Marshall McLuhan
Also known as Herbert Marshall McLuhan
Canadian media theorist (1911 to 1980) who coined "the medium is the message".
At a glance
Main ideas
The medium is the message, Hot and cool media, Print and the individual …
See all 5Criticism
Too loose a definition, Technological determinism, Style
See all 3Books to start with
The Mechanical Bride, The Gutenberg Galaxy, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man …
See all 4Connections
Amusing Ourselves to Death and Understanding Media
See all 2
Also on this page: Key facts · Links · Sources · Related pages
- McLuhan was a Canadian philosopher and English professor called the father of media studies.
- He argued that a medium shapes society through its own characteristics more than through its content.
- He coined "the medium is the message" and the term global village.
- He taught at the University of Toronto from 1946 for the rest of his life.
- Interest in his work revived with the internet.
Why it matters
- Anyone asking how phones, screens or networks change us is working in a field he founded; his phrases are still the vocabulary.
Key facts
- Born
- 21 Jul 1911, Edmonton, Alberta; raised in Winnipeg1
- Died
- 31 Dec 1980, in his sleep, after a stroke in September 19791
- Education
- BA (1933) and MA in English (1934), University of Manitoba; Cambridge (Trinity Hall), PhD with a dissertation on Thomas Nashe and the verbal arts1
- Career
- Saint Louis University from 1937 to 1944; Assumption College, Windsor, from 1944 to 1946; University of Toronto (St. Michael's College) from 19461
- Fordham
- Albert Schweitzer Chair in Humanities from 1967 to 19681
- Honours
- Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction for The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962); Companion of the Order of Canada (1970)1
- Coined
- "The medium is the message"; "global village"1
Main ideas
-
The medium is the message1
A medium affects society through its own characteristics, not the content it carries; a light bulb has no content but changes how we live.
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Hot and cool media1
Hot media such as film fill one sense in high definition; cool media such as 1960s television need the audience to fill in.
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Print and the individual1
Movable type made the visual dominant and helped bring individualism, nationalism and the specialist outlook.
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Global village1
Electronic interdependence would move people from individualism to a collective, tribal identity.
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The tetrad1
Four questions about any medium: what it enhances, makes obsolete, retrieves, and reverses into.
Criticism
-
Too loose a definition1
Umberto Eco and Régis Debray said his idea of a medium conflates channel, code and message.
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Technological determinism1
Raymond Williams and Brian Winston argued he reduced history to the effects of technology.
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Style1
Dwight Macdonald faulted the aphoristic prose of Understanding Media; McLuhan called his work "probes".
Books to start with
The line under a date fills as it gets older: empty when new, full at 2 years.
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The Mechanical Bride1
Fifty-nine short essays on advertising and popular culture.
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The Gutenberg Galaxy1
How the alphabet and printing changed thought and society.
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Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man1
His best-known work, the source of "the medium is the message".
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The Medium Is the Massage1
With Quentin Fiore; his best seller, nearly a million copies.
Connections
Links
Sources
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