyst toward an interconnected, organismic, and holistic global village. Television, as the still-current ultimate ideal of electric technology, can achieve this end because it can radically and permanently alter situational definitions and their consequent behaviours. At some point in the future, as the global village takes shape, situational definitions and behaviours around the world should take on a unified quality. Medium theorist Joshua Meyrowitz (1985) explained this phenomenon as follows:

As "information-systems" rather than physical settings, a society's set of social situations can be modified without building or removing walls and corridors and without changing customs and laws concerning access to places. The introduction and widespread use of a new medium of communication may restructure a broad range of situations and require new sets of social performances. (p. 39)

Situational definitions, or framing, is an idea of sociologist Erving Goffman. He hypothesized that in every physical and place-based situation, all the individuals contained therein will ask themselves "What is it that's going on here?" (Goffman, 1974, p. 4).3 They will try to answer the question by framing the situation in a manner that makes the interpersonal encounter understandable. Similarly, every time the situation shifts, an individual will have to shift frames appropriately.

Frames allow a quick and easy way to put useful personal and social meanings to events. They can be defined as

sets of cues that people use to organize experiences or situations.... [T]he cues (i.e., pieces of information) that make up the frame may be derived from such diverse cues as spoken words used in a family, public school images, television images, and religious concepts. Frames are social or personal definitions of situations that are used to organize actions in those situations. (Davis & Baran, 1981, p. 69)

The chosen frame will not only dictate the appropriate rules and roles of each situation, but the requisite situational behaviour as well. These rules and roles will also generally define the information-flow that takes place among the contained individuals. Thus, situational behaviour and information-flow are determined as much by those who are included as those excluded because the boundaries and barriers that are inherent in physical and place-based locations tend to include certain people at the expense of others. For example, if a person is among "friends" he/she will behave differently and receive different information from a situation where he/she is among his/her "enemies." Further, because most situations occur in a physical location, when the location changes so too does the situation.

Every person in a situation expects that the others contained therein will frame the situation appropriately. For example, a secretary would not expect his / her boss to misframe a workplace situation by engaging in sexual innuendos.4 Each individual in a situation can aid the others by providing necessary cues in order to induce appropriate behaviour. Further, in most situations, other social norms will also exert pressure on individuals to control fear, sexual attraction, and anger despite the presence of any cues that might lead to such a framing (Davis & Baran, 1981). Still, it may not always be possible to exactly frame each situation. There may be vagueness where a question exists as to "what it is that's going on" or uncertainty where it is unclear which of two or more things are possibly occurring (Goffman, 1974). When vagueness or uncertainty occurs, an expert is usually called on to provide interpretation and thereby restore order to the process.5 Thus, if framing difficulties do occur, they tend to be only temporary in nature.

Despite the seeming complexity of the framing process, Goffman (1974) argued that such irregularities were unlikely in interpersonal communication because ordinarily "what the participants bring (and are known to bring) of their past involvements to the current one, as well as the context of gestures, and objects in the current environment, combine to rule out all effectively different meanings" (p. 441). The framing process is intuitive, becoming a problem only when not done correctly. Indeed, Meyrowitz (1985) stated that little conscious effort "is needed to adapt to most situational definitions within a culture because, at any given time, a society's situations tend to be highly conventionalized and finite in number, rather than idiosyncratic and infinite" (p. 25). Accordingly, in a physical and placed-based society, social life is based primarily on a relatively static social system. In the stasis created by the difficulties in overcoming both physical and social place, rules regarding proper situational framing can be developed and maintained in space, over time (Davis & Baran, 1981; see also McLuhan, 1994).

Frames, situational behaviour, and television

Any society has a series of frames which it uses in an attempt to govern the behaviour of its citizens. The physical and social environments force certain frames to be drawn to account for certain activities, "that manner of doing things that is `appropriate' to a given age, sex, class and so forth" (Goffman, 1974, p. 290; see also p. 562). These frames constitute a main element of a society's culture and for that reason the consequent behaviours are culture specific (Goffman, 1974). Individuals receive these frameworks as part of the socialization process: they adapt to social life by learning our culture's stock of situational definitions (Meyrowitz, 1985). Individuals have most definitions mastered by adulthood, but it remains an ongoing process.

