Happy Birthday: ‘Understanding Media’ turns 40
Today is the 40th anniversary of Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Marshall McLuhan’s iconic, and greatest, work.
This book is the single volume that informs everything I think about media effects. True, I tend to refer to the later ‘Laws of Media’ far more often, but if left with only one book in my possession, it would be UM.
That’s not to say it’s not without its shortcomings. There are gaps and some dubious assertions – but as a critique of media formations, it’s nuanced and – even today – astonishingly insightful.
You may have heard the phrases “The Medium is the Message” and “The Global Village”. That’s the guy we’re talking about here.
McLuhan was adopted as Wired Magazine’s patron saint (erroneously, I would say – he was not a fan of new electronic technologies, despite his interest in them) and his writing lies at the heart of the Media Ecology canon. Aside from anything else, Understanding Media is poetic, aphoristic and inclusive. Inspired by everything from Einstein to James Joyce, Catholic mysticism to cigarette advertising, Shakespeare to Walter Cronkite, the book rewards every re-reading you can throw at it.
Understanding Media began an arc in McLuhan’s scholarship that culminated with his “grand unified theory,” Laws of Media: The new science that was published eight years after his death. In the sixteen years that passed between Understanding Media and his death prior to the publication of Laws of Media, McLuhan expanded his notion of medium to include everything from which a change emerges, essentially everything we conceive or create. He realized that, when judged by the effects our creations have on us and the interpersonal dynamics of our world, our media – our inventions and conceptions – structure the way we think and the way we behave. By creating a vocabulary through which we can understand media, we can take control of our creations, and thereby, of our world.
Today, I’m going to have a quiet drink to celebrate the 40th anniversary. Have one yourself.
