8501 Media Ecology, Robert Logan, We Need a New Picture of Knowledge

Dear MEA colleagues

I am reading a 1963 article of McLuhan’s «We Need a New Picture of Knowledge» where I encountered the following interesting sentence. «The elementary and basic fact about the TV image is that it is a mosaic or a mesh, continuously in a state of formation by the «scanning finger.» Such mosaic involves the viewer in a perpetual act of participation and completion.

What struck me was the phrase the «scanning finger».  Because of the «scanning finger»  high definition TV would still be mosaic and would still require completion and participation. Now let us consider reading text from a computer screen or an e-reader. When I have considered reading off a VDU screen I always thought in terms of the mosaic or pixilated nature of the image of the text but did not think about the fact or actually the possibility that the image is being created by scanning. It made me wonder if the image on my computer screen of static text is being constantly refreshed by a «scanning finger»  because if that is the case high definition screens would still provide a mosaic image that requires completion and hence participation. This led to the following question which I hope that Gregory or someone else in MEA-land will be able to answer. Are the computer generated images on the video display of the computer scanned like the TV image or are they static. I am al
so interested to know how the image is constructed by a
standard e-reader or one using e-ink. I hope someone can answer these questions. If in fact computer generated images are scanned then reading with a computer or an e-reader requires the use of both sides of the brain – the right side to apprehend the mosaic scanned image and the left side to actually read the text that the right brain apprehended or perceived. This processing involving traffic through the corpus collosum connecting left and right brain will not be as efficient as reading ink on paper where the image of text is not pixilated and is not being scanned. If e-ink generated text is not scanned and is not pixilated then reading with e-ink could be as effective as reading with ink on paper. This is why I am seeking to understand the role of the «scanning finger» in computer screens and e-reader screens with or without e-ink.

I anxiously await your comments. Thanks for your attention – Bob Logan
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Robert K. Logan
Chief Scientist – sLab at OCAD
Prof. Emeritus – Physics – U. of Toronto
www.physics.utoronto.ca/Members/logan