If frames of a society do constitute a main element of that society's culture, how can those essentially static frames be changed? The social anthropologist Edward Hall proposed a complementary three-pronged theory that demonstrates how frames and situational behaviours are learned by individuals within a society and, therefore, how they can be changed. His triad of learning involved formal, technical, and informal aspects. Formal learning is accomplished by precept and admonition. When a mistake is made it will be corrected by someone without any reason for the correction. It is a binary form of learning with all elements being either right or wrong based on how things have been done in the past. Technical learning is accomplished in the same manner except that here a reason is given for the change. This is the type of learning that should happen in a classroom. Of more importance here, though, is informal learning. This type of learning is accomplished through unconscious vicarious imitation where whole clusters of related activities and /or behaviours are learned at one time. A sport like baseball is an excellent example: one learns both actions and behaviours by example. Once these activities and behaviours are learned they become automatic to such a degree that if a person becomes aware of them, that awareness often hinders the activity and /or behaviour (Hall, 1981). Essentially, then, it would be consistent to argue that the framing process, as set out above, is learned informally and vicariously.

Every culture is made up of a core of formal behaviour patterns around which informal adaptations occur, the core being supported by technical props (Hall, 1981). But changes occur in a culture's overall pattern of frames because small adaptations are made vicariously and unconsciously every day through informal learning when new situations and behaviours are observed and imitated. If those adaptations prove positive in some respect they become actual changes which are technalized in the culture.6 It is here then, in the area of out-of-awareness informal and vicarious adaptations, that changes take root which eventually lead to overall cultural changes.

Today, television is providing an incredible amount of new frames and situational behaviour for vicarious observation and imitation. Never before have so many been available for experience. It can accomplish this because, as a medium of communication, it was the first to truly overcome the physical and space-based limitations of a print-oriented society. The nature of the medium has lessened the need for physical presence and direct experience. These are not as necessary when a person can "actually" see and hear other places and peoples. Meyrowitz (1985) wrote: "Whether or not one fully accepts that television viewing is equivalent to `first hand experience,' it is clear that television ... [has] greatly changed the significance of physical presence in the experience of social events" (p. vii).

Television accomplishes these changes in two basic ways. First, television blurs the distinctness between situational behaviours. Generally, when two or more situations are distant in terms of time and space, the more individuals can vary their behaviour from one situation to the other; the converse is also true. The reason for this lies in the fact that "social reality does not exist in the sum of people's behaviors, but in the overall pattern of situated behaviors. Therefore, when the dividing line between two distinct situations is moved or removed, social reality will change" (Meyrowitz, 1985, p. 42). For example, the ability to accept a person, a teacher perhaps, in their particular role depends on a lack of knowledge of them in other situations; it becomes harder for students to accept the authority of their teachers if television constantly portrays teachers outside of the classroom as "regular" people without any inherent power. Second, television affects situational definitions because it bypasses traditional boundaries of information-flow: "Those aspects of group identity, socialization, and hierarchy that were once dependent on physical locations and the special experiences available in them have been altered by the electronic media" (Meyrowitz, 1985, p. 125). For example, individuals within the same socio-economic group generally have access to similar kinds of situations, each of which provides a specific type of information-flow that regulates behaviour. It is not usually possible for the member of one group to have access to situations of others in different socio-economic echelons. However, television bypasses the traditional boundaries which kept the two tiers separate, thereby allowing each to have access to the previously "private" situations of the other. Gary Hart's withdrawal from the 1984 American presidential race is symptomatic of all tiers of society gaining access, primarily through television, to the heretofore closed private lives of another tier. Likewise, in Great Britain, television is responsible, to a large extent, for the continuing "annus horribilus" of the Royal Family: the private lives of the House of Windsor members have been aired for all to see. These two changes give viewers quicker or more thorough access to new information-flows, situations, and behaviours.

