Marshall McLuhan

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Marshall McLuhan

• LCC 2700 Intro to Computational Media
• Spring 2006
• Ian Bogost / David Jimison

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Marshall McLuhan
Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) printing changed
culture Understanding Media (1964) electric
media change culture Media shape our senses and
perceptions A new medium means a new shape to
human consciousness
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McLuhan and Media Ecology
Studying media environments Technology plays a
role in human affairs Neil Postman, NYU 71 How
media communication affect human
understanding Structure, content, effect
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Gutenberg Galaxy
Communication technologys cognitive effect on
society The alphabet, printing press changes the
way we think Print culture (15th c). began to
privilege the visual over the oral Print
encourages static, segmented attitudes that
resist collaboration and encourage
compartmentalization
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Gutenberg Galaxy
Mechanization of print reinforced
orientation toward uniform objective truth
introduced a segmented, cause /effect,
rationalist world view prepared us for a
mechanical, industrial, collectivist age
suppressed mythic, multi-sensorial, organic
experience
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Electronic media are poised (1960s!) to replace
print New tribalism multisensory awareness The
Global Village and surfing as rapid,
heterogenous movement
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Understanding Media(1964)
All media as extensions of ourselves serve to
provide new transforming vision and awareness.
Media themselves not their content should be
the object of study The properties of the medium
are far more important than the content they
carry
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McLuhan Aphorisms from Understanding Media (1964)

• The medium is the message
• A new medium shapes and controls the scale and
  form of human association and action.
• e.g. railroad, plane telegraph, telephone,
  mobile phone
• The content of any medium is always another
  medium
• Print encapsulates writing
• Writing encapsulates speech

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McLuhans sound barrier metaphor
Media are invisible when we are hypnotized by
their ubiquity
We feel the contours of a medium as we are
moving beyond it
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Electric media are like Cubism simultaneous
viewpoints from multiple angles

• Pablo Picasso
• The Guitar Player (1910)