McLuhan For Beginners

The technology of the age of acoustic space, the technology that later gave writing, print, and telegraph, was speech.
Transformed into writing, speech LOST the quality it had in the age of acoustic space.

we define “message” simply as the idea of “content” or “information,” McLuhan believes, we miss one of the most important features of media: their power to change the course and functioning of human relations and activities. So, McLuhan redefines the “message” of a medium as any change in scale, pace, or pattern that a medium causes in societies or cultures.

we define “message” simply as the idea of “content” or “information,” McLuhan believes, we miss one of the most important features of media: their power to change the course and functioning of human relations and activities. So, McLuhan redefines the “message” of a medium as any change in scale, pace, or pattern that a medium causes in societies or

If we define “message” simply as the idea of “content” or “information,” McLuhan believes, we miss one of the most important features of media: their power to change the course and functioning of human relations and activities. So, McLuhan redefines the “message” of a medium as any change in scale, pace, or pattern that a medium causes in societies or cultures.

Writing transformed space into something bounded, linear, ordered, structured, and rational. The written page, with its edges, margins, and sharply defined letters in row after row brought about a new way of thinking about space

Writing transformed space into something bounded, linear, ordered, structured, and rational. The written page, with its edges, margins, and sharply defined letters in row after row brought about a new way of thinking about space.

By making books available to individual readers in such large numbers, the new print medium also fostered a sense of private identity and imposed a level of standardization in language that had not prevailed until them. So, “correct” spelling and grammar became a measure of literacy.

McLuhan explains, it meant the end of manuscript culture. But he also argued that the consequences were much more far-reaching than simply the loss of jobs for scribes and monks. Printing, he points out, led to the mechanization of writing, which led to the promotion of nationalism and national languages, because international Latin did not have enough scope to provide markets for all the printers.

n the one hand, McLuhan explains, it meant the end of manuscript culture. But he also argued that the consequences were much more far-reaching than simply the loss of jobs for scribes and monks. Printing, he points out, led to the mechanization of writing, which led to the promotion of nationalism and national languages, because international Latin did not have enough scope to provide markets for all the printers.

A note in isolation is not music. Consciousness is corporate action involving all the senses (Latin sensus communis or ‘common sense’ is the translation of all the senses into each other). The ‘meaning of meaning’ is relationship”