The first editionIn 1964 the Canadian scholar Marshall McLuhan published his seminal book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, that gave a new sap to the media studies introducing new concepts and perspectives. For instance McLuhan suggested that “the medium is the message”, namely that the media affect the society in which they play a role, not by the content delivered through them, but by their peculiar characteristics. Therefore the media and their working and operating activities should be the focus of the studies, and not the content they carry on. NoemaLab publishes an article and a lexicon by Regina Dürig and Gianna Angelini, on this anniversary.

 

My short presentation from Noema:

In 1964 the Canadian scholar Marshall McLuhan published his seminal book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, that gave a new sap to the media studies introducing new concepts and perspectives. The book greatly influenced academics, writers, social theorists, educators and artists. Some of its ideas became very popular, and today they are considered relevant in the media studies and in understanding the contemporary mediascape.

For instance McLuhan suggested that “the medium is the message”, namely that the media affect the society in which they play a role, not by the content delivered through them, but by their peculiar characteristics. Therefore the media and their working and operating activities should be the focus of the studies, and not the content they carry on. He gave the example of the electrical light. Differently from a TV program, a book novel, a music record and a newspaper article, a light bulb does not have a content. It is the medium – the electrical light – that has a big social effect, enabling people to live and work during nighttime and in the darkness, hence opening up new chances and definitely deeply influencing their lives, psychologically, socially, economically. A light bulb is a medium without any content; according to McLuhan it “creates an environment by its mere presence.”

In Understanding Media he also proposed an idea that deeply influenced scholars and researchers in many fields (in the social, historical, media and communication and technological studies, as well as in the arts): the media and the technologies are extensions, amplifications, of the human body or of the body parts, abilities, faculties and senses. The wheel is an extension of the foot, the glasses, the telescope and the phonetic alphabet of the eye, the hammer of the fist, the dresses of the skin, the press of the phonetic alphabet, the electronic media and the networks of the nervous system…

In the huge transformations that the media and the technologies are generating in people’s lives and in the society we are living in, a key role is played by the artist. In Understanding Media McLuhan defines the artist as “the man in any field, scientific or humanistic, who grasps the implications of his actions and of new knowledge in his own time. He is the man of integral awareness.”

The centenary of McLuhan’s birth was celebrated in 2011, and in 2014 his seminal book Understanding Media is fifty. Regina Dürig and Gianna Angelini, two of the T-Node (Planetary Collegium, University of Plymouth) PhD candidates (Gianna is also Noema’s Assistant Director), propose a reflection and a lexicon.