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The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects
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In a dazzling fusion of Quentin Fiore's bold and inventive graphic design and Marshall McLuhan's unique insight into technology, advertising and mass-media, The Medium is the Massage is a unique study of human communication in the twentieth century, published in Penguin Modern Classics
Marshall McLuhan is the man who predicted the all-pervasive rise of modern mass medi ...more
Marshall McLuhan is the man who predicted the all-pervasive rise of modern mass medi ...more
Paperback, Penguin Classics, 160 pages
Published
September 25th 2008
by Penguin
(first published 1967)
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Start your review of The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects
Dec 25, 2011
Trevor
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
social-theory,
media
This was a much more interesting read than I suspected it would be before I started. The argument runs a bit like this:
Every technology only makes sense in as far as it extends a human sense or ability. The car makes us better ‘walkers’. The telephone, for example, could be seen as a much-improved human ear, allowing us to hear across continents or a plough a much-improved human hand, allowing us to dig up an entire field. Stick with this idea for a moment and soon we see that we hav ...more
Every technology only makes sense in as far as it extends a human sense or ability. The car makes us better ‘walkers’. The telephone, for example, could be seen as a much-improved human ear, allowing us to hear across continents or a plough a much-improved human hand, allowing us to dig up an entire field. Stick with this idea for a moment and soon we see that we hav ...more
Jun 03, 2019
Jon Nakapalau
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
classics,
design,
pop-culture,
politics,
us-history,
business,
cultural-studies,
music,
philosophy,
psychology
This book has been on my list for so long - now I am in awe of Marshall McLuhan built upon the work of Ferdinand Tönnies and Max Weber (Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft) and helped us understand the seismic waves that would trigger the 'reality-quake' that the media started in the 60's...the effects of which we are still feeling today...now more than ever!
Are there other people who wonder about this?
Goodreads ONLY exists because of the goodwill of the people who do all the unpaid slave labour that keeps it where it is. That is Manny, and Paul Bryant, me to a relatively insignificant extent, whoever is reading this.
It is covered in offensive ads. They are there because the site is able to make a lot of money by using OUR goodwill and turning into cash.
I wonder if there is anybody else out there, offended by an a ...more
Goodreads ONLY exists because of the goodwill of the people who do all the unpaid slave labour that keeps it where it is. That is Manny, and Paul Bryant, me to a relatively insignificant extent, whoever is reading this.
It is covered in offensive ads. They are there because the site is able to make a lot of money by using OUR goodwill and turning into cash.
I wonder if there is anybody else out there, offended by an a ...more
The ideas are genius and brilliant and groundbreaking even today, but the graphic design element felt a little messy and random to me, and at time the writing would get superfluous. Much recommended, though, to learn about this important process of thought! Also, it's super super quick!
I read this and all of Marshall McLuhan's works decades ago when the ideas were revolutionary and often hard to visualize.
Observer's today might find its pages unremarkable, like looking at the splash page of a website. Consider it this way, you open a chest that's been buried since 1967 and find a fully functional smartphone that's very much like an iPhone 5. The smartphone is basic tech compared to what's in your pocket until you realize when it was built.
When I first heard of McLuhan u ...more
Observer's today might find its pages unremarkable, like looking at the splash page of a website. Consider it this way, you open a chest that's been buried since 1967 and find a fully functional smartphone that's very much like an iPhone 5. The smartphone is basic tech compared to what's in your pocket until you realize when it was built.
When I first heard of McLuhan u ...more
Classic pop-theoretical discourse (via kinetic typography and image) on the effects of changing media in the 20th century. Prescient. Perhaps as relevant in today's hyperconnectivity as in the television era of its conception. And with a kind of ambivalence of value that seems appropriate: once technology changes, there's no going back and it may be more useful to "inventory the effects" than to judge or decry.
For a book published 5o years ago, this short book has aged very well (beyond a few references to the technology of the times). Still can't believe that we didn't read this in my graduate program, since so many authors name dropped McLuhan.
ksssshhhhk
ssiiiiiippp
Ahhhh...
leans back in chair
Now Marshall McLuhan, THAT was a real intellectual.
ssiiiiiippp
Ahhhh...
leans back in chair
Now Marshall McLuhan, THAT was a real intellectual.
So this is one of those books where I always say the wrong title (like the deluze book I always claim is about platypuses [or platypi as it maybe]). I have always called it the medium is the message, apparently that is a different book, unlike the platypi issue which is just a title I made up. I also sometimes call marshall marsha, but that is because I had a professor in college who use to do that for which I have no explanation except possibly a very thick accent.
this book is about how new te ...more
this book is about how new te ...more
A Prophetic Book - Written Decades Ago, Most all of it Applies Today
The Medium is the Massage became a cult bestseller in the 1960s due to its broad ranging appeal that made sense of the current age and the future, and also because of its incredible layout from graphic designer Quentin Fiore.
A Prophetic Book - Written Decades Ago, Most all of it Applies Today
The Medium is the Massage became a cult bestseller in the 1960s due to its broad ranging appeal that made sense of the current age and the future, and also because of its incredible layout from graphic designer Quentin Fiore.
