Hall of Fame

McLuhan (1911-1980)

Marshall McLuhan, popularised, if not invented 'media studies'. His accessible books and aphoristic style introduced reflection on communications and media to an entire generation. Indeed, 'the medium is the message' has become so popular that it has become a cliché.

His ideas, particularly his media determinism, endure, and he has much to offer those who are interested in the impact of technology in learning, from writing through print to new technology.

Gutenburg generation
Although put forward as a savant on electronic media, he was strongest in his analysis of print media. In The Gutenburg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man, he first explores the relationship between media (writing, print and electronic) to the individual mind and then to society. Media are seen as extensions of mind, but not always additive. Print, he thinks, brings in a linear, sequential mode of thought that sometimes simplifies, seprates and subsumes other modes (such as hearing). Print is the technology of individualism.

In his analysis of what he called 'the Gutenburg generation', the industrial revolution, he thought, was a consequence of the print revolution. This new medium resulted in 'private readers' isolated from each other, resulting in less community and social interaction. This was a direct result of mass copying and book design as a cheap and portable piece of technology. He saw most media as leading us towards a 'global village'. (Note that this was often seen by him as a negative term.)

Medium is the message
In Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, McLuhan defines media as defining ourselves and society. The invention of alphabets and writing radically alters our minds and our relationship with the world. His famous 'medium is the message' became the foundation stone for media and technology studies. Famously misprinted by the publisher as 'The massage is the medium', McLuhan loved the error. His point was that each medium has a set of intrinsic qualities that changes our relationship with the world. Speed, replication, pattern, scalability are all features of media which shape the nature of the message. The tools we shape, also shape us, and we have to understand this process. It is this deterministic view of media that he is best known.

Hot and cold media
Media are divided into hot (low audience participation, such as print) and cool (high audience participation, such as TV). It is not clear that this distinction survives in our multimedia, internet age. However, his analysis of the effect of different types of media are strong and remain relevant. Indeed, the advent of the internet has thrown much of McLuhan's analysis up in the air, as it has many dimensions that prove difficult to fit into these older analyses.

Conclusion
McLuhan was arguably the originator, certainly a populiser, of an entirely new subject - media studies. His insights into the nature of media were profound and many of his ideas about the way media and technology impact individuals and society were prescient. Amusingly, he appeared in the Woody Allen film Annie hall, as himself. When presented to a professor who was trying to impress his date with his knowledge of McLuhan, he asks McLuhan how he ever became a professor. McLuhan ends by saying 'You don't understand my work at all', perhaps a fitting comment for many mordern commantators.

Bibliography
McLuhan, Marshall (1962). The Gutenburg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. New York: Routledge.
McLuhan, Marshall (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Gingko.
McLuhan, Marshall (1967). The Medium is the massage. Gingko.
McLuhan, Marshall (1968). War and peace in the Global Village. Gingko.
McLuhan, Marshall (1989). The Global Village. Gingko.
Levinson, Paul (1999). Digital McLuhan: A Guide to the Information Millenium. Routledge.