Iconography: media theory at work

If it wasn't for Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, the Invisible Art, I may still be living in a conceptual world.

Stay tuned to discover what exactly that means! In the meantime, what I will say is that - in my own life - symbolism and other visual representations of inatimate objects would be overlooked if this book hadn't helped me to understand them. Take for instance McCloud's first example of the pipe, or the painting of the pipe; it was actually the drawing of the painting of the pipe. McCloud's animated, self-representation from the book helped to explain the "strange and wonderful world of the icon" (McCloud 24-26), that a flag is not a country, that drawn flowers and animals are not flowers and animals (1).

These are all examples that we deal with as humans every day, and when encountering these symbols in our lives it is natural to just accept them. We are therefore accepting them as something that they are really not. Our minds see the drawing of the painting of the pipe and classify it as a solid object, and when seeing flags we associtate them to countries. This is media at work.

To avoid some generalization, we can observe Marshall McLuhan, who once said that "media are extensions" of our human senses, and that "the medium is the message" (McLuhan). When we look at drawings (a medium) of animals or flowers and associate them immediately to a concrete object, the medium has worked its way into our senses to provide a quick reaction of the experience. Our eyes see a flower, but can we feel the flower? Can we smell the flower? It is media at work that has deceived our senses to create a false sense of reality (2). Therefore we can distinguish between what is 'real' and what is not, but only when we closely examine a situation as opposed to just accepting it.

McCloud gives credit to McLuhan for being one of the first individuals to establish the intense effects of media on the human race. McCloud expands on his explanation of icons, and separates them into two realms: the realm of the concept, and the realm of the senses. Objects of the conceptual world cannot be seen, touched, heard, etc. Thus we can place cartoons and symbols into this grouping. As we would examine it in reality, the drawing of the painting of the pipe is not actually a pipe because it applies only to the sense of sight. Meanwhile, the realm of the senses consists of things we can feel, smell, see, hear and taste. If we examined a pipe in reality, we would be able to taste it, smell it, feel it in our hands, and so on (3).

Both McCloud's and McLuhan's mind work in similar ways, and connections can be drawn between the two. Both agree on the effects media take on humans, whether we are watching television advertisements or distinguishing between the conceptual world and the 'real'. In today's world, the conceptual world has both entered and toyed with the world of the senses, as proven in McLoud's example of the pipe. It is our responsibility as media-stricken human beings to actively determine between the two; to wake up and smell the roses... literally.

Works Cited

1. McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics, the Invisible Art. New York: HarperCollins Inc., 1993.

2. "The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan.". Mar 1969. 6 Oct 2008.

3. Scott McCloud: Ibid.

Image coutesy of Google Images