Joshua Meyrowitz

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Joshua Meyrowitz (* 1949 ) is an American communication scientist and media theorist. He is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of New Hampshire . His main work was published in 1985 under the title No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior , and in 1987 in German under the title Fernseh-Gesellschaft . In it, he examines the effects of the new medium on the self-image and awareness of reality of people in the television society .

Life

Meyrowitz studied social sciences at Queens College, City University of New York and received his PhD from New York University in 1978 . He cites Marshall McLuhan and Canadian media theory , especially studies by Harald A. Innis .

No Sense of Place / Television Society

The contents of a medium are primarily perceived. However, according to Meyrowitz, the essential change in a society happens in the background due to the structural effects of the medium. "No Sense of Place" describes, using television as an example , how new communication technologies influence social relationships right into everyday life. For Meyrowitz, television is responsible for a significant cultural development: television is a mystery-revealing machine that allows an individual to see the world from the perspective of other people. In this way, television is tearing down social barriers to communication. Children can also see the world through the glasses of adults, women also through the glasses of men. '' No Sense of Place '' is based on his dissertation of the same name from 1978 and was a. a. supervised by Neil Postman . The book The Disappearance of Childhood, published in 1982 by Postman, popularized case studies from Meyrowitz's dissertation.

Meyrowitz drew on Erving Goffman , who interpreted the social life of face-to-face interaction as a form of theater acting, and linked this sociological analysis with Marshall McLuhan's theory of the change in society through media. The title '' No sense of place '' indicates that the new electronic medium of television is dissolving the bondage of communication. Meyrowitz is concerned with the geographic sense of place when the world becomes a global village , but also with the social ties of communication in roles, hierarchies, gender identities and fixed social relationships. In a television society, social behavior is no longer structured by special knowledge (acquired in socialization) about roles that are appropriate to the situation. There is less and less the natural place in society for an individual from which “what is proper” emerges. Every individual has flexible media role models from all social classes and different cultures.

Television democracy

Meyrowitz observed the changes in the democratic culture towards a "television democracy" in the USA as early as the 1970s. In the first decades of the 20th century, it was normal in Western democracies for voters to trust the political leaders with politics. Politicians had access to special information and derived their special status from it. For Max Weber, democracy was a way of choosing leaders. Meyrowitz shows that television increased the knowledge that everyone - and every woman - could have about politics and politicians. The television also illuminates the background of politics. The more it is known about what a powerful representative does and what he does not do and does not know, the less legitimate his claim to authority appears.

Anti-authoritarian behavior becomes possible when "the background behavior of our authority figures" is revealed. Meyrowitz posits that the explosion of cultural conflict since the mid-1960s did not happen by chance when the first generation that had television before entering school grew up. This generation rejected the traditional roles for old and young, for women and men, for authorities and ordinary citizens. The anti-authoritarian protests on the street seem to be a result of the new media culture. Because the 1968 generation of protests was the first to gain insight into the background of political behavior on the stage. International media coverage of the Vietnam War, for example, has questioned any purely national interpretation. Electronic media, according to Meyrowitz, "undermine the whole system of graduated hierarchy and delegated authority".

Works

  • No sense of place. The Impact of the Electronic Media on Social Behavior. Oxford University Press 1986
  • The television company. Reality and Identity in the Media Age. Beltz, Weinheim 1987
  • The television company I. With it everywhere and nowhere. Beltz, Weinheim 1990
  • The television society II. How media change our world. Beltz, Weinheim 1990

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bbm%3A978-3-322-95654-5%2F1.pdf
  2. ↑ Klaus Wolschner: Augensinn und Bildmagie, Bilder und their Reality , 2016, ISBN 978-3-7418-5475-0 , p. 103ff: Television makes democracy .
  3. ^ Joshua Meyrowitz: The television company. Reality and Identity in the Media Age , 1987, pp. 181ff.
personal data
SURNAME Meyrowitz, Joshua
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American communication scientist and media theorist
DATE OF BIRTH 1949