5 ms·

The Medium Is the Message, 50 Years Later

63 points by Thevet 12y ago

Jedd 12y ago
Disturbingly that article doesn't mention the word 'massage' anywhere. Which is kind of important.
- ky3 12y ago
  According to http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/common-questions/ http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/common-questions/ Now there are four possible readings for the last word of the title, all of them accurate: “Message” and “Mess Age,” “Massage” and “Mass Age.”
  - Jedd 12y ago
    Yup. Matches the wikipedia telling of the story. Nonetheless, the history is kind of important given the popularity of this quote. Bit like the (mis-)paraphrasing of 'Life wasn't meant to be easy' popularised in my part of the world (Australia).
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
parasubvert 12y ago
Harold Innis and his work such as "Empire of Communication" was the foundation for McLuhan's more punk-rock interpretation of communication theory. Pink Floyd vs The Clash. Innis I found insightful for his view of how technology changes cultures because the dominant means of communication changes what it means to be human.
tjradcliffe 12y ago
McLuhan: "As a result, precisely at the point where a new media-induced environment becomes all pervasive and transmogrifies our sensory balance, it also becomes invisible." So, we're still a century or so away from this with regard to smart phones etc. TV barely reached this point before it went into decline (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/business/media/03television.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/business/media/03televisio...). Newspapers did, quite likely, as did radio. So long as people complain about how devices are changing us, they are not invisible, so anyone engaged in critical commentary (at least in the popular press) is proof that we are nowhere near this boundary. Wearables may change the timeline for ubiquitous computing, but again: so long as there is hand-wringing about how the technology is changing us, this transformation is not complete.
smacktoward 12y ago
There are very few books I've read that I can honestly say changed the entire direction of my life. McLuhan's Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man is one of them.
espeed 12y ago
In 1999 I named my consulting company "Electric Speed" (http://electricspeed.com http://electricspeed.com) after reading McLuhan's book... At no period in human culture have men understood the psychic mechanisms involved in invention and technology. Today it is the instant speed of electric information that, for the first time, permits easy recognition of the patterns and the formal contours of change and development. The entire world, past and present, now reveals itself to us like a growing plant in an enormously accelerated movie. Electric speed is synonymous with light and with the understanding of causes. — Marshal McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964)

63 points by Thevet 12y ago

Jedd 12y ago

Disturbingly that article doesn't mention the word 'massage' anywhere. Which is kind of important.

ky3 12y ago
According to http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/common-questions/ http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/common-questions/ Now there are four possible readings for the last word of the title, all of them accurate: “Message” and “Mess Age,” “Massage” and “Mass Age.”
- Jedd 12y ago
  Yup. Matches the wikipedia telling of the story. Nonetheless, the history is kind of important given the popularity of this quote. Bit like the (mis-)paraphrasing of 'Life wasn't meant to be easy' popularised in my part of the world (Australia).
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

parasubvert 12y ago

Harold Innis and his work such as "Empire of Communication" was the foundation for McLuhan's more punk-rock interpretation of communication theory. Pink Floyd vs The Clash. Innis I found insightful for his view of how technology changes cultures because the dominant means of communication changes what it means to be human.

tjradcliffe 12y ago

McLuhan: "As a result, precisely at the point where a new media-induced environment becomes all pervasive and transmogrifies our sensory balance, it also becomes invisible." So, we're still a century or so away from this with regard to smart phones etc. TV barely reached this point before it went into decline (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/business/media/03television.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/business/media/03televisio...). Newspapers did, quite likely, as did radio. So long as people complain about how devices are changing us, they are not invisible, so anyone engaged in critical commentary (at least in the popular press) is proof that we are nowhere near this boundary. Wearables may change the timeline for ubiquitous computing, but again: so long as there is hand-wringing about how the technology is changing us, this transformation is not complete.

smacktoward 12y ago

There are very few books I've read that I can honestly say changed the entire direction of my life. McLuhan's Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man is one of them.

espeed 12y ago

In 1999 I named my consulting company "Electric Speed" (http://electricspeed.com http://electricspeed.com) after reading McLuhan's book... At no period in human culture have men understood the psychic mechanisms involved in invention and technology. Today it is the instant speed of electric information that, for the first time, permits easy recognition of the patterns and the formal contours of change and development. The entire world, past and present, now reveals itself to us like a growing plant in an enormously accelerated movie. Electric speed is synonymous with light and with the understanding of causes. — Marshal McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964)