F 1962.
64
TheMedium
Is the Message
Marsha[[McLuhan
In a culture like ours, long accustomedto splitting and
dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit
of a shockto be remindedthat, in operatronaland practical
fact, the medjum is the message.Thls is merely to say that
the personaland socialconsequences of any me&um-that
is,of any extensionof ourselves-result from the nerv scale
that is introduced rnto our affairs by each extension of
ourselves,or by any new technology.Thus, with automation,
for example,the new patterns of human associationtend to
eliminate jobs, it is true. That is the negative result. Positively,
automation createsrolesfor people,which is to sa1'depth of
involvementin their work and human associationthat our
precedingmechanicaltechnologyhad destroyed.Many
peoplewould be disposedto say that it was not the machine,
but what one did with the machine. that was its meaning or
message. In terms of the ways in which the machinealtered
our relationsto one another and to ourselves.it matterednot
in the least whetier it turned out cornflakes or Ca.iillacs.
The restructuring of human work and associationwas
shapedby the technique of fragmentation that is the essence
of machinetechnology.The essenceof automation
technology is the opposite. It is integral and decentralist in
depth, just as the machrnewas fragmentary. centralist, and
superficial in its patterning of human relationships.
The instance of the electric light may prove iliuminating in
this connection. The electric light is pure information. It is a
medium r,vilhout a message,as it were, unless it is used to
speil out some verbal ad or name. This fact, characteristrcof
me&a, means that the "content" of any me&um is always
a-11
another me&um. The content of wrlting is speech,just as
the written word is the content of print, and print is the
content of the telegraph.If it is asked,"What is the content
it is necessaryto say,"lt is an actualprocessof
of speech?,"
thought, which is in itself nonverbal."An abstract painting
represents&rect manifestation of creative thought processes
as they mrght appear in computer designs.What we are
considering here,however,are the psychic and social
1.3.Twoby M c l uhan
consequences
accelerate
of the designsor patterns as they amplifii or
existingprocesses.For the "message" of any
medium or technologyis the changeof scaleor paceor
pattern that it introduces into human affairs. The railway &d
not introducemovement or transportation or wheel or road
into human society,but it accelerated
and enlargedthe scale
of prer,roushuman functions, creating totally new kinds of
citiesand new kinds of work and leisure.This happened
whether the rail,vay functioned in a tropical or a northern
enrironment, and is quite independentof the freight or
content of the railway medium. The airplane, on the other
hand, by acceleratingthe rate of transportation, tends to
dissolvethe railway form of city, politics, and association,
quite independentlyof what the airplaneis usedfor.
Let us return to the electricIlght. Whether the hght is
being usedfor brain surgeryor night baseballis a matter of
indifference.It cou.ldbe argued that these actirritiesare in
someway the "content"of the electriclight, sincethey could
not exist without the electriclight. This fact merely
underlinesthe point that "the medium rs the message
becauseit is the me&um that shapesand controlsthe scale
and form of human associationand action.The content or
usesof such media are as &verseas they are ineffectualin
shapingthe form of human association.lndeed,it is only too
gpical that the "content" of any medium bLindsus to the
characterof the medium. It is only today that industries have
becomeaware of the various kinds of businessin which they
are engaged.When IBM discoveredthat it was not in the
businessof making office equipment or businessmachines,
but that it was in the businessof processinginformatron,
tlen it began to navigate with clear rrision.The General
ElectricCompanymakesa considerableportion of its profits
from electric light buJbsand lighting systems.It has not yet
discoveredthat, quite as much as A.T&T, it is in the busrness
of moving information.
The electriclight escapesattention as a communication
me&um just becauseit has no "content."And this makesit
an invaluableinstance of how people fail to study media at
all. For it is not till the electric light is used to spell out some
brand name that it is noticed as a medium.Then it is not the
light but the 'content" (or what is really another medlum)
that is noticed. The messageof the electric light is iike the
messageof electric power in industry, totally radical,
pervasive,and decentralized.Forelectric light and power are
13. Twoby McLuhan R
tl,*NEW M EDIAn$.Af'f

you are dorng before it is too latel \bu have now

separatefrom their uses,yet thev eliminate time and space AociApA tn ,,.,'t enrirp li{c \rrdving "b lhe
".o.d -'"- -'
factors in human associationexactly as do radio. telegraph, ,1;.f !"
