COMM 300 - Mass Communication Theories

Course Instructor: Ron Wright
New Technologies Consultant: Mary Flores

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* Media and Culture

Technological Determinism - Marshall McLuhan

Brief Bio of Marshall McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian communications theorist who believed that media communication and the technology it uses helps shape the society in which we live and even perception itself.

Born: Herbert Marshall McLuhan, on the 21st of July 1911, in Edmonton Alberta Canada

Education: Educated at the university of Manitoba in Canada and then at Cambridge in England - McLuhan became a scholar of Medieval and Renaissance literature and taught at various universities around the US and Canada.

Profession: McLuhan finally settled at St Michael's College at the University of Toronto where he became a professor of English. In 1963, he was appointed head of the Centre for Culture and Technology.

Focus and Works: McLuhan was a "technological determist" which was a reflection of the turmoil of the times. He was one of the folks who focused on technology, the medium that massaged our brains. He looked at the future as highly tactile and placed the main importance of a message in its medium and not its content.

  • The Mechanical Bride (1951) How the collective intelligence of industrial man is effected by the media
  • The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) How Western society moves around books and the printed word
  • Understanding Media (1964) Grammar of the media and its impact on social values
  • The Medium is the Massage (1967)
  • War and Peace in the Global Village (1968)
  • Culture is Our Business (1970)

Died: 31st of December 1980 in Toronto Ontario Canada. A number of sources claim to channel the spirit of McLuhan, including the unidentified writer of a popular interview carried in Wired Magazine.

Web Links

Media and Cultural Studies: Marshall McLuhan: Very comprehensive list of links to websites devoted to Marshall McLuhan

The Marshall McLuhan Center on Global Communications: Software and site donated by Adobe

The McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology: University of Toronto

Marshall McLuhan: biographical notes, picture, and web links

Yahoo! - Social Science:Communications: McLuhan, Marshall

Marshall McLuhan Studies: Eric McLuhan, Bernard Hibbits, & Francesco Guardiani, eds.

MARSHALL McLUHAN: Resurected!?!

The McLuhan Connection: a McLuhan newsletter

WIRED 4.01:Channeling McLuhan - By Gary Wolf: "The Wired Interview with Wired's patron saint."

WIRED 4.01:The Wisdom of Saint Marshall, the Holy Fool - By Gary Wolf: "In the tumult of the digital revolution, McLuhan is relevant anew. But if you think you know Marshall McLuhan, or what he stood for - think again."

The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan: From "The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan, Playboy Magazine (March 1969).

Applying the Theory

McLuhan Meets the Net: Larry Press, Communications of the ACM, Vol 38, No 7, July, 1995, pp 15-20. What would McLuhan have thought of the Net? This column consists of quotes taken from Understanding Media, followed by comments on how they might be applied to the Net.

The Internet - Global Village or Global Exclusive Community: Andrew Wilson, December 4th 1996. "This paper will attempt to compare Marshall McLuhan's concept of the Global Village with the current reality of the Internet. It will attempt to show that the Internet as it currently exists is not the realization of McLuhan's prophecy."

The Haptic Sense: Ken Johnstone. "As the realization grew in me of the importance of what McLuhan had said and done I was too exhilarated to sleep: gap, interval, interface-all that play of pix, headlines, quotes from Finnegans Wake, puns; his stress on the tactile."

http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~comm300/mary/mass/techno.html