Marshall McLuhan(1911-1980)

“The Medium is the Massage” Actually, the title was a mistake. When the book came back from the typesetter's, it had on the cover "Massage" as it still does. The title was supposed to have read "The Medium is the Message" but the typesetter had made an error. When Marshall McLuhan saw the typo he exclaimed, "Leave it alone! It's great, and right on target!" Now there are possible four readings for the last word of the title, all of them accurate: "Message" and "Mess Age," "Massage" and "Mass Age."

Marshall McLuhan, once referred to as the "Oracle of the Electronic Age", is perhaps best known for his phrase turned into book title, “The Medium is the Massage” He coined the phrase 'the global village', referring to the apparently irresistible spread of electronic forms of communication

If the content is obliterated by the channel, "what" we say is of little importance-only "how" we chose to deliver it becomes important. McLuhan's belief in technological determinism is obvious by his phrase, "we shape our tools and they in turn shape us" (quoted in Griffin, 1991, p. 294).

Understanding Media The medium is the message Hot and Cold Media media as “extensions of ‘man’” the “ratio of the senses”

The medium is the message McLuhan's theory was that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not by the content delivered over the medium, but by the characteristics of the medium itself All media have characteristics that engage the viewer in different ways

The medium is the message Each medium, independent of the content it mediates, has its own intrinsic effects which are its unique message. The message of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs. The railway did not introduce movement or transportation or wheel or road into human society, but it accelerated and enlarged the scale of previous human functions, creating totally new kinds of cities and new kinds of work and leisure. This happened whether the railway functioned in a tropical or northern environment, and is quite independent of the freight or content of the railway medium. (Understanding Media, N. Y., 1964, p. 8) What McLuhan writes about the railroad applies with equal validity to the media of print, television, computers and now the Internet. "The medium is the message" because it is the "medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action." (p. 9)

Hot and Cool Media Hot media are low in audience participation due to their high resolution or definition Cool media are high in audience participation due to their low definition (the receiver must fill in the missing information) If print is hot and linear, and electronic broadcast media are cool and interactive, hypermedia on the Web is "freezing" and 3-D!

Media as “extensions of ‘man’” The wheel is an extension of the foot... the book is an extension of the eye... clothing, an extension of the skin... Language does for intelligence what the wheel does for the feet and the body… Electric circuitry, an extension of the central nervous system “All media are extensions of some human faculty -- psychic or physical.

McLuhan saw electronic media as a return to collective ways of perceiving the world. His "global village" theory posited the ability of electronic media to unify and retribalize the human race McLuhan sees every medium as an extension of some human faculty, with the media of communication thus exaggerating this or that particular sense.

The “ratio of the senses” Mcluhan states that people adapt to their environment through a certain balance or ratio of their senses, and the primary medium of the age brings out a particular sense ratio Whatever predominates media will influence human beings by affecting the way they perceive the world.