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Major: Internation Communication Student: Dararoath VANDETH Assignment 1 Topic 1: Are Habermas’s idea about the public sphere and McLuhan’s ideas about the global village really compatible? Concept of Global Village Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian philosopher of communication theory, developed the concept of the term ‘Global Village’ in two of his earliest books—The Gutenberg Galaxy, in 1962, and Understanding Media: The Extension of Man, in 1964. He defined global village as a small village where electronic media made it possible, and how the information flows from parts of the world at the same time. (Mcluhan, 1964) No matter how far or near of anything happen around the globe, people can see and hear of what have been occurred immediately, with just matter of seconds. Electronic media, Mcluhan said, made people aware of and respond to issues happened around the globe as if it happen in the same village people are living in. “Today, after more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous system in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned” (Mcluhan, 1964, p.3). The fundamental concept of Mcluhan on global villag is that the communication at a rapid speed, where it extend the sense of people with sound and vision. Computer and television has extended our sense of hearing and seeing, whereas telephone and radio has extended our sense of listening (Symes, 1995). As director of the Centre for Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto from 1963 to 1980, McLuhan has been know as a “guru” of media culture (http://staging.yorkwilsonfoundation.org/videos/eric-mcluhan.htm) Concept of Public Sphere Jurgen Habermas, a German sociologist and philosopher... ... middle of paper ... ... of political institituions and economy—commercial. Boeder (2005) believes that this could change through the digital communications technology by strengthening groups and individual. In conclusion, Habermas’s idea about public sphere and Mcluhan’s idea about global village are really compatible concerning with three main points as discussed. First, both concepts express a goal of achieving a democracy, which influence on social, culture, economy as well as politics. Second, both ideas put a concentration on the importance of media. Even though Habermas saw that the emergence and convergence of the electronic mass media have radically changed the notion of the public sphere. however the later Habermas still argue that media is a public sphere. Third, both ideas could be implied by other scholars that those give an image of how the digital media work nowaday.

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