-L.*.--.^l^^.. ^f
telephone. and TV creatinginvoh'ementin depth. (HansSel,ve, of Life')
TheStress
A fairly completehandbook for studying the extensionsof
man could be made up from seiectionsfrom Shakespeare. As Selvedeaiswith the total enr,'ironmentalsituation tn
Somemight quibbleabout whether or not he was referring his "stress theory of disease,
so the latest approachto media
study considersnot only the "content" but the me&um and
to TV in these familiar lines from Romeoand Juliet:
the cultural matrix within which the particular medium
But softru'hathght throughy.onderrt indoit'breaks?
operates.The older unah'areness of the psvchicand social
andvet,ausnorhing.
It speals.
effects of media can be illustrated from almost any of the
In Othello,which, as much as King Lear,is concernedr.t'ith conventlonalpronouncements.
t h e t orme n t o f n p o n l e rr :nsfnr m ..l hr illr r sinn. fher e ate In acceptingan honorarv degreefrom the Universit,vof
these Lnes that bespeak Shakespeares intuition of the Notre Dame "'_
a "/'-
few Dar.idSarnoff made
""b vearsaso.General

transforming powers of nern; medja: this statement:"\A/eare too prone to make technological
for the srnsof thosewho r.treld
instruments the scapegoats
Is there not charms
By which the propertl' of vouth and maidhood them. The productsof modern scienceare not in themseh'es
May be abusd? Have you not read Roderigo, good or bad; rt is the rvay they are used that determines their
f)f snme c,,rh thino? va,lue."That is the voice of the current somnambulism.
In ShekesnearesTroiIu-sand Cressida.r^'hich is almost Supposewe \^,ereto say,'Applepie is in ttself neither good
completeiy der.oted to both a psvchic and socral study of r.t h:d it is the w:v it is usedthat determinesits value."Or,
''Thesmallpo-rvirus is in itself neither good nor bad;it is the
communication, Shakespearestates his a\darenessthat true
social and political navigation depend upon anticipatrng the nrayit is usedthat determinesits value."Again,"Firearmsare
consequences of innovation: i . r hpm .el uc s npi thel oood nnr h:d i t ;. the w .ar ther a,.

T"' _h e tn' "'r- 'n- ' ' v- ' "-i d e r c et h :t. r n a u a tch lir l sr a te usedthat determinestheir value."That is. if the slugsreach
* ' "'

K r o w s a l m o s te v e n g la in o t Dl:r ' - r .g o ld . the right peoplefirearms aregood.If the TV tube fires the
F ; n d . b o rt o n i n t he u n .o m p " e h " n sne d e e p t right ammunition at the right peopleit rs good.I am not
K " " " . . 1 , . " , n""'' i "r h , ' th'"." o h r ,.1 :lm o ,r liL
', - '
- th 'c bo- -o_ d s hpi no ner r :er s e T her e i s c i m nl t nor hi np i n r he Sar noff
"6 " '" '5l ,'" " " " 5
D oe . rl .n rro \'. rrr'e' i n their dum b.,adle, statement that will bear scrutlny. for it ignores the nature of

The increasinga!^areness of the actionof media.quite the medium, of any and a1lmedia,in the true Narcissusst14e
independentlyof tleir ''content"or programming,was of one hypnotizedby the amputation and extensionof his
in&catedin the annoyedand anonl'moussLanza. on n being in a nen, technicalform. GeneralSarnoff went on
In modernthought,(if not in fact) to explain his attitude to the technology of print, sa1-ingthat
.\otlrlngrrs
Nr ^, L: - - -
-lnar
L^. does:
l^^^ - i
t a.1 it r.t'astrue that print causedmuch trash to circulate,but it
Sothat is reckonedmsdom r,vhrch had also&ssemlnatedthe Bibleand the thoughts of seers
Describes the scratch but not the it.h. and philosophers.It has neveroccurredto GeneralSarnoff
The samekind of total, configurational a\,'arenessthat that any technology could do anything but add itself on to
revealswhy the medium is socrallythe messagehas occurred -nrLef
*__--/ *^
rnrp ,lt"r.l.'tt" _

in the most recent and radical medical theories. In his Stress Sucheconomistsas RobertTheobald,\4I W Rostow and
of Life,HansSelyetells of the &smay of a researchcolleague John Kenneth Galbraith have been explaining for yearshow
on
' hearins
-- "' b of Selvestheorv: it is that "classical
economics"cannot explainchangeor

\A/henhe saw me thus launched on vet another gron'th. And the paradox of mechanization is that although
o n r r n t r r , c dr . l p c lin tr n n o f n h a L ] h a d o b se r ve din it is itseif the causeof maximal growth and change,the
animals treated rryiththis or that impure, toxic principle of mechanizationexcludesthe very possibilityof
material, he looked at me n'ith desperatell'sad e,vesand c 'or r r h.r r he r r ndc r .l endj n. nf . l ;noe Enl npr l :ni z atj on i"
said ;n ol,r' rous
"- " J '',
But Se]i'e.tn to realizerr-hat
de-<caii-: r .hi c r pr l hr f,,om pnt:* i ,nor ,r n'
" . rnl''-o.p:.:n.l bv nr tr r ne th,
 1962,64
fragmentedparts in a series,Yet,as Dar,rdHume showedin
the eighteenthcentury,there is no principleof causalityin a
mere sequence. That one thing follows another accountsfor
nolhing. Nothing follows from following, except change.So
the greatest of aii reversalsoccurred with electricity, that
endedsequenceby making things instant. With instant
speedthe causesof tlings began to emergeto awareness
again,as they had not done with things in sequenceand in
concatenationaccordingly.instead of asking which came
first, the chickenor the egg,it suddeniyseemedthat a
chjckenwas an eggs ideafor getting more eggs.
