Understanding Media

The Extensions of Man

by Marshall McLuhan

Paperback, 392 pages

English language

Published Oct. 24, 1994 by MIT Press.

ISBN:: 978-0-262-63159-4

(6 reviews)

Terms and phrases such as "the global village" and "the medium is the message" are now part of the lexicon, and McLuhan's theories continue to challenge our sensibilities and our assumptions about how and what we communicate.

This reissue of Understanding Media marks the thirtieth anniversary (1964-1994) of Marshall McLuhan's classic expose on the state of the then emerging phenomenon of mass media. Terms and phrases such as "the global village" and "the medium is the message" are now part of the lexicon, and McLuhan's theories continue to challenge our sensibilities and our assumptions about how and what we communicate.

There has been a notable resurgence of interest in McLuhan's work in the last few years, fueled by the recent and continuing conjunctions between the cable companies and the regional phone companies, the appearance of magazines such as WiRed, and the development of new media models and information ecologies, many of which were spawned from MIT's Media Lab. In effect, media now begs to be redefined. In a new introduction to this edition of Understanding Media, Harper's editor Lewis Lapham reevaluates McLuhan's work in the light of the technological as well as the political and social changes that have occurred in the last part of this century.

30 editions

Kattas reviewed Understanding Media by Marshal McLuhan

Review of 'Understanding Media' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Swerving wildly between western elitism, paternalism, and prescient visions of the future, about a third of what McLuhan says is complete racist gibberish, another third is interesting social commentary, and the final third is pure brilliance. What makes this book worth reading still is his exploration and explanation of social phenomena that have only taken place fifty years after the initial publication of this text. There are passages that seem to perfectly describe the history of social and technological evolution from the 90s through and into the new millennium as technologies like social media bring to pass predictions - or more accurately descriptions of processes - from 1964.