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Conclusions
We are told that the audimeter in the ad is ‘‘installed in a radio receiver in a scientifically selected radio home. By recording every twist of the dial, every minute of the day and night, the audimeter obtains precious radio data not available through any other means.’’ These meters are, of course, installed with the consent of the scientifically selected radio owner.Ethical and social values quite to one side, an instrument of this sort chimes with a good many other facts of our world. It is obviously the commercial counterpart of the secret microphone installed for political reasons. It is the mechanical sleuth which eventually pieces together the radio habits of a household into a single chart-image. It gives the inside story, which is typical of X-ray photographs, boudoir journalism, and cubist painting alike. For, as in cubist painting, the spectator is placed in the center of the picture. (McLuhan 1951, 49–50)
Published in 1951, this excerpt from Marshall McLuhan’s The Mechanical Bride provides a fitting conclusion to this book. Mc- Luhan, the quintessential techno-guru, provides yet another example of market research that has implications far beyond the switch, dial, or television remote control. His description of the audimeter speaks to the process of sampling—the use of scientific methods to patrol, diagnose, and survey particular markets (in this instance, radio listeners). It reminds us that such techniques collect very personal information within a space widely respected as being private. The audimeter is also a technology without an end: it continuously collects information around the clock. It tracks the routines and ‘‘habits’’ of listeners, and this information is ‘‘charted’’ or mapped. Finally, the listener is placed front and center within the picture.
McLuhan’s example of the audimeter parallels many points that this book has touched on, particularly the solicitation, diagnosis, and mapping of personal information, but it only hints at the larger ethical and social implications of profiling techniques. Today, however, such profiling techniques are not limited to the home or other institutions; they also litter the paths that we walk down every day of our lives. Moreover, they go beyond attempting to control the quotidian (whether markets or populations) by also attempting to account for the future—probable outcomes, relationships, choices, wants, desires, places, and spaces. As a consequence, media and cultural criticism must begin to challenge not only dominant words, images, and texts but also the techniques and technologies that prescribe, regulate, and provide access to (and control over) political, economic, and cultural forms of power.
