Electric Language: Understanding the Message [Paperback]

Eric McLuhan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 1998

Marhsall McLuhan's son, Eric, presents a collection of essays on the ever-changing world of media that represents the new modes of expression. Color photos.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (July 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312190883
• ISBN-13: 978-0312190880
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,027,225 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding the present, or chuck theory for metaphor., August 3, 1998

By 

Howard Wetzel (Cleveland Hts., Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Electric Language: Understanding the Message (Paperback)

Look out, all you stuffed academics, all you jaded media types, all surfers caught in a web: McLuhan is back, or rather his son. This latest volume brings the McLuhan canon up to the present and centers on electric media. Amid the extraordinary graphics waits the expected compressed McLuhanesque prose; at first a distraction to one comfortable with a plain page and plain text, the graphics slow the rapid reader down to spend more time on each sentence. The ground of the whole is of course all of literature, from Homer to Joyce, supported by the usual mix of science and anthropology. This is no eulogy for literacy a la Birketts, and no wandering lament at declining civility a la Sanders. McLuhan describes the current malaise and gives the reader tools for understanding it, and maybe even stepping apart from it. But be discreet; the electric crowd is not very tolerant of outliers.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Book, Amazing Man, November 25, 1999

By 

Andrea Philp (Canada, Toronto) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Electric Language: Understanding the Message (Paperback)

A wonderful book by Eric- a must read for anyone interested in the media. He's also a great guy- he taught me media and perception- I haven't been the same since. Read it and expand your mind!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars why OJ & Clinton make us feel so ill, or should., September 16, 1998

By 

Howard Wetzel (Cleveland Hts., Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Electric Language: Understanding the Message (Paperback)

Let's try this again. This book seems especially pertinent after the Starr report and its resultant cultural hangover. The issue is the utter loss of consensus at what constitutes the boundary of public and private behavior under the influence of electric media; and where there is no consensus, there is no privacy. America, once the bastion of individualism and private identity, is sick with the mixing of public and private things, perhaps the final gasp of literate detachment, and a clear sign of the corporate identity McLuhan predicted two decades ago. This book offers insight and playfulness as an anti-toxin.