Through the presentation of both real and fictional events, television removes the barriers of physical and social place. This occurrence leads to certain societal effects which can be summarized in a fourfold typology (Meyrowitz, 1985). First, previously distinct varieties of content become homogenized as all groups become exposed to similar material through television which in turn forces the medium to produce content catering to the combined audience. Second, the new situational behaviours caused by television are in turn depicted in program content. Third, the content of programs changes to include the new information that was initially made available by television. Finally, the print media are forced to adopt the standards of the electronic media in determining their form and content. In the end,

television not only affects the behaviors and perceptions of those actually exposed on television; it also changes the general notion of appropriate behavior among many of those who view television....[This new medium], therefore, not only affect[s] the way people behave, but [it] eventually affect[s] the way people feel they should behave. (Meyrowitz, 1985, pp. 174-175)7

Thus, in the 1992 and 1996 presidential election, infidelity was a non-issue. It can be argued that Bill Clinton was able to benefit from Gary Hart's indiscretion as well as those of numerous others: through television, Americans came to regard infidelity as an acceptable behaviour, at least on the part of politicians. Similarly, whether Prince Charles ever serves as Great Britain's monarch depends to a large extent on whether the British will come to accept, through perpetual television frames, that marital breakdowns and infidelity are part of even a king's life.

As a result of this access to new social situations and the consequent reshaped social identities, individuals are forced to develop new situational frames to deal with the new experiences, those frames usually also coming from television. Therefore, the consequences of watching television lie beyond the realm of mere content, be it of high or low cultural value. Here, the medium is the message. As McLuhan (1994) stated: "For the `message' of any medium or technology is the change in scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs" (p. 8). Because television promotes new behaviours by providing new situations that were previously not available for experience, the content of a particular program is not as relevant as the portrayal of how one should frame and behave in a particular situation. So, for example, within a variety of programming formats, American television provides demonstrations to Americans of acceptable social behaviours such as how to kiss, smoke, dance, and dress; but, more importantly, it provides cues concerning when those behaviours are acceptable. American viewers will, through this process, develop new individual frames for situations they may encounter in everyday life. These new frames are then actually used in everyday life with either positive or negative repercussions. If they are positively reinforced by others, the new frames will be continued to be used; if not, the new frames will be re-evaluated.8 But the process is perpetual: if an individual receives negative feedback from the use of a television-induced frame, but then sees the same frame again presented on television, that individual may not be disinclined to stop using the particular frame. It is through these behavioural shifts that American culture can change.9

The emerging global village

The above generally deals with how the electronic media may affect one particular society. That commonness has historically been nation-specific as media systems were usually nation-bound, such as those of England and France, due to language and regulatory barriers (Sidel & McMane, 1995). However, by means of transnational television programming received through cable and satellite transmission, it is now possible for one nation to "enter" the space of another nation. This further blurring of physical place means the common experience of one nation, theoretically, could become the common experience of another nation. For purposes of explication, some effects of American television programming on Canadian culture can be considered here.

Canada is somewhat unique in that it has faced this problem since the birth of radio; most Canadians were able to receive American over-the-air transmissions as they lived within 100 miles of the border. As a result, Canada has had a long experience with living inside the media-based collective imagination of the United States (Lorimer & McNulty, 1991). Canadians are able to develop new frames through exposure to both Canadian and American television sources. Nevertheless, despite this availability of both sources of programming, Canadians have always turned, in far greater numbers, to American programming, whether that be on American stations or the Canadian stations that carry U.S. programming. Indeed, 75% of all programming viewed in Canada is foreign produced (Surlin et al., 1987). Accordingly, Canadian viewers will encounter many more of the new American frames for new American situations as well as their consequent behaviours which can then be used as potential frames to take back into their everyday encounters. However, Canadian situational behaviours do not mirror American ones as they developed when physical and place-based differentiation was possible.10 As a result, when American television frames are taken by individual Canadians into everyday Canadian situations, it causes friction to result. Ultimately, however, if those American media frames come to be prevalent in Canadian society, they will come to replace Canadian frames, thereby changing Canadian behaviour. It is through this process -- the Americanization of situational behaviours -- that Canadian culture can be affected by American television.

As an example, Tate & Trach (1979) found that Canadians who relied on American television portrayals of courtroom practice received information different from the actual Canadian practice. The authors point to this as one aspect of the Americanization of Canadian culture. However, the issue is not one of merely misidentifying the proper practice of lawyers in the Canadian court system as Americans were similarly misinformed about their own court system. Rather, the important fact seems to be that individuals who watch American television depictions of courtroom and legal activity take away from those programs a new way to frame the legal system and the various roles within it. For example, when an individual now hires a lawyer to deal with a specific legal matter, he /she will frame the lawyer's activities according to the television portrayal: he /she will expect the lawyer to behave according to the television frames. When that individual happens to be Canadian, he /she will be bringing American television frames to Canadian situations. Again, this is the real Americanization.