Just beforean airplanebreaksthe sound barrier,sound
wavesbecomevisible on the wings of the p1ane.The sudden
visibility of sound just as sound endsis an apt instanceof
that great pattern of being that revealsnew and opposite
forms just as the earlierforms reachtheir peakperformance.
Mechanization was never so vividly fragmented or sequential
asin the birth of the movies,the moment that translatedus
beyond mechanism into the world of growth and organrc
interrela[ion.
The movie.bv sheerspeedingup the
mechanical,carried us from the world of sequenceand
connections into the world of creatrveconfiguration and
structure. The messageof the movie medium is that of
transition from lineal connections to configurations. It is the
transition that producedthe now quite correctobservation:
''lf it works,its obsolete."When
electricspeedfurther takes
over from mechanicalmovie sequences, then the lines of
force in structures and in media becomeloud and clear.We
return to the inclusive form of the icon.
To a highly Literateand mechanizedculture the moyie
appearedas a world of triumphant illusions and dreams that
money could buy. It was at this moment of the movie that
cubismoccurred,and it has beendescribedby E. H.
Gombrich (Art and lllusion)as "the most ra&cal attempt to
stamp out ambiguity and to enforce one reading of the
picture-that of a man-madeconstruction,a coloredcanvas.
For cubism substitutes all facets of an object slmultaneously
for the "point of rriew" or facet of perspectiveillusion. Instead
of the specializedillusion of the third &mension on canvas,
cubism sets up an interplay of planes and contradiction or
dramatic conflict ofpatterns, lights, textures that "drives
home the message by involvement. This is held by many ro
be an exercisein painting, not in illusion.
In other words, cubism, by giving the inside and outside,
the top, bottom, back, and front and the rest, in two
13"Twoby M c Luhan
&mensions,drops the illusion of perspectivein favor of
instant sensoryal,vareness
of the whole. Cubism,by seizing
on instant total awareness,
suddenlyannouncedthatthe
mediumis the message.ls it not errLdent that the moment that
sequenceyieldsto the simultaneous,one is in the world of
the structure and of configuration? Is that not what has
happenedin physicsas in painting,poerry,and in
communication? Specializedsegmentsof attention have
shifted to tota-lfield, and we can now say,"The medium is the
message quite naturally. Before the electric speedand total
field, it was not obyious that the me&um is the message.The
message, it seemed,was *re 'tontent," aspeopleusedto ask
what a paintin gwas about.Yet they never thought to ask
what a melody was about, nor what a houseor a dresswas
about.In suchmatters,peopleretainedsomesenseof the
whole pattern, of form and function as a unity. But in the
electric agethis integral idea of structure and confrguration
has becomeso prevalent that educational theory has taken
up the matter. Instead of working wrth specialized
''problems'inanthmetic,
the structuralapproachnow
follows the linea of force in the field of number and has small
childrenme&tating about number theory and "sets."
Cardina.lNer^,.mansaid of Napoleon, "He understood the
grammar of gunpowder."Napoleonhad paid someattention
to other me&a as well, especiallythe semaphoretelegraph
that gavehim a great advantageover his enemies.He rs on
record for saying that "Three hostrle newspapersare more to
be fearedthan a thousandbayonets."
Alexrs de Tocquevillewas the first to master the grammar
of print and tr,'oography.He was thus able to read off the
messageof comrng changein Franceand America as if he
were reading aloud from a text that had been handed to him.
