Marshal McLuhan was one of the most famous intellectuals during the 1960s and 70s.

He wrote a series of books that were very influential in the academic community, but also among more general publics. He ended up having the status of a celebrity.

McLuhan also had some sense of humor. In the following movie clip, you can see him in a parodic cameo role in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall (1977). He was able to make fun of himself.

The Medium is the Message

(Online lecture)

Technological Determinism

• Historians, literature and art scholars, philosophers, sociologists, economists, political scientists, anthropologists, …
• Main assumption: human free will is a myth.
• Technology is the final engine of human life.
• It shapes human behavior and relationships.
• Technology determines the communication process

Extensions of Man

• Technology extends the natural abilities of the human being.
• “It is the persistent theme of this book that all technologies are extensions of our physical and nervous systems to increase power and speed”.
• “Any extension, whether of skin, hand, or foot, affects the whole psychic and social complex. Some of the principle extensions, together with some of their psychic and social consequences, are studied in this book”.
• Examples of Technologies:
  • Wheel
  • Clothing
  • Housing
  • Weapons
  • Language
  • Alphabet
• Amputation: the counterpart of the extension

Media as Extensions of Man

• Media (communication channels) can be regarded as extensions of man.
• What is what they extend?
• Our senses and nervous system
  • Printing press
  • Telegraph
  • Telephone
  • Radio
  • TV

• Electricity
• Electric light escapes attention as a communication medium just because it has no content (apparently).
• It is a medium without a message.
• “For electric light and power are separate from their uses, yet they eliminate time and space factors in human association exactly as do radio, telegraph, telephone, and TV, creating involvement in depth”.
• Even though it has no message (apparently), it affects the change or pace or pattern that it introduces in human affairs.

The Medium is the Message

• “The medium is the message means, in terms of the electronic age, that a totally new human environment has been created”.
• “The medium is the message because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action”.
• “It is only too typical that the content of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium”.
• “The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinion or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance”.

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Broadcast News (1987)

• Director: James L. Brooks
• Screenwriter: James L. Brooks
• Holly Hunter,  Albert Brooks, William Hurt, Jack Nicholson

Following questions will help study how this film relates the the Marshall McLuhan’s theory:

1. The term technological determinism is key to grasp McLuhan’s understanding of the role of media in society. Based on the film’s contents, which are the technological characteristics of the medium TV? And how do these characteristics might determine the nature of the TV contents?
2. Jane is a idealistic character. She is primarily concerned with the integrity of news.  What is what in her opinion saves and protects the integrity of news?
3. Aaron miserably fails when he is in front of the camera, while Tom easily charms audiences. How would you explain, basen on the film’s logic, the failure of the talented Aaron and the success of the vacuous Tom?
4. How do the technological characteristics of the medium TV determine the necessary development of broadcast news?