Marshall McLuhan

Quentin Fiore

Jerome Agel

A collage of photographs and commentary reveals the role of electronic technology in restructuring our lives

An Inventory of Effects

The Medium is the Massage

Gavin

Damn silly fun. Good to chat about, hard to take seriously

First published in 1967, this text is now more relevant than ever, as McLuhan's foresights about the impact of new media is actualized at unprecedented speeds via the Internet. It portrays technologies as an extension of man, illustrating how our senses are massaged and our perceptions altered as these devices become integral parts of our lives. The combination of artistic images, graphics and incisive statements create a representative work that not only explains human absorption of media, but visually diagrams it for the reader.

Rohit Gupta

Amazingly short and powerful read. The visuals are sometimes coherent with what the text is talking about. Written quite long back the ideas are largely relevant today. 

I think he stresses the fact that we do not see the power of new mediums as we should. We force the new medium to do the work of the old. This may be called a hybridization but largely does not have any progress and its just another way of doing the old things. This kind of feels what people are doing with VR and AR. The part where the education is discussed is also worth pointing out. 

I did feel confused in some parts of the book and it was difficult to 'extend' the thoughts elaborately in the current context.

Marshall McLuhan is the man who predicted the all-pervasive rise of the modern mass media. Blending text, image and photography, his 1960s classic The Medium is the Massage illustrates how the growth of technology utterly reshapes society, personal lives and sensory perceptions, so that we are effectively shaped by the means we use to communicate. This concept, and his ideas such as rolling, up-to-the-minute news broadcasts and the media 'global village' have proved decades ahead of their time.

The Medium is the Massage An Inventory of Effects