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Abstract

c o m p r e s s e d k n o w l e d g e

• All media are extensions of Man’s physical and psychological being that seek to

increase speed and power.

• Media, in turn, shape Man’s physical and psychological being.

• Older communications media like writing, roads, military force and printing produ-

ced a linear-thinking, rational and civilized Man.

• Our Western social and economic structures were built on a framework that arose

from those communications forms.

• The acceleration of electric media allows instantaneous communication.

• The social explosion of the Industrial Age will give way to a social implosion in

the Electric Age.

• Cool media give little information and require much participation. Hot media give

much information and require little participation.

• In the Electric Age, information is commodifi ed and traditional commodities assume

informational qualities.

Understanding Media

The Extensions of Man
by Marshall McLuhan
The MIT Press, 1964
365 pages

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Review

Understanding Media

Reading Understanding Media brings to mind the old line that Shakespeare’s plays are

nothing but a bunch of clichés. McLuhan’s 1964 look at the impact of technology and
communications on society is laced with phrases that have become fi xtures of modern

language, like ‘Global Village’, ‘Age of Information’ and ‘The medium is the message’.

The book seeks to tie together big themes like art, culture, and social and economic

history. While often successful at drawing these sweeping connections, McLuhan in
certain chapters wanders into what sound like self-indulgent lectures. His analysis of
television as a “cool” or low-resolution medium is dated. Phrases like “dig it” and too-
numerous references to “the bomb,” Mad magazine and skin-divers clearly belong to the
early 1960s. But this book is valuable for its prophetic analyses. McLuhan’s prediction
of an emerging information-based economy and a global integration facilitated by the

Internet and digital technologies is stunningly accurate. getAbstract.com recommends

Understanding Media to executives working in media, telecommunications and techno-

logy, all of whom should have at least a passing knowledge of this classic.

Abstract

Technology Evolution

We are constantly being shaped by our technology. Advancements in technology in the

form of media have enhanced our ability to communicate and in many cases have funda-

mentally changed our institutions, society, and even ourselves. Technology is nothing
more than the specialization and amplifi cation of Man’s nature, while words and media
are metaphors that translate experience into understandable form. Technologies increase
power and speed, and increases in power and speed have a destabilizing effect on esta-
blished roads of communication. Electric speeds destroy established roads, and create
power centers everywhere on the planet. Whereas historical Roman paper routes served
to align marginal, tribal cultures to the Roman power center, our electronic roads do the
opposite. They re-tribalize Western, linear-thinking Man and create a “global village.”

New speed in communication results in restructured social arrangements.

Fast access to information and printed words ended the tribalism and parochialism of
the Middle Ages. The printed book contributed to a static, standardized interpretation
of the world. Printing made education accessible and encouraged individualism, but

also contributed to a linear and group-thinking mentality. Books were the fi rst form of
mass production, and the information contained in books prepared society for structural
change associated with mass production. Print caused the separation of words, music,
religion and poetry, and standardized the syntax and grammar of languages. Separation
of languages fueled the rise of nationalism.

Speech can convey more immediacy, emotion, and subtlety of meaning than written
words. Consequently, reading is less emotionally involved than conversation. Intuition

and consciousness are limited by language, although language allows man to extend
beyond himself. Electric technologies will affect the future of language. Computers offer
the prospect of universal understanding, if they can by-pass the restrictions of language.

The supremacy of the written word, and its organizational and homogenizing tendencies,

is threatened by technologies like TV, radio and telephone. Phonetic alphabets tend to

“Under electric
technology the
entire business of
man becomes
learning and kno-
wing.”

“A new medium is
never an addition
to an old one, nor
does it leave the
old one in place.”

“Entertainment
pushed to an
extreme becomes
the main form of
business and poli-
tics.”

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produce individuality and linear thinking as opposed to group identity and non-uniform
concepts of time. The non-literate aspects of electric technology threaten this linear civi-

lization. But the steady improvement in technology does not always bring equivalent

progress in society.

New media technologies can have negative social effects. Complex societies can release

negative energies into less complex ones as a result of media intrusion. Demand for a
new technology often arises simply because that new technology exists. Offering our
attention to media, and the fi gures who seek to profi t from media, can mean abdicating
our personal rights.

