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

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

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 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.

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.