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The Medium is the Massage |
Author: Marshall McLuhan
Published: 2005-10 |
List price: $13.95
Our price: $11.16
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As of: December 04th, 2008 03:12:19 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Revolutionary ... even now, 40 years later
One of the great piece of feedback I got from my boss (and independently from our COO) was that while I am close enough to technology and design I am not really in the advertising and marketing business. Two weeks ago at the Forrester Consumer Forum I cornered a traveling bard of the advertising industry: Shane. Just Shane. I managed to pick over his almost photographic memory for books that would help ground me in the business. The first book I read on my quest to get closer to the advertising business was "The medium is the massage" by Marshall McLuhan. O ... M ... G This book was written in 1967 and sounds like it was written this year. McLuhan's vision for the future and linkage to the change from a mechanistic society to an information society is still directly relevant. As we move from an information society into a conceptual society, his message still resonates. Why have I not heard of this book before? Why did I not read this in university? Why has this been hidden from me, despite my design reading and exploration of the fields of visualization, visual thinking, creativity, and problem solving? Oh yeah, because none of those things are in advertising. Some of my favorite quotes (several incredibly apropos of this particular time and space):
Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.
The core message from the book can be boiled down into the following:
The past went that-a-way. When faced with a totally new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavor of the most recent past. We look at the present through a rear view mirror. We march backwards into the future.
And of course:
The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium / that is, of any extension of ourselves / result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.
Get this book. Read this book. Re-read this book imagining yourself (or like me your parents) in 1967. Think about it. (re-posted from http://dckiwi.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/the-medium-is-the-message/)
 Shallow
This book is filled with un-artful pictures because it has nothing to say. A 3-year-old could produce better artwork, and you'd learn more by picking up a magazine and a coffee at Borders.
So visionary that the most important aspects are yet to come!
Yes, it's amazing that Marshall McLuhan foresaw the internet in the 1960s. However, that is only part of his message. The movement to electronic media not only disrupts print's linear style of communication, it will dismantle traditional hierarchical structures. In a world where the means of communication have been democratized, organizations will move to collaborative environments (wikis, blogs, commenting on articles are only the beginning). Command and control structures exist, because they were the most cost-effective way to manage organizations. You Tube, Facebook, and My Space are mere playthings compared to the dawning revolution. The concept of trademarks and copyrights will be challenged in this "global village." Marshall McLuhan's thoughts are still very relevant, because much of what he predicts is yet to come!
What is the point of this book?
This book was recommended to me and I bought it. I have no idea what the point of this book is...it's just a bunch of tweaked out pictures. I thought it was...well, I don't know what I was thinking. I wasted ten bucks.
 Very good book. Almost prophetic.
Some of McLuhans stuff is really unaccessible for average readers... It's deep stuff... BUT we see much of what he was talking about occuring in our modern day. It's really interesting. I think if he could have found a better way to present his philosphies he could have really made much more of a difference to our "global community"
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