But this is more than just a hip book with innovative graphics.
It informs us of where we are today, why? Because Marshall McLuhan talks about media in the form of integrated circuits.
Marshall McLuhan doesn't mention the word Internet, but I'd imagine he'd not be surprised by it
McLuhan does not talk about the Internet - but he talks around it. He sees media's future - the integrated circuit, and talks about how this is the next step.
He talks about how Gutenberg's printing press made an entity known as the public, and expanded from there.
McLuhan as Nostradamus
Jennifer Wright noted in Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them that Nostradamus had no magic to his prophecies, at least not in the standard sense.
She argues that Nostradamus was just an incredibly intelligent, educated, open-minded and forward thinking individual. Thus many of his innovative thoughts often came true.
You can argue the same for McLuhan. There is no magic in his thoughts, at least not in the standard sense. He's just an incredible intelligent visionary, who finds a way to see things we do not.
So put him up there with Nostradamus and Voltaire.
And if you want an accessible entry point into his thoughts, I'd recommend The Medium is the Massage - it's great. ...more
The Medium is the Massage became a cult bestseller in the 1960s due to its broad ranging appeal that made sense of the current age and the future, and also because of its incredible layout from graphic designer Quentin Fiore.
A Prophetic Book - Written Decades Ago, Most all of it Applies Today
A Prophetic Book - Written Decades Ago, Most all of it Applies Today The Medium is the Massage became a cult bestseller in the 1960s due to its broad ranging appeal that made sense of the current age and the future, and also because of its incredible layout from graphic designer Quentin Fiore.
But this is more than just a hip book with innovative graphics.
It informs us of where we are today, why? Because Marshall McLuhan talks about media in the form of integrated circuits.
Marshall McLuhan doesn't mention the word Internet, but I'd imagine he'd not be surprised by it
McLuhan does not talk about the Internet - but he talks around it. He sees media's future - the integrated circuit, and talks about how this is the next step.
He talks about how Gutenberg's printing press made an entity known as the public, and expanded from there.
McLuhan as Nostradamus
Jennifer Wright noted in Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them that Nostradamus had no magic to his prophecies, at least not in the standard sense.
She argues that Nostradamus was just an incredibly intelligent, educated, open-minded and forward thinking individual. Thus many of his innovative thoughts often came true.
You can argue the same for McLuhan. There is no magic in his thoughts, at least not in the standard sense. He's just an incredible intelligent visionary, who finds a way to see things we do not.
So put him up there with Nostradamus and Voltaire.
And if you want an accessible entry point into his thoughts, I'd recommend The Medium is the Massage - it's great. ...more
'Our "Age of Anxiety" is, in great part, the result of trying to do today's job with yesterday's tools - with yesterday's concepts.'
I came to know about McLuhan, thanks to Neil Postman's work called Amusing ourselves to Death. Neil Postman, in his work, discussed extensively about the various forms of sources used by the people for the pursuit of knowledge and truth over the times of human civilization starting from the oral tradition, writing, typographical, telegraphical, televising traditions briefly. I ...more
I came to know about McLuhan, thanks to Neil Postman's work called Amusing ourselves to Death. Neil Postman, in his work, discussed extensively about the various forms of sources used by the people for the pursuit of knowledge and truth over the times of human civilization starting from the oral tradition, writing, typographical, telegraphical, televising traditions briefly. I ...more
I finally got around to reading the classic last night, and what was I waiting for? It is witty, insightful, and very entertaining. Much credit must be given to graphic designer Quentin Fiore. His designs of the 1960s are mixed text and images, different sizes of type and other unconventional devices like mirror writing to create dynamic pages that reflect the tumultuous spirit of the time. In the words of critic Steven Heller, Fiore was "as anarchic as possible while still working within the constrai
...more
This wasn't the version I read. I read the book: The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore. It has many images, text is flipped, broken, larger, smaller; the book itself a metaphor for the evolution of the medium.
Regardless. It's brilliance, and if you pretend as you read that you are in the 60s and extrapolate from the basic theses of this book, its prescience is unnerving. I will re-visit images and text many times. This was a very enjoyable afternoon of reading and thin ...more
Regardless. It's brilliance, and if you pretend as you read that you are in the 60s and extrapolate from the basic theses of this book, its prescience is unnerving. I will re-visit images and text many times. This was a very enjoyable afternoon of reading and thin ...more
Mar 18, 2009
Erik Graff
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
students of the sixties
Recommended to Erik by:
Edward James Erickson
Shelves:
art
Not all my mentors in high school were teachers. Thanks to membership in Maine South's Social Science Society I was befriended by a number of older students, all of whom were leftist intellectuals of one sort or another, all of whom knew much more than I. The three most prominent were Arthur Goezke, Walter Wallace and Ed Erickson.
