1. Marshall Mcluhan
who?
pioneer of media analysis
and pattern recognition
when?
1911 - 1980
where?
canada
why?
there was a need for
the training of perception
2. Marshall Mcluhan
Most well known books:
The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of
Industrial Man
1951
The Gutenberg Galaxy:
The Making of Typographic Man
1962
Understanding Media:
The Extensions of Man
1964
The Medium is the Massage:
An Inventory of Effects
1967
War and Peace in the Global Village
1968
Counterblast
1969
3. Marshall Mcluhan
Most well known ideas / perceptions:
pattern recognition
the medium is the message
meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a
symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived.
technological form matters more than content
or at the very least, has it’s own, unforeseen influences and affects that
have long term consequences on human beings
global village
which refers to the idea that mass communication allows a
village-like mind-set to apply to the entire world
unified theory of culture
communications media are technological extensions
of our senses
society has shifted from WHAT is being said to
HOW it’s being said
scientific processes dictate how a medium becomes a message
Print changed the world, the beginning of a new world
The invention of books (movable type) was the decisive moment in the change
from a culture in which all the senses partook of a common interplay to a tyranny
of the visual. He also argued that the development of the printing press led to
the creation of nationalism, dualism, domination of rationalism, automatisation
of scientific research, uniformation and standardisation of culture and alienation
of individuals.
4. Marshall Mcluhan
Some great quotes:
We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march
backwards into the future.
Invention is the mother of necessities.
Today each of us lives several hundred years in a decade.
News, far more than art, is artifact.
When you are on the phone or on the air, you have no body.
Tomorrow is our permanent address.
All advertising advertises advertising
The future of the book is the blurb.
A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for
insight and understanding.
When you give people too much information, they instantly
resort to pattern recognition to structure the experience.
The work of the artist is to find patterns.
