Marshall McLuhan

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Marshall McLuhan's basic message is that how one communicates is as important, if not more important, as what is being communicated. The paper looks at McLuhan's belief that the most effective means of persuasion shifts with each differing epoch according to the prevailing technology. The paper also points out that the vast communication changes, which the Internet has brought about in a relatively short time, shows how powerful such technological changes can be.

From the Paper:

"McLuhan's statement about the medium shows that we are shaped by the technologies we use and by the way, those technologies extend our perceptions outside the body. Abram follows Husserl and Merleau-Ponty and accepts the notion that perception is participation. If this idea is extended to consciousness as such, it could lead to the conception of the all encompassing interconnected consciousness, which McLuhan also discusses as he finds that our technologies link us in unforeseen ways."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New york: Vintage Books, 1996.
• Drucker, Peter. "The Technological Revolution." Technology and Culture, Vol. II, no. 4 (1961), 348.
• McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1962.
• McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.
• McLuhan, Marshall and Quentin Fiore. The Medium is the Massage. New York: Random House, 1967.

More papers on Marshall McLuhan:

• Essay # 68079 : "Marshall McLuhan and the Media"
• Comparison Essay # 25172 : "Marshall McLuhan: A Man With A Message"
• Analytical Essay # 40069 : "Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan"

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