This is not meant to suggest a strictly one-way process. Although American media products have infiltrated many countries, satellite and cable capabilities should eventually allow all countries to penetrate all others. Obviously this has not happened as of yet. Still, the possibility for a seamless web of experience exists as does the chance for a true global village.

Television's link with interpersonal communications

Despite the fact that individuals see and hear new social and physical places across vast distances in the comfort of their own home, many viewers come to believe that they actually "know" the places and people they have visited. Again, irrespective of the actual content, the more the viewers come to believe they know the characters, the more the frames and situational behaviours used by the characters should influence the viewers. However, it is not particularly difficult for viewers to get to "know" the characters because everyday interpersonal communication frames are used to code the television representations (Davis & Baran, 1981). This process is aided through television's ability to promote parasocial interaction, in part through the use of nonverbal communication. These are set out below.

Parasocial interaction

Many social scientists and social philosophers find it odd to study a one-sided pseudo-relationship between media personalities and their audience. Academics who take this view have generally been disdainful of the mass media (Schudson, 1982). Somewhat typical is this declaration by Cirino (1971): "Mass Media Man cannot personally interact with the events or people he `meets' through the media as they `visit' his living-room or apartment. He may become very involved with what he sees, hears or reads about via the mass media, but no actual participation occurs" (p. 30). Likewise, Avery & McCain (1982) argued that the seven modalities important for communication (e.g., audio verbal, audio non-verbal, visual verbal, visual pictorial, olfactory, tactile, and taste) were necessarily incomplete with respect to viewing television. Therefore, they argued that a media-person encounter could never be equivalent to an interpersonal encounter and, as such, should not be placed on a continuum with interpersonal communication for the purpose of study.

While it is no doubt true that not all modalities are present, Michael Schudson (1982) argued that such interpretations place interpersonal communication on an undeserved pedestal. That pedestal is an idealized view of two-way communication which includes the following preconditions: continuous feedback between people in a face-to-face setting, multichannel perception, spontaneous utterances, and equality among the participants. However, Schudson pointed out that such an ideal has never in fact existed and that such a notion only came into existence with the development of mass media. Thus, he argued, to hold the media to a standard that does not exist, and that they helped to create, is cynical. Further, and perhaps more importantly, one must see as the audience sees, meaning, as Thomas & Thomas (1928) stated, if the audience defines the situation as real, it is real in its consequences.

Horton & Wohl (1976) were the first to deal explicitly with such pseudo-relationships. They argued that television is able to accomplish such parasocial relationships because, as a medium, it gives the illusion of a face-to-face relationship with the performer (see also Horton & Strauss, 1957; Meyrowitz, 1982; Nordlund, 1978). It is intimacy at a distance. Television characters, whatever their particular station in their fictional life, are encountered as if they were members of the viewers' social group: "Even among `average' people, the para-social relationship takes its place among daily live interactions with friends, family, and associates. Indeed, `real' friends often discuss the antics of their para-social friends" (Meyrowitz, 1985, p. 120). The characters are seen as real friends and viewers come to believe they actually know them.11

Horton & Wohl recognized, though, that there was an essential difference between parasocial interaction and actual communication. Nevertheless, they saw parasocial interaction as containing elements of both interpersonal and vicarious interaction (Horton & Wohl, 1976; see also Horton & Strauss, 1957). The latter type of interaction is the key element; it can be defined as the ability to follow the interactions of others without overtly taking part. Through this type of interaction the viewer takes the roles of the various actors alternatively and reciprocally. Horton & Wohl (1976) wrote:

The function of the mass media ... is also the exemplification of the patterns of conduct one needs to understand and cope with others as well as those patterns which one must apply to one's self. Thus the spectator is instructed variously in the behaviors of the opposite sex, of people of higher or lower status, or people in particular occupations and professions. (p. 219)

Although this process was initially conceived by symbolic interactionists for interpersonal relations, as the authors pointed out, there is no reason why it should not occur between viewers and television characters. Indeed, vicarious interaction has been linked to parasocial interaction (Horton & Wohl, 1976; see also Horton & Strauss, 1957; Rubin, Perse, & Powell, 1985). Vicarious interaction can also be seen as essentially similar to the way one informally learns frames and behaviours.