The “gadget,” or electric technology in general, is an extension of man, and its use

can cause infatuation and narcosis (numbness). Any technology is a sensual experience
and will affect the physical and emotional awareness of Man. Technologies cause Man
to become more fragmented, and fragmented Man is more susceptible to technology-
induced physical and emotional change. We embrace technological extensions of oursel-

ves simply by perceiving them. People need to be informed and aware of the powerful

changes that media can cause.

Media: Hot and Cold

Hot media are high-defi nition. They provide much information and require little partici-

pation from the viewer or listener. Movies, radio, and photographs are hot media. Cool
media are low-defi nition. They provide little information and require much participation

from the viewer or listener. TV, cartoons and the telephone are cool media. Western, liter-

ate cultures are hot. Undeveloped or non-literate cultures are cool. Media have meaning
only in context with other media. In the Electric Age, we want effect, not meaning.

We often have a reactionary response and turn way from “too-hot” media. The expan-

sionist and explosive forces of industrialism will give way to the implosive and reductio-
nist forces of the Electric Age. Electricity has a decentralizing effect. The Information

Age causes cultural and class exchange, and the commodifi cation of information. “Break

boundaries” are points when social and technological systems pass, irreversibly, into
new territory.

Energy is released as result of media combination. Fragmented Western civilization is
brought together by that energy. Forms of media depend on Man for direction, but are
infl uenced by other forms of media. A profound cross-fertilization takes place between

media. Art and media hybridization create new cultural and media forms. McLuhan also
asks if the effort to translate Man’s experience into a spiritual form of information is
really an effort to arrive at a single human consciousness.

From Numbers to Ads

Each important invention of Man has altered the way he lives and, ultimately, the way

he thinks.

•

Numbers, for example, possess scientifi c and iconic power. Man feels comfortable in

numbers. He fi nds comfort in commonality. Numbers are tactile, arising from fi nger
and toe counting. The word ‘rational’ comes from having a balanced ratio of relation-
ships between our senses. In the Electric Society, we often fi nd it diffi cult to defi ne
rational.

•

Clothing and housing serve as extensions of the body, controlling heat and outwardly

projecting social and political messages. Clothing and housing are forms of communi-
cation. They rearrange patterns of human learning, association and community. Heat,

“If the slugs reach
the right people,
fi rearms are good.
If the TV tube fi res
the right ammuni-
tion at the right
people, it is
good.”

“Electricity does
not centralize, but
decentralizes.”

“In the new
Electric Age of
Information and
programmed pro-
duction, commo-
dities themselves
assume more and
more the charac-
ter of informa-
tion.”

“Fragmented, lite-
rate, and visual
individualism is
not possible in an
electrically patter-
ned and imploded
society.”

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glass, and electric light reordered architecture and human social structure, especially
concerning work. The sense world is completely different when the lights are turned
on or off.

•

Money changes human behavior patterns. It specializes work and the living arrange-

ments that result from specialized work. In primitive societies, rich and poor people

live in similar ways. In the Electric Age, rich and ordinary people share similar enter-
tainment, food and vehicles. Money represents wealth, but it is primarily a way to
translate work. Money is attained through work and allows the purchases of other

people’s work. Credit cards represent the best example of money as moveable informa-
tion. Electric speed creates situations where established concepts of money and work
become obsolete.

•

Clocks create mechanical, repeated, and exact durations of time. Clock time is non-
organic. The medium of clock time alters human behavior, so that behavior becomes

mechanical and non-organic. Mechanical time is less sense-related than organic time.

Electric time is more organic than mechanical time because it affords unrestricted

access to information and work. Relative clock time will replace standardized, mecha-
nical clock time.

•

The wheel in different forms – as used on the cart, carriage, railroad and automobile

– has long shaped our living situations and social structure. The wheel inside the

fi lm movie camera created a powerful media tool. Bicycle mechanics (the Wright
Brothers) created the airplane, which also profoundly reordered our environment. The

airplane and electric culture implode the exploded growth of the city that was caused
by the wheel.

• The photograph made images repeatable and mass-marketable, and marked a break

from “typographic man” to “graphic man.” Image making and consuming became

cultural and economic factors. The world is made smaller by photography and fi lm.
Objects and places removed by distance become commodifable and familiar.

•

The newspaper is a “hot” medium that depends on readers’ participation in a mosaic

form. Advertisements are as important, if not more important, than news content. Bad

news is used to capture readers for advertisers. Ads have to sell their messages with

good news. Faster mediums result in faster democracy – and bypass institutions like

representation and delegation. The press acts as the fourth estate in a hot democracy,
drawing attention to certain fi gures and issues.

