1. Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
Introduction & Chapter 1

2. Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) Canadian professor of English Literature
Director of University of Toronto’s Center for Culture and Technology (1963)
Large influence on media studies
Media considered based on their features and their influence on society

3. “The Medium is the Message”
Why is this phrase so memorable?
What does McLuhan mean by this?
But do not get comfortable with a single interpretation
(from Annie Hall)

4. What is a Medium? Cubism as an example medium.
What are its characteristics?
How do they change results?

5. Media as Simply Tools Rejected by McLuhan
Why?
Presupposes there is a single simple answer when more analysis of the technology is needed

6. Oral vs. Written Media How do they differ? Oral vs. literate cultures
Walter Ong
“We are as numb in our new electric world as the native involved in our literate and mechanical culture.”
What does this mean? Has it changed?
Moving forward:
Postmodernism and hyperliteracy

7. The Electric Culture Why was it so scary to McLuhan?
How was he right? How was he wrong?
“Print created individualism and nationalism in the sixteenth century. Program and ‘content’ analysis offer no clues to the magic of these media or to their subliminal charge.”
Technological determinism

8. A Balance of Power?
“It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of modern society and stability of its inner life depend in large part on the maintenance of an equilibrium between the strength of the techniques of communication and the capacity of the individual’s own reaction.” Pope Pius XII, 1950

9. Natural Resources for Communication
Discussion points:
Effects of limited types of media?
Effects of limited sources of media?
Effects of limitations imposed by media?
Effects of media on limited resources?
How can we design new media to improve the situation?