simulo reviewed Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan
None
3 stars
It’s complicated.
First of all: It is relatively easy to read; most of the vocabulary is common, the sentences are not overly complex, particularly given that McLuhan was followed by other media scholars, who were much harder to read. You need to be able to cope with the bold, short statements of what will happen and to whom, often without any explanation. I enjoyed that it discussed the effects of media often via literature and poetry.
I mainly read this since it is known to have had a big influence on silicon valley culture. And a lot of assumptions and tropes in the book are common in the tech industry. So it clearly delivered in regards to digging into tech culture.
The book is about “media”, and a lot of chapters are also about what one would commonly refer to as media. However, McLuhan makes the term really broad, saying …
It’s complicated.
First of all: It is relatively easy to read; most of the vocabulary is common, the sentences are not overly complex, particularly given that McLuhan was followed by other media scholars, who were much harder to read. You need to be able to cope with the bold, short statements of what will happen and to whom, often without any explanation. I enjoyed that it discussed the effects of media often via literature and poetry.
I mainly read this since it is known to have had a big influence on silicon valley culture. And a lot of assumptions and tropes in the book are common in the tech industry. So it clearly delivered in regards to digging into tech culture.
The book is about “media”, and a lot of chapters are also about what one would commonly refer to as media. However, McLuhan makes the term really broad, saying that media is any technology and any “extension of man”. So it is hard to find things that can not be discussed as media under this assumptions.
Fitting to the idea that problems can be fixed with technology, McLuhans view on media is deterministic. The people who use the media, the content or context only have an incidental effect. What matters is the medium itself and what it essentially entails. It changes society and the people’s very thinking. No wonder it appeals to people who see themselves as creating media itself.
Utopian ideas, like the global village, the integration of all areas of life and the end of linearity are described by McLuhan. But while his “we” and “us” is centered on educated men in the US and Canada. All culture gets a generalizing treatment: “We”, “The Russian”, “The European” and “The African” are repeated archetypes.
So… it is an interesting read, particularly given it’s influence on the “californian ideology”. McLuhan has a lot of creative and interesting ideas and can convey them in captivating prose. Yet the sweeping predictions without explanations, the employed stereotypes and the idea,that agency is only in the medium itself, makes it also disconcerting.
