The impact of Marshall McLuhan's groundbreaking insights into communication technology and its effect on society and the individual continues to be a heavily discussed topic among media and culture academics. He wrote extensively on several ideas and theories, expressed in several publications throughout his academic lifetime. The effects of his writing on media and cultural studies are inexhaustible, and his concepts regarding communication technology are continually being explored and debated. McLuhan's contributions to media studies focus on how media affects and modifies society, notably the ways in which it does so seemingly inconspicuously. .
Born Herbert Marshall McLuhan on July 21, 1911 in Edmonton, Alberta, McLuhan entered the University of Manitoba in 1928 and left in 1935 with his MA. He then studied literature at Cambridge University and earned his PhD in 1942. He taught at the University of Toronto, and in 1963, he became the first director of the Center for Culture and Technology, a center created specifically for McLuhan and his work. He died on New Years Eve in 1980. (McLuhan.ca) Following his death, McLuhan was dismissed as a unique academic whose ideas were not much more than eccentric and outdated. However, as the world rapidly progresses in an era of communication technologies, McLuhan's theories are proving to be useful and relevant in the 21st century. (Wolf 1).
One of McLuhan's primary ideas is the medium is the message', which argues that it is important to examine the medium which is carrying the message, as it is this medium that is actually affecting society. The message itself becomes devalued in comparison to the method used to express it, because it is that method which defines societal communication. McLuhan insists that the ""message- of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs."" (McLuhan 8) McLuhan finds importance in how the medium operates within society, and was one of the first theorists to look at communication in such a way.
Journalism Today Journalists distort the news we see in the media everyday. Information is misrepresented in the headlines, the lead and the facts. This in turn distorts the public's opinion. The concept of Spin is introduced "to favorably reflect upon one view or another." (---------) Spinnin...
The Medium is the Message The media affects our lives in ways we do not even realize. The news media chases after stories filled with tragedy and despair. It seems that they care more for the suspense of a story rather than the victims or people involved. The media provides us with a variety o...
Finally, some of the other theorists that Postman quotes include Marshall McLuhan who argues that the medium becomes the message since it control all human interaction hence, as Postman argued, we become tools of that which we created; Dracula-style. ... To a greater degree, Postman's interpretation and understanding of McLuhan seem to be slightly skewed since McLuhan's famous aphorism about the "media being the message" speaks about the effects of communications media and that the media itself, not its contents, should be the instrument that is studied since the medium itself has l...
E Pluribus Unum "When an Iowan buys a Pontiac from General Motors, 60% of his money goes to South Korea, Japan, West Germany, Taiwan, Singapore, Britain, and Barbados".(Iyer, BR p. 306) In our world today, we exchange language, goods, values, and people. This idea of the increasingly diversified...
GLOBAL UNIVERSITY • historical roots and antecedents, see the Sidebars "The WTO and the Politics of Global Trade", "Seeds of Globalization", and "Global Impacts of the Industrial Revolution" in the Industrial Revolution article. • Social and cultural impacts of globalization are discussed i...
The first decade of film exhibition (1896-1908) saw films exhibited in a great variety of venues rather than in special theaters. It is this period that this paper addresses. It was the work of Tom Gunning with his scholarship with others, into what he termed the "rapture and difference" of the tim...
He quickly became friends with the Canadian media man, Marshall McLuhan. ... McLuhan made Trudeau a common figure in the daily lives of all the people. ... Kennedy first demonstrated it with his win over an earnest but sweaty Richard Nixon- politics was perceived as exclusionary in Canada, or as McLuhan would have said, "hot.""...
" Why do you always complain about your cramps and your uncomfortability. Look at these people; they"re having a good time while on there period." That's what I told my girlfriend when looking at a recent tampon ad. It's funny though, that this particular ad we were looking at, was talking about how...