Parasocial interaction, based on the above or similar conceptualizations, has been found to exist between viewers and newscasters (Houlberg, 1984; Levy, 1979; Rubin, Perse, & Powell, 1985), viewers and entertainers (Nordlund, 1978), viewers and favourite television characters (Antecol, 1997), and viewers and celebrities in television commercials (Alperstein, 1991). Other researchers have also found pseudo-relationships or concepts similar to parasocial interaction in their studies (e.g., Caughey, 1984; Schickel, 1985; Snow, 1987). Koenig & Lessan (1985) found that these "quasi-friendships" occupied an intermediate position between real friends and mere acquaintances. The power of such relationships is evident in the fact that viewers sometimes seek to actually meet their parasocial friends and thereby overstep the proper bounds of these types of interactions (Leets, De Becker, & Giles, 1995). This should not be particularly surprising considering enculturation into such an imaginary world of pseudo-social relationships is said to begin for many when they are children (James & McCain, 1982; Reid & Frazer, 1980).

Parasocial interaction has been posited to grow the more viewers enter a state of willing disbelief and forget that what they are actually viewing is just a television program (Horton & Wohl, 1976). Indeed, a relationship between the two concepts has been found (Perse, 1990; Rubin & Perse, 1987). Thus, the greater the state of willing disbelief, the greater the likelihood the viewer will evaluate the program along interpersonal lines. Accordingly, it is not a far leap to an idea that postulates that parasocial relationships develop in a manner similar to interpersonal relationships. Indeed, Caughey (1984) stated that media interaction directly parallels interpersonal interaction. While that may be something of an overstatement, there is seemingly a great deal of interplay between the two. As Horton & Strauss (1957) explained, the processes of interpersonal and parasocial interaction are very close:

The social-psychological processes involved in an audience's subjective participation in the television program are not radically different from those occurring in everyday social activity, and it is not necessary to postulate special mechanisms, for example, of fantasy and dream, to understand either the behavior of the performers or the viewer's involvement in the performance. (p. 587)

Thus, Rubin & Rubin (1985) now see the two as co-equal communication alternatives and therefore argue for a "communication" rather than "mass communication" paradigm.

Studies have shown an interplay between the two types of communication. Rubin & Perse (1987) found a link between uncertainty reduction theory (Berger & Calabrese, 1975) for initial interpersonal encounters and parasocial interaction. Under the former theory, individuals seek out information to reduce their uncertainty about the other person in the interaction; the more uncertainty goes down, the more liking increases. This tends to happen over time. Both Rubin & McHugh (1987) and Perse & Rubin (1989) also relied on the above theory. Although these studies found some support for the use of the uncertainty reduction theory, they found only indirect support for length of exposure to television characters and parasocial interaction. Unlike actual interpersonal interactions, parasocial interaction seems to develop simply as a normal consequence of television viewing regardless of the length of and reason for that viewing (Perse & Rubin, 1989).

Perse & Rubin (1989) also concentrated on the similarities between interpersonal friendship and parasocial friendship. The authors pointed out the following areas of overlap. First, interpersonal friendship is based on voluntary interaction and involves a personal focus (Wright, 1978) as does parasocial interaction (Rosengren & Windahl, 1972). One can choose what to watch on television just as one can choose a friend. Second, both friendship and parasocial interaction serve companionship, utility, and self-disclosure functions. Third, attraction appears to be a precursor to both relationships. In interpersonal life, attraction is primary (Conway & Rubin, 1991) possibly because judgments of attractiveness will led to determinations about whether a person will continue in his / her attempts to reduce uncertainty about the other -- in other words, whether to pursue the relationship. Thus, in interpersonal life an individual should become attracted to another person when there is a high degree of social, physical, and task attraction between them (McCroskey & McCain, 1974). The greater these attractions the greater the likelihood of a relationship developing. Likewise, television viewers should develop parasocial interaction with a television character if the viewer finds the character socially, physically, and task attractive. Antecol (1997), Rubin & Perse (1987), and Rubin & McHugh (1987) found parasocial interaction to be associated with these attraction dimensions.