In fact, the nineteenth century in Franceand in Amenca was
just suchan open book to de Tocquer.ille becausehe had
learned the grammar of print. So he, a1so,knew when tl-rat
grammar did not apply. He was askedwhy he did not write a
book on England,since he knew and admired England.He
replied:
Onewouidhaveto havean unusualdegreeof
philosophical folJyto believe
oneselfablero iudge
Englandin slt months.A yearalwaysseemed to metoo
short a time in which to appreciatethe UnitedStates
properly. and:t is mucheasier ro atquireclearand
precisenotionsaboutthe AmerlcanUnionthan about
GreatBritain.In Americaall lawsderivein a sensefrom
13. Twoby Mcluhan
t h e s a m el i n eo f th o u g h t.T h e wh o le o f so cie tl.so lo
speak,is founded upon a single fact; everr,'thingsprings
from a simpleprinciple.One could compareAmerica to a
forest piercedby a multitude of straight roadsall
converging on the same point. One has only to find the
renter and eveDthing is retealedat a glance But in
Fnole.rl
' b' - ' "
thp nei h< rrrn rri<c-.r^<< r..l it i< nnh ht
travellingdown eachoneof them that onecanbuild up
a pictureof then'hole.
De Tocqueville,in earlier work on the French Revolution.
had explainedhow it was tJreprinted word that. achier.rng
culturalsaturationin the eighteenthcentury'.had
homogenizedthe Frenchnation. Frenchmenwere tle same
kind of peoplefrom north to south. The tlpographic
principles of uniformiq', continuitl,. and Linealir,vhad overlaid
the complexitiesof ancient feudal and oral society,The
Revolution was carried out by the new-literati and ]arwers.
In England,however,suchwas the power of the ancient
oral traditions of common 1ar.rbackedby the medieval
institution of Parliament,t]-ratno uniformity or continuity
of the new ',.isualprint cu-lturecould take completehold The
resu-ltllrasthat the most important event in English historl'
has nevertaken place;namel,v, the EnghshRevolutionon the
lines of the FrenchRevolution.The American Revolutionhad
no medievallegalinstitutions to discardor to root out, apart
from monarchy AnC manl'har.e held that the American
Presidencyhas becomever),much more personaland monar-
chicalthan any Europeanmonarch ever couldbe.
De TocquevrJle'scontrastbetween Englandand Americars
clearly,basedon the fact of qpographv and of print culture
creatinguniformity and continuit)'.England.he savs,has
rejectedthis principle and clung to the d1'namicor oral
commonlaw tradjtion. Hence t}re &scontinuity and
unpre&ctable guality of English culture. The grammar of
print cannot help to construethe messageof oral and
nonwrltten cultureand instrtutions.The Englisharistocracy
\^,asproperly classifiedas barbarian by Matthew Arnold
becauseits polr'er and status had nothing to do lt'ith Lteracv
or with the cuitural forms of tlpographyr Said the Duke of
Gloucesterto EdwardGibbon upon the publicationof his
DeclineandFall 'Anotler damned fat book, eh,Mr. Gibbon?
Scribble,scribble,scribble,eh, l\4r. Gibbon?" De Tocquel'ille
was a highly literatearistocrattr,howas quite ableto be
detachedfrom the valuesand assumptionsof tlpographr'.
That is rrhl he aloneunder*to.d the grammarof
h, nr orra
b'"r'"
oh r..Ardrr ; . . ' n] r ' on lho. e r e: . ' r . : l; r dir . - as r C ,
th*N EWMEDIAR[P"
$Eg
from any structure or medium, that its principles and Linesof
forcecan be discerned.For any medium has the power of
imposing its own assumption on the unl^/ary Prediction and
control consist in avoiding this subliminal state of Narcissus
trance. But the greatest aid to this end is slmpl,vin knorn'ing
that the spellcan occurimmediatelyupon contact,as in the
first bars of a melod1..
A Passage
to Indiaby E. M. Forsteris a dramaticstudy of the
inability of orai and intuitir,'eoriental culture to meet with the
rationa.l,r.isual Europeanpatterns of erperience."Rational,"of
course,has for the West long meant "uniform and continuous
and sequential."]n other words, we have confusedreasonn itlr
literacy,and rationalism n'ith a single technology.Thus in the
electric ageman seemsto the conventional\A/estto become
irrationa.l.]n Forster'snovel tie moment of truth and
dislocation from the tlpographic trance of the 1A/estcomesm
tle Marabar Caves.Adela Questedsreasoningpowers cannot
copewith the total inclusive field of resonancethat is India.
