The underlying concept of McLuhan's view of electr(on)ic technology is that it has become an extension of our senses, particularly those of sight and sound. The telephone and the radio become a long distance ear as the television and computer extend the eye by projecting further than our biological range of vision and hearing. But in what way does McLuhan suggest how this has happened?
The basic precepts of his view are that the rapidity of communication through electric media echoes the speed of the senses. Through media such as the telephone, television and more recently the personal computer and the 'Internet', we are increasingly linked together across the globe and this has enabled us to connect with people at the other side of the world as quickly as it takes us to contact and converse with those who inhabit the same physical space (i.e the people that live in the same village). We can now hear and see events that take place thousands of miles away in a matter of seconds, often quicker than we hear of events in our own villages or even families, and McLuhan argues that it is the speed of these electronic media that allow us to act and react to global issues at the same speed as normal face to face verbal communication.
QUOTES:
"There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening".
"The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village. "
"The medium is the message."
LINKS:
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/bas9401.html
http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_mcluhan.htm
http://kirjasto.sci.fi/mcluhan.htm
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