Nonverbal communication

According to Hall (1981), there is much more to communication than the exchange of sounds. The whole silent realm of non-verbal language needs to be considered: "Spatial changes give a tone to communication, accent it, and at times even override the spoken word. The flow and shift of distance between people as they interact with each other is part and parcel of the communication process" (Hall, 1981, p. 175). The use of space is different for different cultures. As individuals, we use distances to reach conclusions about people. So, if one group of foreigners stands too close to Americans, the Americans may feel uncomfortable. Likewise, a group that stands too far away may come across as timid. Spatial use also varies depending on the situation. Thus, an intimate conversation requires less space than a business conversation (Hall, 1981).

It may seem strange to consider television as involving these elements, but it does: through illusions designed specifically to employ the technical aspects inherent in the medium. McLuhan (1994) argued that the third dimension, which is by necessity alien to television, can be superimposed with set design. The illusion with respect to space increases the likelihood that viewers will enter a willing state of disbelief with respect to television because many of the subtle spatial nuances of daily interpersonal life are provided on the screen. Consequently, viewers may become more inclined to engage in parasocial interaction.

In this regard, Meyrowitz (1982) speculated that television makes use of the silent language of space as developed by Hall through "para-proxemic" tools. For example, the television shots themselves generally make use of four spatial zones: intimate, personal, social, and public. In this way the viewer sees variation of distance within the shot and thereby the relationship of the characters on the screen. Thus, it is not the absolute size of the figure that is the key variable in determining response; rather, it is the relative size of the figure within the frame. This, according to Meyrowitz, is the manner in which individuals judge distance in everyday life. Likewise, the shot gives the viewer different orientations to the scene: the shot can be objective, meaning the viewer sees the action as a vicarious observer; or it can be subjective, meaning the viewer sees the action directly through the eyes of one particular character. As well, through the camera, the characters can establish mutual eye contact, express fidelity, and can confide with the audience -- all of which are elements of interpersonal friendships (e.g., Perse & Rubin, 1989).

The cool medium: Television and viewer participation

None of the above would make any difference if viewers were not actively paying attention to what was transpiring on their television screens. However, many scholars persist in viewing the audience as passive recipients of content. For them, the effects of the content itself, not the medium, is the main problem. The implicit passiveness of the audience is best summarized by Cirino (1971): "Mass Media Man is primarily an observer, a receptor of images, sounds and print projected at him. He responds now and then within the narrow limits of acceptability as defined in the mass media, but he is basically a receptor ..." (p. 30). Viewers under this and similar conceptions of passivity are seen as mere repositories for information broadcast by networks and other television outlets.

This view was sharply criticized by McLuhan (1994): "The banal and ritual remark of the conventionally literate, that TV presents an experience for passive viewers is wide of the mark. TV is above all a medium that demands a creatively participant audience" (p. 336).12 McLuhan argued that audience involvement took place because of the coolness of the medium; program content was irrelevant. Because television was low in definition, it was high in participation. For him, the television picture was merely a series of dots out of which only a few dots are used to shape an image. As such, it was visually low in data leaving viewers to fill in the detail. He further argued that improvements to the television image would turn the medium into something else, possibly a hot medium such as film (McLuhan, 1994). However, television has improved. The broadcast picture is no longer merely a series of disjointed dots out of which an image can be culled. Increasingly, television has been able to achieve higher resolution, a process that will be further encouraged when high-definition television sets become widely available. This increasing definition, though, should not radically change the nature of television viewing. It can be still be argued that, relative to film and to print, television is still a cool medium. Perhaps it is not as cold as it once was, but is still cool nonetheless. Consequently, the McLuhanesque conception of an active, creatively participant audience can and should still be applicable.

