Marshall McLuhan : Research

 Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian theorist, is known as the "father of media studies". He has contributed enormously to media ecology and so I am dedicating this post to some of his most important works.

The Medium Is The Message

McLuhan introduced the idea that the message being communicated to people does not hold as much power as the media that delivers it. Basically, the medium through which a message is delivered shapes the users' perception of that message. For example, a person listening to the news on the radio will perceive a different meaning of the news than another person reading the news from a newspaper. McLuhan developed this theory in 1964 while the rise of social media began in 1996. So although he did not relate this idea to social media, he may have believed that the actual posts being put up on social media platforms aren't as important but social media itself has had the biggest impact. Another aspect of McLuhan's statement, "the medium is the message," is that if a medium is delivering a message that would otherwise be impossible to access, then the medium becomes the message itself. 

Technological Determinism

The concept of technological determinism suggests that technology influences our society and it affects the way we think and act. Technology alters the way we conduct our relationships, values and the way we learn. Basically, McLuhan believed that technology shaped our world. One of the most important benefits of technology is the reach it provides: the way we can connect with people worldwide within seconds. Additionally, the theory states that human beings do not have much free will at all. Every person will adapt to whatever medium the society is using and use it to communicate like everyone else does.

Media Analysis of Human History

McLuhan divided all human history into four periods: a tribal age, a literate age, a print age, and an electronic age.

The Tribal Age

According to McLuhan, the tribal age was an acoustic age. In untamed settings, hearing is more valuable than seeing since it allows to be immediately aware of your surroundings. In that world of surround sound, everything is more immediate, more present, and more actual. In that age, hearing is believing.

The Literary Age

This age brought the rise of the phonetic alphabet. Words are no longer alive and immediate. They can be read and analysed thoroughly. Proximity became rare because people no longer need to be together to get information. Reading requires singular focus. Therefore, when the oppressed learnt to read they became independent thinkers. 

The Print Age

This was the visual age. It demonstrated mass production of identical products and so McLuhan called it the forerunner of the industrial revolution.

The Electronic Age

McLuhan insisted that electronic media are retribalizing the human race. Sound and touch are more important than sight just as they were in the tribal age. We’ve gone “back to the future” and become immediately aware of our surroundings again.

Global Village

Marshall McLuhan was the first theorist to talk about the idea of the global village in 1964. He predicted that media would soon be able to overcome any physical distance which will bring humans closer together. The idea was that people throughout the world will be interconnected by the use of new media. His theory proved right. Today, the Web is the medium through which people from all around the globe interact. We have now become a village as we have that immediate awareness as McLuhan said we had in the tribal age but only this time everyone on earth is part of the village.