"When Marshall McLuhan first coined the phrases ""global village"" and ""the medium is the message"" in 1964, no-one could have predicted today's information-dependent planet. No-one, that is, except for a handful of science fiction writers and Marshall McLuhan. Understanding Media was written twenty years before the PC revolution and thirty years before the rise of the Internet. Yet McLuhan's insights into our engagement with a variety of media led to a complete rethinking of our entire society. He believed that the message of electronic media foretold the end of humanity as it was known. In 1964, this looked like the paranoid babblings of a madman. In our twenty-first century digital world, the madman looks quite sane. Understanding Media: the most important book ever written on communication. Ignore its message at your peril."
By:
Marshall McLuhan
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: 2nd Revised edition
Dimensions:
Height: 198mm,
Width: 129mm,
Spine: 21mm
Weight: 430g
ISBN: 9780415253970
ISBN 10: 0415253977
Series: Routledge Classics
Pages: 400
Publication Date: 18 May 2001
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
,
A / AS level
,
Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Part 1: Introduction 1. Medium Is the Message 2. Media Hot and Cold 3. Reversal of the Overheated Medium 4. The Gadget Lover: Narcissus as Narcosis 5. Hybrid Energy: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 6. Media as Translators 7. Challenge and Collapse: The Nemesis of Creativity Part 2: 8. The Spoken Word: Flower or Evil? 9. The Written Word: An Eye for an Ear 10. Roads and Paper Routes 11. Number: Profile of the Crowd 12. Clothing: Our Extended Skin 13. Housing: New Look and New Outlook 14. Money: The Poor Man's Credit Card 15. Clocks: The Scent of Time 16. The Print: How to Dig It 17. Comics: Mad Vestibule to TV 18. The Printed Word: Architect of Nationalism 19. Wheel, Bicycle, and Airplane 20. The Photograph: The Brothel-without-Walls 21. Press: Government by News Leak 22. Motorcar: The Mechanical Bride 23. Ads: Keeping Upset with the Joneses 24. Games: The Extensions of Man 25. Telegraph: The Social Hormone 26. The Typewriter: Into the Age of the Iron Whim 27. The Telephone: Sounding Brass or Tinkling Symbol? 28. The Phonograph: The Toy That Shrank the National Chest 29. Movies: The Reel World 30. Radio: the Tribal Drum 31. Television: The Timid Giant 32. Weapons: War of the Icons 33. Automation: Learning a Living
Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) Communications theorist, born in Canada. He is known as the original high guru of media culture and appeared in Woody Allen's Annie Hall as himself.
Reviews for Understanding Media
The Director of the Center for the Study of the Extensions of Man at the University of Toronto, Marshall MoLuhan here investigates the psychic and social consequences of technological media on man and his societies. The medium itself, rather than the content, is the message, he asserts, and turns to inspect the manner in which it affects us. He extends his inquiry beyond the expected media of print, radio, television, telephone to include the mechanical bride - the automobile, clothing - our extended skin, money, clocks, housing. He differentiates between the cool and hot media, the former leaving more for the participant or user to do, the latter more comprehensive in its content - and indicates how these affect diversely the tribal or the individualistic culture. His insights into the nature of our society, the role the media play in it, the meaning of media, the actualities of the cold war (again that temperature reading is important) are provocative and brilliant. The printed word, however, is a cold medium, and this book requires concentrated reader application for reward. (Kirkus Reviews)