If, however, one does not subscribe to such a conception, there is other evidence for an active audience. For example, while the passive viewing approach, as expressed by Cirino (1971), is consistent with the some media theories, such as cultivation (e.g., Signorielli & Morgan, 1996), it does not correspond well to the modern conceptions of television viewing as is evident in the work of Reeves, Thorson, and their associates (e.g., Geiger & Reeves, 1993; Lang, 1990; Reeves, Thorson, & Schleuder, 1986; Thorson & Lang, 1992) and Anderson and his associates (e.g., Anderson & Burns, 1991). Further, it is clear that in today's 60-plus-channel, VCR-laden, remote-control-dominated world, viewers are, or at least can be, more than ritualistic or passive recipients of television fare. Viewers now have a real choice in the programs they watch whereas in the world of the original cultivation formulation, no such choice existed. They can actively choose what messages they wish to be exposed to and can zip or zap their way through those messages they do not want to watch (e.g., Perse & Ferguson, 1993; Walker & Bellamy, 1991; see also Potter, 1993).

From a different perspective, it has been argued that television could be a positive influence on teenagers by helping them develop a positive image about their bodies, by demonstrating society's standards and appropriate sex-role behaviours, and by being a socializing agent for independence (Faber, Brown, & McLeod, 1982). This could only be achieved if the audience actively participated. Likewise, Allen (1982) argued that the media portray and interpret the entire range of social problems and that the prescribed attitudes found in those media are taken up by media consumers. Indeed, the media evoke symbols which are then actively used in interpersonal relations as a point of reference just as media personalities become personifications of values and potentially useful cultural stereotypes. Finally, Katz & Liebes' (1990) study on Israeli viewing of the American serial Dallas is instructive. The authors found that viewing led to both self-referential associations and the provocation of communication: "But more important than the message, in our opinion, is the effect of the program on introspection, reflexivity and conversation.... Because of the program, viewers enter into dialogues with the characters and among themselves" (p. 60). The communication was thus parasocial and interpersonal in nature, both of which are indicative of an active audience.

An active audience is also one of the main propositions of the uses and gratifications approach (e.g., Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1974). In this regard, Herzog (1941) found that the audience of radio serials actively listened for a variety of reasons such as to learn how to be a good wife, how to raise children, and how to deal with a boyfriend. These listeners did not take these serials as fiction but as reality although the reality realized by each was different (Herzog, 1941).13 The same is true vis-à-vis television (e.g., Perse & Rubin, 1988). Studies have also shown that the more active the audience, the greater the potential gratifications or effects (e.g., Levy & Windahl, 1984; Perse & Rubin, 1988). An active audience has been linked to affective, cognitive, and behavioural outcomes (Antecol, 1997; Rubin & Perse, 1987). Increased activity during exposure should also mean distracting activities are not engaged in during exposure; this multidimensionality has received support (Perse & Rubin, 1988). Finally, because of its conceptual connection to parasocial interaction, it should not be surprising that the theory of symbolic interactions also hypothesizes an active audience (Lauer & Handel, 1983).

Television is also able to activate viewers' subjective involvement, to get them to participate in the medium, by relying on its own inherent characteristics, as was pointed out above in the section on television's link to interpersonal communication. Activity, though, is also effected in the way in which television offsets or bypasses the uses and characteristics of earlier media, namely, print (Meyrowitz, 1985). To learn how to use any particular medium, a person has to learn how to encode and decode its messages; therefore, only those who have the requisite skills can participate in the medium. In linear print-based media, use is restricted to those who have the access code: the knowledge of how to read and write. Indeed, both Harold Innis (1972) and McLuhan (1994) have argued that it was on this basis that previous monopolies of knowledge developed. In addition, with print, different access codes exist for different levels of understandings. No person has access to all the codes right from the outset; for example, a child must learn to read Dr. Seuss stories before graduating to the Hardy Boys (or Nancy Drew) mysteries. Therefore, messages can be and are directed to particular segments of the population (Meyrowitz, 1985). Similarly, specialized jargon can develop in certain literature (like this paper) that excludes a certain portion of the population.

