"Understanding Media"

Paper Summary:

Examines the first seven chapters of Marshall McLuhan's book on the effect of mass communication. Impact of rapid technological change on society. McLuhan's theory that the medium is the message and are one. Hot and cool media. Media as an extension of people's senses. Information systems and learning. Psychic consequences of the new technologies.

From the Paper:

"In Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan described and explained media and cultural transformations. This paper will analyze the first seven chapters of his seminal book, which contain his central ideas on mass communication and contemporary culture.

THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE
McLuhan offers a form of technological determinism as he sees a relationship between the way we live and the way we process information. Cultural change is driven by technological change, says McLuhan, and for McLuhan it is specifically changes in modes of communication that shape human existence. McLuhan saw every new communications development as an extension of some human faculty -- the book is an extension of the eye, the wheel an extension of the foot, clothing an extension of the skin, and ..."

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