Understanding Media
Also known as Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
Marshall McLuhan's 1964 study arguing that media, not content, shape society.
At a glance
Key ideas
The medium is the message, A light bulb has no content, The content of a medium is another medium …
See all 5Criticism
Eco and Debray, Dwight Macdonald, Williams, Carey and Winston
See all 3Connections
Also on this page: Key facts · Links · Sources · Related pages
- McLuhan proposes that the media themselves, not their content, should be studied.
- A medium is any extension of ourselves, from speech and clothing to roads, money and television.
- Each medium changes the scale, pace or pattern of human affairs, and that change is its message.
- He divides media into hot and cool by how much participation they ask for.
Why it matters
- It is the source of "the medium is the message" and a pioneering work of media theory, still argued over in the age of the internet.
Key facts
- Author
- Marshall McLuhan1
- Published
- 19641
- Structure
- Part One on media in general; Part Two on single media in turn, from the spoken word to automation1
Key ideas
-
The medium is the message1
Any medium amplifies or accelerates existing processes; that change, not the content, is its meaning.
-
A light bulb has no content1
Yet it creates an environment by its mere presence.
-
The content of a medium is another medium1
Each new medium carries older ones inside it.
-
Hot and cool1
A lecture allows less participation than a seminar, a book less than a dialogue.
-
Narcissus trance1
A medium imposes its assumptions on the unwary; seeing its effects needs detachment from it.
Criticism
Connections
Written by
Links
Sources
Last checked against its sources today
Is something on this page wrong or out of date? Tell us
The line under a date fills as time passes: empty when new, then one equal share each for a day, a week, a month and a year. For episodes and other items it is full at 2 years; for "last checked", at a year. A striped line means the date is known only to the month or year.