Of the Tri-S elders, Ed Erickson became my closest companion during the junior year--and even afterwards when he went off the the University of Illinois, Ch ...more
Of the Tri-S elders, Ed Erickson became my closest companion during the junior year--and even afterwards when he went off the the University of Illinois, Ch ...more
Written in the late 1960s, much of this book uncannily feels like it's directly addressing the massive changes wrought by the internet. McLuhan's cautious optimism may feel out of step with our moment, but replace "global village" with "global tribalism" and this book could've been ripped from the headlines. Visionary and then some.
I have no idea what this book is about
An excellent and very odd book. A review could be written entirely of quotes, which is more or less what I've done below.
The essential point of the book is that “Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication.”
Quotes from here
“The major advances of civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they oc ...more
The essential point of the book is that “Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication.”
Quotes from here
“The major advances of civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they oc ...more
Only good if you don't take it as serious politics/cultural studies, and even then it's pretty ridiculous. A lot of it looks absurd in the context of the 40 odd years of technological and political. development since this was written. The idea that modern technology is particularly liberating, especially, doesn't look like much now. It's weird because he seems to make comments every so often which show the essential similarity between modern technology and older technology but he doesn't let it
...more
Jul 08, 2011
Sean Pagaduan
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
(pseudo-)intellectuals, people who use the internet, philosophy majors
This is one of those weird books that's kind of loose philosophical theory without much in the way of hard logic or evidence. It's kind of along the same lines as Jean Baudrillard and Alvin Toffler in that it tries to predict how our world is being shaped by technological developments. Specifically, McLuhan covers the so-called "electric" age and how media (especially the television; remember that this was written in 1967) affects our consciousness and perception, how we organize the world.
...more
...more
An historical work of art. To me, personally, a curiosity. I would have liked to have taken a course for which it was a required text, decades back when it was more immediately relevant.
But it did alert me to William Wordsworth's:
EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY
"WHY, William, on that old grey stone,
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?
"Where are your books?--that light bequeathed
To Beings else ...more
But it did alert me to William Wordsworth's:
EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY
"WHY, William, on that old grey stone,
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?
"Where are your books?--that light bequeathed
To Beings else ...more
In this interesting little book, McLuhan explains that "electric technologies" (it was published in 1967) will change collective perception and will encourage increased participation in the world and thus, we will become a global village inherently connected and involved. Reading this 45 years later, I can plainly see his cynicism but I also find some of his ideas unsettlingly relevant today. Also, this is an extremely visual piece of work with a mixture of graphics, photographs, illustrations,
...more
There are prophets among us in these times. While not foreseeing the hardware used in the transition, McLuhan did imagine the changes in the way we approach situations and process information (that is, in a linear vs. non-linear manner). When I first encountered the internet, this book came to mind immediately, although it had been quite a few years since I first read it. It's an invaluable aid to understanding some of the changes occurring in the emerging "global village."
Sep 14, 2011
Mon
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
art-architecture,
philosophy
Best graphic design book not about graphic design.
Amazing that I did not get around to reading this classic before! But better late than never and it is shocking. Published in 1967 I dare you to find any book whose vision to such an extent heralds and encompasses our current struggles with adapting culture to the speed of digital. Sure McLuhan deals with the 'electrical' media of his time, but his clear analysis makes it easy to extrapolate to the digital age. His insistence that electrical media forces us to live mythically even taps into the
...more
Utterly electrifying, radical, and downright brilliant. Completely changed the way I perceive the world around me, and is still just as relevant today as it was prescient when it was first published decades ago.
It's a testament to how visionary McLuhan was that this book - about our relationship with technology - is still relevant today, some fifty years later.
Jul 09, 2017
Curtainthief
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2017-year-zero,
ic
I was really bummed when I found this because the titular pun had come to me on the toilet about a month earlier, and I could no longer be proud of my presumed invention.
Mar 26, 2019
Jason
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
social-commentary,
media,
collage,
art,
favorites,
classic,
want-to-read-again,
j-j-book-group,
popular-culture
When McLuhan's thought had a resurgence in the mid-90s, I tried to read this and was utterly lost. (Unsurprisingly, alas.) A quarter-century and social media later, I see this as nothing short of prescient, in terms of form and content alike. I know better than to pontificate though.
I hate it when my review is above the global average but, come on! MCLUHAN!
"There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening."
"There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening."
Interesting but like in the same way that going to a modern art museum is interesting. The book itself is a piece of art, let alone the message it is trying to stimulate.
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Herbert Marshall McLuhan, CC, was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar — a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a communications theorist. McLuhan's work is viewed as one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory. McLuhan is known for coining the expressions "the medium is the message" and the "global village".
1 trivia question
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“All
media
are
extensions
of
some
human
faculty-
psychic
or
physical.”
—
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media
are
extensions
of
some
human
faculty-
psychic
or
physical.”
“The poet, the artist, the sleuth - whoever sharpens our perception tends to be antisocial; rarely "well-adjusted", he cannot go along with currents and trends. A strange bond often exists between antisocial types in their power to see environments as they really are. This need to interface, to confront environments with a certain antisocial power is manifest in the famous story "The Emperor's New Clothes".”
—
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