Summary
Marshall McLuhan: Electronic media and the end of literacy culture
Unlike Karl Marx and the so-called "economic determinists" who claim that the economic organization of society determines every important part of social life, for Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), one of the most influential media theorists of the 20th century, technological inventions have a crucial impact on society and its evolution, especially those related to means of communication. The invention of phonetic writing and the printing press, the appearance of electronic media (from the telegraph, through radio, television, films, telephones to computers) reshaped civilization and human sensibility, influenced politics, the economy, our perceptive abilities and psychological qualities.
In an exhaustive interview he gave in 1969, which we bring for the first time in a Serbian translation, McLuhan presents, surprisingly clearly and suggestively, the most important theses from the two books he he was made famous by Gutenberg's Galaxies (1962) and Understanding Media (1964). McLuhan's insights, often radical, provocative and controversial, seem to have gained new strength and relevance in the era of the Internet and reality shows.
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