Marshall McLuhan

**Herbert Marshall McLuhan**, CC (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian Professor of English literature who turned his attention to media. He was interested in the ways different media affected society.

His work was a cornerstone of media studies, and had some practical applications in the advertising and television industries. His best-known work was _Understanding Media:The Extensions of Man_.

McLuhan is known for coining the expressions _the medium is the message_ and the _global village_.
Although he was a fixture in media discourse in the late 1960s, his influence began to wane in the early 1970s. In the years after his death, he continued to be a controversial figure in academic circles. With the arrival of the internet, however, there was renewed interest in his work and perspective.

## _The Gutenberg Galaxy_

McLuhan's _The Gutenberg Galaxy: the making of typographic man_ (1962) was a history of print, and its effect on society.

In the book, McLuhan showed how alphabetic writing, the printing press and later media, affect thought, which in turn affects social organization:
- "If a new technology extends one or more of our senses outside us into the social world, then new ratios among all of our senses will occur in that particular culture. It is comparable to what happens when a new note is added to a melody. And when the sense ratios alter in any culture then what had appeared lucid before may suddenly become opaque, and what had been vague or opaque will become translucent".

A typical idea:
- _The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village_. Remember, this was written before anyone had any idea of the world wide web.

His sayings range from the amusing:
- _Nobody ever made a grammatical error in a non-literate society_.

to the mysterious:
- _Typography cracked the voices of silence_.

## _Understanding Media_

_Understanding Media: the extensions of Man_ was a pioneering study of the effects of media. The book suggests that media affect their content in important ways. It is an attempt to understand how different media have affected society. McLuhan suggests that media play a role, not by the content delivered, but by the characteristics of the medium itself.

McLuhan pointed to the light bulb as an example. A light bulb does not have content in the way that a newspaper has articles or a television has programs, but it is a medium that has a social effect. The light bulb lets people do things at nightime which would be impossible in darkness. He describes the light bulb as a medium without any content. McLuhan states that "a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence". He then goes on to compare the effects of radio, television and film (movis).

The book is the source of the well-known phrase "The medium is the message". This is the idea that a medium like television actually affects the way information is seen and understood.

## _The Medium is the Message_

_The Medium is the Message: an inventory of effects_ (1967) was a spin-off from his previous book. It was compiled by Quentin Fiore from writings of McLuhan with many photos and graphics selected by the compiler. The text is based on published McLuhan works, but the sources are not listed. It was a huge best-seller. "eventually selling nearly a million copies worldwide".

## Related pages

- Eric McLuhan

## Infobox (philosopher)

- **image**: Marshall McLuhan.jpg
- **image size**: 230px
- **caption**: Marshall McLuhan, c. 1945
- **birth name**: Herbert Marshall McLuhan
- **birth place**: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
- **death place**: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- **school tradition**: Media theory, Toronto School of communication theory
- **main interests**: Media, sensorium, New Criticism
- **notable ideas**: _The medium is the message_, _Global Village_, _hot and cool media_
- **influences**: Giambattista Vico, Harold Innis, Eric A. Havelock, Thomas Nashe, Richard McKeon, G. K. Chesterton, I. A. Richards, F. R. Leavis, Wyndham Lewis, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, Moses Hadas
- **influenced**: Walter J. Ong, Abbie Hoffman, Neil Postman, Timothy Leary, Camille Paglia, Terence McKenna, _Wired (magazine), Wired_, William Irwin Thompson, Paul Levinson, Douglas Rushkoff, B. W. Powe, Douglas Coupland, Jean Baudrillard, Norbert Bolz, Décio Pignatari