January 18, 2005
Kamloops Daily News



Forty years ago, his book inspired hippies and academics
alike.  Marshall McLuhan’s book, Understanding Media: The
Extensions of Man, propelled the rumpled Canadian professor
of English into the spotlight.  He was an unlikely oracle of
the flamboyant sixties but his enigmatic manner and clever
one-liners suited the cult of flower power.

Before McLuhan,  media was thought to be an empty box in
which the real message  - - the content - -  was delivered. 
McLuhan proclaimed that the "The medium is the message." 
The message of media is subtle.  It creeps inside the
perceiver unnoticed.   "Any medium has the power of imposing
it own assumption on the unwary," warned McLuhan. 

Consider the medium of writing, for example.  As you gaze at
the blobs of ink on this page, a little voice in your head
approximates the voice inside my head that directed me to
write.

But that voice you hear is not mine - -  it is generated by
sight not sound.  The effect of seeing sounds is odd enough,
but the profound message of print is the way it shapes
perceptions and patterns of thought.

Writing was the first mass media in modern history.  This
extension of speech diminished the power of speech.  The
priests and storytellers couldn’t match the effect of
millions of people being able to read a book.

The sequential process of print led to linear configurations
like the assembly line and industrial society.   In Physics,
linear thinking led to Newtonian and Cartesian views of the
universe - - a mechanism in which it’s possible to locate a
physical event in space and time.  In art, it led to
perspective;  in literature, the chronological narrative.

The spoken word is a intimate, tribal medium.  Verbal
cultures were rich in ceremony and gesture.  The space of
the spoken word was boundless and charged with emotion.  The
tribe was the central unit of society, limited in size by
the range of the spoken word.

Print media fostered a sense of private identity which
advanced the growth of individual rights.  Printing
standardized grammar, spelling, and language.  The central
unit of society grew, encompassing all those who could read
one language, one law.  Feudal states gave way to nation
states.

To get some idea of the difference between the two media,
imagine that this article was being read to you by a friend, 
a storyteller with the gestures and inflection that make the
spoken word a rich experience.

The medium of television has an effect similar to the spoken
word.  The technology of TV engages the viewer in a tribal
way.  Watching TV requires the interpretation of a mosaic
drawn by an electron beam as it flies across the screen. 
The effect is mesmerizing.

Our high involvement in the assembly of TV images engages us
at an emotional level but the effect is sedating.  Radio is
more effective medium for stimulating people.  Hitler made
good use radio but he would have been a failure on TV.

Successful TV personalities employ a free flowing style of
chat that makes that maximizes this vacuous but embracing
medium.

McLuhan predicted the success of a folksy style like
President Bush used on TV.   The story that Bush told of the
invasion of of the Iraq invasion demonstrates his natural
understanding of the medium.   His appeal to tribal American
was based on fear, revenge and the evil stranger. 

In the brave new globalized society, legend replaces
history, magic replaces science, violence replaces argument.

Lewis Lapham, editor of Harpers’ magazine, sums up McLuhan’s
vision this way:  "the accelerated technologies of the
electronic future carry us backward into the firelight
flickering in the caves of a neolithic past.  Among people
who worship the objects of their own invention and accept
the blessing of an icon as proof of divinity, ritual becomes
a form of applied knowledge.

McLuhan’s predictions forty years ago have faded like the
twinkling light of the TV screen and the message of the
medium is now is a distant memory. McLuhan’s global village
of electronic media is now a reality.

The beautiful people of the sixties soon moved on when they
discovered that McLuhan’s dark vision of a unenlightened
global village was not the wonderful world of peace and
harmony they yearned for.

McLuhan’s message is still relevant today.  Regrettably,  it
can only be understood by those who can still read.

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