By Charles kulwa n reg no 42688

McLuhan text is fun to explore and unravel

McLuhan writings style is elliptical rather than linear; he runs the beginning of one argument to the middle or end of other arguments, only to return later to finish (partly) the first arguments, this is, of course, one of the difficult of buildings on his work. Yet, this style also his work very engaging (or, as McLuhan would say, very cool and participatory

The first sentence of the first chapter of understanding media, for example, begins as follows. In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as means of control (1964/1994).someone familiar with McLuhan media philosophy might logically expect that this opening premise would be followed by a claim about electronic media unifying once split phenomena. Instead, McLuhan concludes the sentence with it is sometimes a bit of shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. Thus, even this first sentence presents a kind of puzzle by juxtaposing seemingly unrelated claims

In the next sentence, McLuhan explains that the consequence of any new technology result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs (thereby giving one definition of how a medium can be a message). In the next few sentences, McLuhan presents the example of automation, which eliminates jobs, but creates roles 

Yet, one must read further into the books to find clues to McLuhan definition of the word job as fragmented and superficial work (thus linking back to the splitting and dividing phrase found in the chapter’s first sentence and to his use of the term role to mean integrated and deep, which sets the stage for his arguments about the effects of electronic media.

but before he further develops his argument about what are normally considered media of communication and long before he explicitly links automation to electronic media or explains how he views the assembly line as one of the main types of linear forms connected to the mechanical print era- McLuhan digresses for a few paragraph to discuss how the electric light is pure information and how the content of any medium is always another medium

Any reader hoping to discuss a, linear arguments in understanding media has to bring his or her own pencil and ruler and attempt to redraw the ideas of the text into straight lines of reasoning. Even the reader who can’t be bothered with wrestling with text, however, is rewarded with a rich array of pithy sayings, prophetic pronouncements, and playful puns. Sample of these can be found online at many worship websites, in short McLuhan writings so delicious and rich that it seems to carry out for participatory exegesis and for treatment as holy text. Settings it aside feels almost sacrilegious