With television, however, the access code is hardly a code at all; it has only one degree of complexity. It is easy to use and its easiness engenders participation. Once a person learns how to watch and listen, he can watch and listen to almost anything; it is true that the person may not understand everything but the same is true for real-life situations. As McLuhan (1994) noted, "Everybody experiences far more than he understands. Yet it is experience, rather than understanding, that influences his behaviour, especially in collective matters of media and technology, where the individual is almost inevitably unaware of their effect upon him" (p. 318). Further, unlike print, there is no set sequence in watching television programs: it is not necessary for a child to graduate from Dr. Seuss television cartoons to Hardy Boys programs. As a result, television allows a much greater sharing of information between different sections of the population; there is a great similarity in how people watch the medium, regardless of actual physical or social place. And because television provides its information to all who have a receiver, no information-élite should be created unlike under the specialized and segregated print-based information systems (Meyrowitz, 1985).14

Conclusion

A careful reading would seem to leave open the following questions: What about the different languages spoken in the world? Or, are the problems of understanding, as set out by various general semanticists, no longer applicable? It is true that the people of the world speak different languages which often hinders the free flow of information from television. However, electric technology has vast implications for language: it does not need it. Electric technology extends consciousness itself on a worldwide scale, thereby obviating the need to verbalize. As McLuhan (1994) stated:

Today computers hold out the promise of a means of instant translation of any code or language into any other code or language. The computer, in short, promises by technology a Pentecostal condition of universal understanding and unity. The next logical step would be, not to translate, but to by-pass language in favor of a general cosmic consciousness which might be very like [a] collective consciousness. (p. 80)

However, this Pentecostal condition is seemingly still in the future. At this point language still holds the seed of grave differences among people. It is still a hindrance to the development of the Global Village.

Nevertheless, television, as the current ultimate fulfilment of electric technology, has gone to extraordinary lengths toward bridging the gaps between the world's people despite language differences. It has done this, in part, by translating the language tracks. But, more importantly, it has bridged the gap by overcoming space and place-based limitations for people all over the world. By doing so, the medium of television gives viewers the ability to experience new situations with their inherent frames and consequent behaviours. That ability leads to changes in culture as the frames and behaviours experienced through television are unconsciously absorbed, or informally learned, by individuals and taken into society. This is made easier because television activates the audience through its ease of use and in the way it promotes both parasocial interaction and non-verbal communication. This fact links television viewing to interpersonal communication, something almost all people have experience in. The more that people watch television, the greater the speed in the coming of the global village -- the saviour of society.

Notes

1
Most of the chapters in McLuhan's (1994) book represent such linear expansions. They include paper, clothes, houses, wheels, roads, cities, cars, and money.
2
According to McLuhan (1994): "Man is the sex organs of the machine world" (p. 47).
3
Place here is defined broadly enough to include both physical and social place.
4
Today, such a misframing often results in a sexual harassment claim. This demonstrates how frames can and do change over time through individual actions (but by no means the only actions) and at the same time remain culture specific -- this change has not occurred everywhere.
5
This is the most likely reason behind the reliance of U.S. network news on experts during times of crisis. A similar occurrence often takes place with respect to rumours.
6
Essentially, this is a social Darwinist position. As such, what is positive to some might not be positive to others. This fact should only affect the rate of change in a culture because if "rulers" find an adaptation to be negative while the vast majority finds it to be positive, those rulers can only slow the change; they cannot stop it.
7
Query whether the information highway will achieve similar changes.
8
Several elements may come into play here: diffusion of information, communication networks, and possibly the two-step flow theory.
9
As one reviewer correctly asked: Who sets the frames? Are all possible interpretive frames set out in equal proportion? Who erodes the boundaries for exposure to new information? And which boundaries remain intact? These are relevant questions. But they are questions of political economy and, as mentioned at the outset, beyond the scope of the paper.
10
Thus, it is possible that Canadians and Americans would view the exact same event in a completely different light. Such differences are particularly evident in the foreign-policy field, Cuba being a case in point. This is all very similar to the way Dartmouth and Princeton football fans viewed the same game (see Hastorf & Cantril, 1954).
11
It certainly would be worthwhile to know how many people feel that they are friends with NBC's Friends as well as the characters on other television programs.
12
Concern merely with content was, for McLuhan (1994), like doctors who ignore the "syndrome of just being sick" (p. 64).
13
This is perhaps not the most appropriate example if one subscribes to the McLuhanesque conception of activity because radio was seen as a hot medium. Nevertheless, it is cooler than print and, even though it is hotter than television, it still demonstrates evidence of audience activity, meaning that such activity should be even higher with respect to television.
14
Information can obviously still be controlled, but not in the same manner as print.

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