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Listen "McLuhan as Micro Blogger"
Episode Synopsis
Marshall
McLuhan died on the last day of 1980 - not only years before there was
micro-blogging and blogging, but a few years before e-mail and
commenting on Web pages.In 1986, I wrote a piece for the IEEE Transactions of Professional Communications entitled Marshall McLuhan and Computer Conferencing, in which I said
that the pithy, aphoristic bursts which characterized his writing - his great works
from the 1960s consisted of chapters often not more than a page or two
in length - were actually a form of web writing ("computer
conferencing") decades before the Web and online communication emerged. Just the other day, I realized
something more about McLuhan's writing. The memorable titles he gave to
his short chapters - for example, "The Medium is the Message" in Understanding Media (1964) or "Nobody ever made a grammatical error in a non-literate society" in the Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) (which has 107 of these gems) - were actually micro-blogs.Blogging
in his page-or-two chapters, micro-blogging in the titles or "glosses"
(his term) he gave them. All of this back in 1962 and 1964.McLuhan
was in touch with a mode of expression, a vehicle of the human
intellect, which was clear and percolating in his mind, even though the
technology of its delivery was still decades away from invention.
McLuhan died on the last day of 1980 - not only years before there was
micro-blogging and blogging, but a few years before e-mail and
commenting on Web pages.In 1986, I wrote a piece for the IEEE Transactions of Professional Communications entitled Marshall McLuhan and Computer Conferencing, in which I said
that the pithy, aphoristic bursts which characterized his writing - his great works
from the 1960s consisted of chapters often not more than a page or two
in length - were actually a form of web writing ("computer
conferencing") decades before the Web and online communication emerged. Just the other day, I realized
something more about McLuhan's writing. The memorable titles he gave to
his short chapters - for example, "The Medium is the Message" in Understanding Media (1964) or "Nobody ever made a grammatical error in a non-literate society" in the Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) (which has 107 of these gems) - were actually micro-blogs.Blogging
in his page-or-two chapters, micro-blogging in the titles or "glosses"
(his term) he gave them. All of this back in 1962 and 1964.McLuhan
was in touch with a mode of expression, a vehicle of the human
intellect, which was clear and percolating in his mind, even though the
technology of its delivery was still decades away from invention.
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