McLuhan/The Medium is the Massage

April 26, 2005 8:13 AM

The Medium is the Massage [mp3s]. Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian Professor of English Literature who coined phrases such as "the medium is the message" and global village in the 1960s, and who talked about coming global connectivity, saw media such as the printing-press and television as changing not only the information we received, but the ways in which we understand information and the world. His publishing style often involved the collection and juxtaposition of quotations and observations in a ways that were fast and cut-up, including collage and typographic experiment, and a sound collage lp released in 1967 which sounds as if it was recorded today.
posted by carter (13 comments total)

Thank you. This is great.
posted by sam and rufus at 8:25 AM on April 26, 2005

Mmmmm....Swedish or Shiatsu?
posted by RockCorpse at 8:28 AM on April 26, 2005

For the record, "massage" isn't a typo.
posted by mendel at 8:52 AM on April 26, 2005

According to here, originally it was a typesetting error that McLuhan decided to keep, because it was thought-provoking.
posted by carter at 9:25 AM on April 26, 2005

Gotcha.

Full release?
posted by RockCorpse at 9:27 AM on April 26, 2005

It seems that McLuhan's take on media is a counterpoint to Guy Debord's theories, which basically cast new media as having an evil and degrading effect on intellectual life, that their basis in capital and in power renders their tribal effects null and void, an artificial life that is part asleep.

McLuhan's ideas are a challenge to the primacy of printed media (cum diebold). Is he right? Or is he just a media puppet whose intellectual arguments are nothing more than another means to persuade us away from true tribalism and into a pseudotribal culture of broadcast mass manipulation?
posted by gorgor_balabala at 10:23 AM on April 26, 2005

Very cool, thanks carter.
posted by njm at 11:47 AM on April 26, 2005

Terrific post, carter. Thanks tons.
posted by davebush at 12:10 PM on April 26, 2005

"The artist . . . the enema of society"

Heh.
posted by petebest at 1:54 PM on April 26, 2005

petebest, who are you quoting? and why?
posted by gorgor_balabala at 3:52 PM on April 26, 2005

McLuhan—The Patron Saint of Wired magazine... oh Wired, how you've strayed.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 4:42 PM on April 26, 2005

gorgor_balabala: it's on the second .mp3 in the FPP
posted by petebest at 7:19 AM on April 27, 2005

oh...i guess the why part is mostly answered...

i only wish i could ask "them".
posted by gorgor_balabala at 5:44 PM on April 27, 2005