Understanding Media

Our lives are more mediated than ever before. Adults in economically advanced countries spend, on average, over eight hours per day interacting with the media. The news and entertainment industries are being transformed by the shift to digital platforms. But how much is really changing in terms of what shapes media content? What are the impacts on our public and imaginative life? And is the Internet a democratising tool of social protest, or of state and commercial manipulation? Drawing on decades of research to examine these and other questions, Understanding Media interrogates claims about the Internet, explores how representations in TV and film may influence perceptions of self, and traces overarching trends while attending to crucial local context, from the United States to China, Norway to Malaysia, and Brazil to Britain. Understanding Media is an accessible and essential guide to the world's most influential force - the contemporary media.

Our lives are more mediated than ever before. Adults in economically advanced countries spend, on average, over eight hours per day interacting with the media. The news and entertainment industries are being transformed by the shift to digital platforms. But how much is really changing in terms of what shapes media content? What are the impacts on our public and imaginative life? And is the Internet a democratising tool of social protest, or of state and commercial manipulation? Drawing on decades of research to examine these and other questions, Understanding Media interrogates claims about the Internet, explores how representations in TV and film may influence perceptions of self, and traces overarching trends while attending to crucial local context, from the United States to China, Norway to Malaysia, and Brazil to Britain. Understanding Media is an accessible and essential guide to the world's most influential force - the contemporary media.

Den canadiske filosof, Marshall McLuhan har med ”Understanding Media” skrevet en af de vigtigste bøger om medier og kommunikation. Her fremhæver han mediernes afgørende rolle for samfundet. Da Marshall McLuhan opfandt begrebet ”den globale landsby” og udsagnet ”mediet er budskabet” i 1964, kunne ingen ikke forudse vor tids afhængighed og brug af information. Udover et par science-fictionsforfattere og altså Marshall McLuhan. "Understanding Media" blev skrevet 20 år før PC-revolution og 30 år før internettets udbredelse. Alligevel giver Marshall McLuhan i bogen en forudsigelse af hvordan elektroniske medier vil skabe drastiske forandringer af vores samfund og opfattelse af kommunikation.

Den canadiske filosof, Marshall McLuhan har med ”Understanding Media” skrevet en af de vigtigste bøger om medier og kommunikation. Her fremhæver han mediernes afgørende rolle for samfundet. Da Marshall McLuhan opfandt begrebet ”den globale landsby” og udsagnet ”mediet er budskabet” i 1964, kunne ingen ikke forudse vor tids afhængighed og brug af information. Udover et par science-fictionsforfattere og altså Marshall McLuhan. "Understanding Media" blev skrevet 20 år før PC-revolution og 30 år før internettets udbredelse. Alligevel giver Marshall McLuhan i bogen en forudsigelse af hvordan elektroniske medier vil skabe drastiske forandringer af vores samfund og opfattelse af kommunikation.

Our lives are more mediated than ever before. Adults in economically advanced countries spend, on average, over eight hours per day interacting with the media. The news and entertainment industries are being transformed by the shift to digital platforms. But how much is really changing in terms of what shapes media content? What are the impacts on our public and imaginative life? And is the Internet a democratising tool of social protest, or of state and commercial manipulation? Drawing on decades of research to examine these and other questions, Understanding Media interrogates claims about the Internet, explores how representations in TV and film may influence perceptions of self, and traces overarching trends while attending to crucial local context, from the United States to China, Norway to Malaysia, and Brazil to Britain. Understanding Media is an accessible and essential guide to the world's most influential force - the contemporary media.

Our lives are more mediated than ever before. Adults in economically advanced countries spend, on average, over eight hours per day interacting with the media. The news and entertainment industries are being transformed by the shift to digital platforms. But how much is really changing in terms of what shapes media content? What are the impacts on our public and imaginative life? And is the Internet a democratising tool of social protest, or of state and commercial manipulation? Drawing on decades of research to examine these and other questions, Understanding Media interrogates claims about the Internet, explores how representations in TV and film may influence perceptions of self, and traces overarching trends while attending to crucial local context, from the United States to China, Norway to Malaysia, and Brazil to Britain. Understanding Media is an accessible and essential guide to the world's most influential force - the contemporary media.

Terms and phrases such as "the global village" and "the medium is the message" are now part of the lexicon, and McLuhan's theories continue to challenge our sensibilities and our assumptions about how and what we communicate. This reissue of Understanding Media marks the thirtieth anniversary (1964-1994) of Marshall McLuhan's classic expose on the state of the then emerging phenomenon of mass media. Terms and phrases such as "the global village" and "the medium is the message" are now part of the lexicon, and McLuhan's theories continue to challenge our sensibilities and our assumptions about how and what we communicate. There has been a notable resurgence of interest in McLuhan's work in the last few years, fueled by the recent and continuing conjunctions between the cable companies and the regional phone companies, the appearance of magazines such as WiRed, and the development of new media models and information ecologies, many of which were spawned from MIT's Media Lab. In effect, media now begs to be redefined. In a new introduction to this edition of Understanding Media, Harper's editor Lewis Lapham reevaluates McLuhan's work in the light of the technological as well as the political and social changes that have occurred in the last part of this century.