| Today, after
more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous
system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our
planet is concerned.
- Marshall McLuhan, Understanding
Media, 1964. |
Marshall McLuhan's insights made the concept of a global
village, interconnected by an electronic nervous system, part of our popular
culture
well before it
actually happened.
Marshall McLuhan was the first person to popularize the concept
of a global village and to consider its social effects. His insights were revolutionary
at the time, and fundamentally changed how everyone has thought about media,
technology, and communications
ever
since. McLuhan chose the insightful phrase "global village" to highlight
his
observation that an electronic nervous system (the media) was rapidly integrating
the
planet
-- events in one part of the world could be experienced from
other parts in real-time, which is what human experience was like when we lived
in small
villages.
McLuhan's second best known insight is summarized in the expression "the
medium is the message", which means that the qualities of a medium have as much
effect as the information it transmits. For example, reading a description of
a
scene
in a newspaper has
a
very different effect on someone than hearing about it, or seeing a picture of
it, or watching a black and white video, or watching a colour video. McLuhan
was
particularly fascinated by the medium of television, calling it a "cool" medium,
noting its soporific effect on viewers. He took great satisfaction years later
when medical studies showed that TV does in fact cause people to settle into
passive
brain wave patterns. One wonders what McLuhan would make of the Internet?
Like
Norbert Wiener and J.C.R.
Licklider, McLuhan made a study of the extrapolation of current trends
in technology, and specialized in the effects on human communications. He generally
felt that the developments he described would be positive, but particularly worried
about the potential for very sophisticated, manipulative advertising.
McLuhan's
ideas have permeated the way we in the global village think about technology
and media to such an extent that we are generally no longer aware of the revolutionary
effect
his
concepts had when they were first introduced. McLuhan made the idea
of an integrated planetary nervous system a part of our popular culture,
so that when the Internet finally arrived in the global village it seemed
no less
amazing, but still somehow in the natural order of things.
Resources. Two of McLuhan's
best known books are The
Gutenberg Galaxy, published in 1962, and Understanding
Media, published in 1964. The following references provide more information
about Marshall McLuhan the man and his work:
