Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man Reprint Edition

by Marshall McLuhan (Author), Lewis H. Lapham (Author)

78 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0262631594

ISBN-10: 0262631598

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Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man : Critical Edition
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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.

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

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Editorial Reviews

Review

...the most brilliant marketing mind of all belonged to Marshall McLuhan. Understanding Media is a timeless analysis of how language, speech and technology shape human behavior in the era of mass communication. The book is a cautionary tale for marketers today who hear the Web's siren call and ignore the power of the spoken word.

(Wall Street Journal)

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Product details

Series: MIT Press
Paperback: 392 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press; Reprint edition (October 20, 1994)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0262631598
ISBN-13: 978-0262631594
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #129,988 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #117 in Books > Textbooks > Communication & Journalism > Media Studies
- #131 in Books > Reference > Words, Language & Grammar > Speech
- #185 in Books > Reference > Writing, Research & Publishing Guides > Writing > Journalism & Nonfiction

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Customer Reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars

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Understanding the World …

ByMike McCloryon November 7, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

If you haven't read Understanding Media, don't be surprised if you find what's going on in the world confusing. McLuhan explained it all — or most of it — back in the 1950s. The best way to approach Understanding Media is to start with The Mechanical Bride, and then move on to The Gutenberg Galaxy before diving into Understanding Media. Otherwise, you may find much of what McLuhan has to offer baffling — kind of like walking into a play in the middle of the third act.

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This is the Famous Book Everyone Quotes but Few Have Read!

ByGaryinBostonon July 7, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is the famous book so often referred to by a multitude of intellectuals who have never, well, actually read it! While I found the precursor to this book, "The Gutenberg Galaxy" to be more fascinating (and scholarly), Understanding Media is a must read for those seeking insight into the evolution of human concsiousness and perception. Communications majors need not apply, since the book has little to do with "media" as it is defined today.

Marx thought that how production was organized (and changed over time) drove a society's social and political structures (and ultimately its citizens' psyches); McCluhan argues (in excruciating and exacting detail) that the FORM of the "extensions of man", AKA the man made world-- the wheel, clothes, the phonetic alphabet and linear printing, radio, TV, etc, AKA technology, have had profound psycho-social impacts throughout human history, driven by invention and innovation. E.g., no Gutenberg, no Renaissance and European nationalism.

Just a taste, much much more is in the book!

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Cool book (in the McLuhanian sense)

ByRobert Duboseon March 22, 2010

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This is a beautiful edition. And the critical commentary by Terrence Gordon provides a helpful structure for getting your mind around McLuhan's ideas.

Although this may be McLuhan's great work, it is not best place to start. It is long and often incoherent. On page 39, McLuhan introduces a notoriously difficult metaphor that he uses through the book. It concerns hot and cool media. "Hot media are ... low in participation, and cool media are high in participation or completion by the audience." So, he explains, hieroglyphics and photographs are hot, but the phonetic alphabet and cartoons are cool. Radio and movies are hot, but the TV and the telephone are cool.

Does that make any sense? If not, the better place to start is his earlier work, The Gutenberg Galaxy. It is shorter, and the logic is much easier to follow. It lays out the basis of McLuhan's thinking about how changes in media reshape culture. If you are a systematic thinker like me, it is a far better book to get the basics of McLuhan's analytical method and ideas.

Even if you have the basics, UM is a dense, inspiring, and unsettling work. In each of the 33 chapters, McLuhan makes connections that change the way I think about culture. But just as often, he makes some nonsensical analogy or leap of logic and then fails to explain it.

In the end, it helps to stop trying to understand UM and let it inspire you to think.

In other words, it is very cool.

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Not sure if this is HOT or COLD media :-)

ByWayne B. Norrison September 16, 2012

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I never read this when it came out, so here I am, like, 40 years later, catching up. [I was neck deep in quantum mechanics at the time.]

In light of all that's gone on since this book was written, it's a jumble of ideas, some old, some new, some borrowed, some hopelessly naive. Honestly, it barely has an organization, does NOT have a single point or group of related points, and is really all over the map.

McLuhan, among other things [about 11,432 of them, give or take], proposes the notions of "COLD" and "HOT" media. From the amount of satire about him that's out there [and, Yes, Bob Newhart, I'm talkin' to YOU], **NOBODY** but **NOBODY** but McLuhan himself could ever figure out what he meant by those terms [for example, TV was, by his definition, counter-intuitively a COLD medium - go figure].

Having said that, it's an interesting read, as much for historical purposes as for the actual value of its content. One interesting take-away is that McLuhan was considered a prophet, oracle, and genius at the time for having written this. So if this was what it took to attain that lofty pinnacle, the competition must've been fairly pedestrian. That insight alone was worth the read. :-)

If you haven't read it, I recommend it, along with the other great classics all good boys and girls should read, like THE PRINCE by Niccolo Machiavelli, THE HIDDEN PERSUADERS by Vance Packard, and THE RECKONING by John Kenneth Galbraith. You've got to check this one off your list.

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Five Stars

ByDavid S.on May 29, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This is a great edition of an important work in media studies.

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The medium really is the message.

ByAmazon Customeron March 4, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Today's social upheaval was predicted by Master McLuhan back in 1964. He warns of the consequences of the Internet before it was born. Had he a better editor, we might have been better prepared.

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Big Brother is Dead.

ByA customeron December 17, 1996

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

McLuhan kills Big Brother on the last page of this book.

Unfortunately, McLuhan is not really a very good writer.
He rambles and makes so many obscure references that it's
difficult to figure out what he is trying to say. Part of
the reason McLuhan is so hard to understand is that the
best examples of his ideas hadn't been invented when he
wrote this book.

But the first and last chapters of "Understanding Media"
lay the groundwork for understanding the effects of the PC
revolution and the rise of the Internet. For example, he
explains that electric media is tactile in nature -- a
concept that is much easier to grasp now that we take a
GUI for granted.

And though WIRED magazine claims him as patron saint, it's
clear that the editors do not grasp McLuhan's realization
that the consequence of what he calls "automation" (or
"cybernation") is "retribalization", and
that our mechanical notion of privacy is obsolete.

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