• Automobiles, like clothing and housing, are extensions of our physical and emotional

being and make political statements. Automobiles are a key feature of our urban and
suburban landscape, and overcrowding is a problem.

• The telegraph illustrated the organic nature of media. Electricity is organic. Our

post-telegraph exterior communications systems transmit information the same way
that our bodies transmit information – instantly and interrelated to the whole body.

Because communication became instantaneous, stress from other parts of society
became transmittable to the individual.

• Typewriters

intensifi ed standardization in writing and communication. In both busi-

ness and art, the typewriter altered users’ perception of language, allowed informa-
tion to be arranged differently on the page, and subsequently, altered the readers’
perception of those ideas. The need for typed information fed on itself, and produced
an information explosion and information-processing economy.

•

The telephone is an extension of human physiology that allows speech and interaction

over distances. It was a remarkable speed-up in human organization, and especially
quickened news gathering and dissemination. Telephone communication imploded
human separation and margins were brought closer to centers.

“New speed and
power are never
compatible with
existing spatial
and social arran-
gements.”

“Media exist to
invest our lives
with artifi cial per-
ception and artifi -
cial values.”

“Electric simulta-
neity ends
specialist learning
and activity, and
demands interre-
lation in depth,
even of the perso-
nality.”

“The movie, as
much as the
alphabet and the
printed word, is
an aggressive and
imperial form that
explodes outward
into other cultu-
res.”

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• The

phonograph was invented as a “talking machine” and to preserve telephone con-

versations. With electrifi cation, it became an entertainment technology and provided

universal access to music and speech. Cultural (most often musical) movements could
be recorded, reproduced and disseminated, leaving their infl uence on the larger culture.

•

The emerging focus of advertising is to involve audience needs and emotions. Adver-

tising presents products as icons, and audience participation with the icon is more
important than the product being sold. Ads need to cut through the clutter in which
they are presented, and affect unconscious thought patterns rather than stimulate
direct buying decisions.

•

Movies take the viewer out of one personal world and into another by combining the

mechanical and the organic – fi lm, wheels, cameras, typography, image, ideas, actors,
etc. Sequential fi lm form echoes Western, literate, rational organization. Film as an
art form and a business fi rst found success in the U.S. by offering fantasies of wealth
and material goods to an immigrant audience. This formula was exported to Europe
and beyond – and what was being sold was more than just the fi lm. It was the fantasy
and emotional desire of the U.S. material culture. In this way, fi lm became a huge de

facto advertisement for consumer goods, based on the U.S. model.

•

Radio is hot medium. It is also a fast medium, and utilizes short musical compositions,
quick news items, weather reports and jokes. Radio can be highly specialized, opera-
ting in many different languages and dialects even within the same country. In this

respect, the radio is like the town square or “back fence” because it is topical, gossip-
driven and politically potent.

•

Television is a cool medium that has been successful because it works well with

Western organizational structures. It is fragmented, linear, and consumer-oriented.

TV exerts a “synesthetic” (unifying senses and imaginations) effect across cultural

lines. Because TV content originates in Western countries or is modeled on Western
forms, the synesthetic effect has a decidedly Western bias.

Industrial automation resulted in the loss of jobs. Electric technologies result in the crea-

tion of new jobs and the need for more learning. Information is energy, shared between
two sources or many sources, and constitutes work, leisure, science and art. This electric
energy is divorced from location, and has the character of our central nervous system.
Mass media concerns mass participation as much as large audience size. Electric speed

will encourage an organic reordering of social and economic institutions, much like print

and road construction inspired nationalism. The new structures will require individual
adaptability and creativity.

About

The

Author

Marshall McLuhan was born in Alberta, Canada, and received a Ph.D. in English Litera-
ture from Cambridge University. He taught at the University of Wisconsin, the University
of St. Louis, and the University of Toronto. In addition to Understanding Media, he wrote

The Mechanical Bride and The Gutenberg Galaxy.

Buzz-Words

Cool medium / Counter-irritant / Cybernation / Depth involvement / Global village / Hot

medium / Implosion / Information Age / Programming / Pseudo-event / Synesthesia / The
medium is the message

“It is this trend
toward more and
more power with
less and less
hardware that is
characteristic of
the Electric Age of
Information.”