This Blog Entry is the Message (A Short Response)
For years I had been hearing of this wondrous book by a man named Marshall Mcluhan called “Understanding Media”. It was supposedly the end-all-be-all of treatises on “new” media…a prophecy written 30 years too soon. Since learning of it, I have wanted to read it…and now, I finally had the opportunity.
I think the most surprising aspect of the book was how obvious it was that McLuhan was an English Literature professor. Nearly all of his concepts were backed up by references to literary works. The one piece that he kept returning to over and over was Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. Unfortunately, I have never read Finnegans Wake, so most of the references were lost on me. In fact, most of the literary pieces he constantly invoked were unknown to me, aside from some Shakespeare. While this isn’t really important mcLuhan’s underlying concepts, the reliance on his literary background was the most astounding aspect of the book for me. Of course, had I known that he was an English Lit professor I would have been less surprised. But the fact that this seminal book, which has been quoted countless times in reference to the Information Age and new media, bases much of its content on the medium of print itself felt slightly ironic to me. Fortunately, McLuhan appears quite aware of this, and doesn’t try to beat around the bush in any way.
The other most interesting aspect to the reading is his introduction of new terms that seem so commonplace today. This is the most common notion that contemporary readers like to mention, and after having it pounded in my head for so long I expected to read the first mention of these phrases as if I was watching the birth of some historical persons being born. Sure, it was awe inspiring to see Phrases “global village”, “seamless web”, and “hybrid energy” in a book about media published in 1964. He truly was a visionary. I know that’s trite statement, but it didn’t hit me until I was reading. But what surprises me about some of those phrases was that we have altered some of their intended meanings to our own purposes…or, rather, to make them fit better in our own time. His notion of the “global village” had little to do with an individual’s ability to instantly communicate with and learn from cultures far outside his own. It was about the new fangled “jet airplane” and mass media through television. By this I mean McLuhan was considering the fact that SOME people can be transported vast distances quickly, and SOME media can reach vast audiences. But the consumers of these media were not able to respond…they are “hot” mediums, in his terms. It was only the EXISTENCE of these new media, and the effects they have on cultures, that elicited a global cultural shift. The notion that individuals were somehow living in a “village” was not really the point…unlike the way use the term today to describe our ability to interact with distant colleagues as if they were local.
I must say that I am extremely sad that McLuhan never had a chance to experience the internet. Most of his vision was focused on the new media of the time…radio and television. Yet many concepts are far better suited for the World Wide Web than they are for television. I wonder what he would say of it? Only one decade after the initial mass acceptance of the internet has the use of video become prominent. The medium has always been highly textual. His talk of Gutenberg technology being obsolete can now be considered way off base. If anything, the textual nature of the web, email, and messaging has solidified the printed word’s place as the anchor medium of our shared culture. In the end, I think this would make MCLuhan secretly happy. After all, his great love, and the focus of his professional life, was the medium of print.