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In Swift’s journey to Balnibarbi, communication is by “things,” not by “signs,” because “signs” are “things.” In Plato’s Cave, behind the wall, statues are carried by people whom we do not see nor know. Are they slaves and, in consequence, not human beings? We do not know.What we do know is that we only see images of the statues. Which are the media? The statues or the images? Can we safely say: Images are the media? If we do, what is the nature of a statue? As the answer is outside the Cave, we have to turn away and get out. To ¤nd what? Mathematics and, further on, Ideas? What part can they play in helping us to answer the question of the nature of the media? That is the problem we shall try to solve with the help of the doorkeeper of the Cave: Charles S. Peirce. I shall examine ¤rstly the media in general, secondly Marshall McLuhan’s media, thirdly I shall try to locate McLuhan’s “Global Village.” Where can we¤nd it? In Balnibarbi or in Plato’s Cave? THE MEDIA The literature on the media is nowadays considerable. Does it answer the semiotic question of the nature of the media? It is the question we want to examine. A small section of the literature—however great it is—is purely technological - 12 Semeiotic and Communication: Peirce and McLuhan media between balnibarbi and plato’s cave Objects are unobservable, only relationships among objects are observable. —McLuhan (in Stearn 1968: 301) The sign can only represent the Object and tell about it. It cannot furnish acquaintance with or recognition of that Object. —Peirce (2.231) and does not give us any direct clue to the question raised. Another section of it—probably the biggest and the only one which attracts the attention of the public—deals with the general problem of the in®uence (good or bad) of the media . Although more sociological than philosophical, the writings in this section cannot avoid touching the semiotic nature of the media, but most of the time they do it in a very simple and naïve way. Negatively, the question of the in®uence of the media has driven most of the commentators in the sixties to the conclusion that, like the tongue of Esop, the media are neither good nor bad.One of them,a French scholar, Francis Balle, gives us the reason why it is so and raises at the same time the very semiotic question which we, as semioticians, are raising: So-called mass-communication is still interpreted in mechanistic terms, as a simple and direct relation between transmitters and receivers of messages, according to the behavioristic schema stimulus-response or, if one prefers, according to the univocal relation cause-effect. As if, in the present state of knowledge, it were possible to give so summarily a de¤nite explanation concerning the relations instituted by the media. (Balle 1983: 290–291) MARSHALL MCLUHAN That the media are most of the time dealt with in mechanistic terms is exempli ¤ed by the writings of their Godfather: Marshall McLuhan. Although McLuhan ’s propositions are very rarely convincingly supported, McLuhan was convincing enough to make of the media a new major scienti¤c subject matter. Everybody knows the main books of McLuhan: The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man (1951), The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1962), Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964), The Medium is the Massage: an Inventory of Effects (1967), and War and Peace in the Global Village (1968). The main propositions of McLuhan are listed below. The Media Are the Extensions of Man McLuhan’s theory is, properly speaking, a “technological determinism.” Media are the technological extensions of man, i.e., everything which can extend man’s (or woman’s) information, action, and power, be it a suit, a car, a newspaper, a radio, or a TV program. In The Gutenberg Galaxy, McLuhan tells the story of Western civilization in terms of the invention of printing. It is, according to him, the movable types which have made nationalism possible, because the mass production of linear types imposes uniformity and continuity, while handwritten messages encourage distinction or division and individualism. Because each Christian could afford to have his own printed copy, the Bible could be read in isolation and “individual revelation” became possible, and therefore Protestantism. Even music was affected by the invention of printing: while Gregorian music required repetition...

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