research-article

Community is the message: viewing networked public displays through McLuhan's lens of figure and ground

Authors:

Nemanja Memarovic,

Marc Langheinrich,

Ava FatahAuthors Info & Claims

MAB '14: Proceedings of the 2nd Media Architecture Biennale Conference: World Cities

Pages 30 - 33

https://doi.org/10.1145/2682884.2682891

Published: 19 November 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Networked public displays are being portrayed as "a new communication medium for the 21^st century", potentially having the same impact on society as radio, TV, and the Internet. In order to understand how this new medium can impact the society this paper uses a (small) part of Marshall McLuhan's media theory, i.e., the interplay between the figure - the medium - and the ground - the context in which the medium operates - and how the figure amplifies otherwise invisible effects of the ground. By analyzing environmental/urban research on interactions and processes in public spaces this paper infers the effects of the ground - public space - amplified through the figure - networked public displays - on its audience, showing why this new medium is fitted for affecting and enriching place-based communities. Overall, this paper contributes to the theory of networked urban/public displays and their use as a communication medium.

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Cited By

Rhein C(2023)From Media Facades to Facade Media: A Re-Conceptualization from a Perspective of Media and Communication StudiesProceedings of the 6th Media Architecture Biennale Conference10.1145/3627611.3627619(81-89)Online publication date: 14-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3627611.3627619
Namnakani OSinrattanavong PAbdrabou YBulling AAlt FKhamis M(2023)GazeCast: Using Mobile Devices to Allow Gaze-based Interaction on Public DisplaysProceedings of the 2023 Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications10.1145/3588015.3589663(1-8)Online publication date: 30-May-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3588015.3589663
Spiel KGerling KArnedo JNacke LVanden Abeele VToups Dugas P(2019)The Surrogate Body in PlayProceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play10.1145/3311350.3347189(397-411)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3311350.3347189
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Index Terms

Community is the message: viewing networked public displays through McLuhan's lens of figure and ground
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Collaborative and social computing theory, concepts and paradigms
2. Information systems
  1. Information systems applications
    1. Multimedia information systems
  2. World Wide Web
    1. Web applications
      1. Internet communications tools

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cover image ACM Other conferences

MAB '14: Proceedings of the 2nd Media Architecture Biennale Conference: World Cities

November 2014

110 pages

ISBN:9781450333023

DOI:10.1145/2682884

Conference Chair:
Martin Brynskov,
Program Chairs:
Peter Dalsgaard,
Ava Fatah gen Schieck

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Aarhus University: Aarhus University
MAI: Media Architecture Institute

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 19 November 2014

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Aarhus University
MAI

MAB '14: Media Architecture Biennale 2014

November 19 - 22, 2014

Aarhus, Denmark

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Overall Acceptance Rate 27 of 68 submissions, 40%

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Cited By

Rhein C(2023)From Media Facades to Facade Media: A Re-Conceptualization from a Perspective of Media and Communication StudiesProceedings of the 6th Media Architecture Biennale Conference10.1145/3627611.3627619(81-89)Online publication date: 14-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3627611.3627619
Namnakani OSinrattanavong PAbdrabou YBulling AAlt FKhamis M(2023)GazeCast: Using Mobile Devices to Allow Gaze-based Interaction on Public DisplaysProceedings of the 2023 Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications10.1145/3588015.3589663(1-8)Online publication date: 30-May-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3588015.3589663
Spiel KGerling KArnedo JNacke LVanden Abeele VToups Dugas P(2019)The Surrogate Body in PlayProceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play10.1145/3311350.3347189(397-411)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3311350.3347189
van Leeuwen JHermans KJylhä AQuanjer ANijman HFatah gen. Schieck AColangelo DZhigang C(2018)Effectiveness of Virtual Reality in Participatory Urban PlanningProceedings of the 4th Media Architecture Biennale Conference10.1145/3284389.3284491(128-136)Online publication date: 13-Nov-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3284389.3284491
Ergin EFatah gen. Schieck AFatah gen. Schieck AColangelo DZhigang C(2018)Times Square in the Era of Post-truth PoliticsProceedings of the 4th Media Architecture Biennale Conference10.1145/3284389.3284394(11-18)Online publication date: 13-Nov-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3284389.3284394
Samuel MTaylor JWinschiers-Theophilus HNieminen MSchuler DLewkowicz MRohde MMulder I(2017)Improving the flow of livelihood information among unemployed youth in an informal settlement of Windhoek, NamibiaProceedings of the 8th International Conference on Communities and Technologies10.1145/3083671.3083687(256-265)Online publication date: 26-Jun-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3083671.3083687
Ludwig TKotthaus CReuter CDongen SPipek V(2017)Situated crowdsourcing during disastersInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2016.09.008102:C(103-121)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2016.09.008
Memarovic NElhart IRubegni EHäkkila JOjala T(2016)"Fun place within a serious space"Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia10.1145/3012709.3012710(11-23)Online publication date: 12-Dec-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3012709.3012710
Khamis MAlt FBulling ALukowicz PKrüger ABulling ALim YPatel S(2016)Challenges and design space of gaze-enabled public displaysProceedings of the 2016 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing: Adjunct10.1145/2968219.2968342(1736-1745)Online publication date: 12-Sep-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2968219.2968342
Memarovic NFatah gen. Schieck ASchnädelbach HKostopoulou ENorth SYe LTomitsch MHaeusler MDalsgaard PFatah gen Schieck A(2016)Longitudinal, cross-site and "in the Wild"Proceedings of the 3rd Media Architecture Biennale Conference10.1145/2946803.2946804(1-10)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2946803.2946804
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