Page 213 - Communication Cultural and Media Studies The Key Concepts

REARVIEWMIRRORISM

to the changing experiences of the audience as well as the policy and
economic decisions underpinning television production.
Further reading: Dovey (2000)

REARVIEWMIRRORISM

A term coined by Marshall McLuhan (1964), rearviewmirrorism occurs
where a new technology or medium imitates the one it is destined to
supplant. Early printed books such as the Gutenberg Bible looked like
medieval manuscripts. The first house in the UK made of concrete
(Gregynog Hall in Wales) was designed to look like Tudor half-
timbering. The first photographs borrowed composition and genre
conventions from painting and portraiture. Early television was watched
in a darkened room, as if it were cinema. Digital media aspired to look
like analogue, e.g. computer-generated faces and hair were celebrated
for looking ‘real’ (like those film). The implication of the term is that
newmedia need to establish their own form and aesthetic as quickly and
confidently as possible, rather than looking behind them.

Further reading: Hartley (1992a, 1999)

REDUNDANCY

Predictability in communication secured by repetition. Radio
presenters are trained to say things three times: ‘tell’em you’re going
to tell’em; tell them; then tell’em you told’em’. Teletubbies is built on
the idea that toddlers require things to be repeated four times, so on
the showeverything is, including the characters themselves –
communicatively, three of them are redundant, but they are
indispensable to ensure successful communication. There are six
marines in the famous 1945 Rosenthal photograph of the planting of
the American flag at Iwo Jima. This is one of the most copied images
of the twentieth century, but many versions make do with only four
figures. Two can hardly be seen in the original, but their limbs and
arms ‘redundantly’ repeat the stance of their more visible comrades,
making an effect whose power can be measured by comparison with
the pale imitations.
Built-in redundancy is necessary for increased intelligibility. Too
much information interferes with clarity. Reader-oriented, as opposed

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