After the Caves:"Life went on as usua-l,but had no
consequences, that is to sayrsoundsdid not echonor thought
der-elop.Everything seemedcut off at its root and therefore
infected with i-llusion."
A Passage to lndia (the phrase is from \{hitman, rtho sarn
AmericaheadedEastward)is a parableof \{estern man in
the electric age,and is onlv incidentally related to Europe or
the Orient. The ultimate conflict betweensight and sound,
betweenr,rryittenand oral kinds of perceptronand
organizationof existenceis upon us. Sinceunderstanding
stops action,as Nietzscheobserved,rve can moderatethe
fiercenessof this conflict b1.understandingthe media that
extend us and raise these r,r,'ars
wrthin and r,r,ithoutus.
Detribaiization by literacy and its traumatic effects on
tribal man is the theme of a book by the ps1'c[i21yi51 3.g.
Carothers.TheAflican lt4indin Heakh and Disease(World
Health Organization,Geneva,1953).Much of his material
appearedin an article in Psychiatrymagazine,November,
1959: The Culture.Psychiarly. and the \Vritten Word.
Again, it is eiectric speedthat has revealedthe lines of force
operatingfrom \,Vesterntechnologyin the remotestareasof
bush,savannah,and desert.One exampleis the Bedouinlr,ith
hrs battery ra&o on board the camel.Submergingnatrrres
with floods of conceptsfor r.r'hichnothing has prepared
them is the norma.laction of all of our technology.But r,rrth
electricmed.ia\,Vesternman himself experiences exactl,vthe
sameinundationasthe remotenatiye.l\le arencrrnore
v 1962,64
preparedto encounterradio and TV in our literatemilieu
than the native of Ghana is able to cope with the literacy
that takes him out of his collectivetribal world and beaches
him in individual isolation. We are as numb in our nerv
electric world as the native lnvolved in our literate and
mechanica-lculture.
Electricspeedminglesthe culturesof prehistorywith the
dregs of industrial marketeers,the nonliterate with
semfiterate and the postliterate. Mental breakdown of
varytngdegreesis the very common resuJtof uprooting and
inundation with new information and endlessnew patterns
of information. Wlrrdham Lewis made this a theme of his
group of novels calledThe HumanAge.The first of these,The
Childermass,is concernedpreciselywith accelerated media
changeas a kind of massacreof the innocents. In our own
world as we become more aware of the effects of technology
on psychic formation and manifestation, we are losing all
confidencein our right to assignguilt. Ancient prehistoric
societiesregard violent crime as patletic. The killer is
regardedas we do a cancerrrictim. "How terrible it must be to
feeiLikethat." they say.J. NI. Syngetook up this idea very
effectively ilrhis Playboyof the WesternWorld.
If the criminal appearsas a nonconformlst who is unable
to meet the demand of technologythat we behavein
uniform and continuous patterns,literate man is quite
inclined to seeothers who cannot conform as somewhat
pathetic. Especiallythe child, the cripple, the woman, and
the coloredperson appearin a world of rrisualand
typographictechnologvas victims of injustice.On the other
hand, rn a culture that assignsrolesinsteadofjobs to
people-the dwarl the skew the child createtheir own
spaces.They are not expectedto fit into some uniform and
iv repeatableniche that is not their size anyway.Consider the
phrase"lt's a mans world." As a quantitative observatron
endlesslyrepeatedf.romwithin a homogenizedculture,this
;a:
nhr;se refersto the men in such a cu]turewho have to be
homogenizedDagwoodsin order to belong at all. It is in our
I.Q testing that we haveproducedthe greatestflood of
misbegotten standards. Unaware of our typographic cultura-l
bias.our testersassumethat uniform and continuoushabits
are a sign of intelligence, thus eliminating the ear man and
the tactile man.
C. P Snow, reviewing a book of A. L, Rowse (Theltlew York
TimesBookReview, December24,1961")onAppeasement and
the road to Munich, describesthe top ievel of British brains
1.3.Twoby M c Luhan
in the I930s. 'Their l.Q' weremuchhigher
anCexperience
than usualamong political bosses.Why were they such a
djsaster?"The view of Rowse,Snow approves:"They would
not listen to warningsbecausethey &d not wish to hear.
Beinganti-Redmade it impossiblefor them to read the
messageof Hitler. But their failure was as nothing compared
to our presentone.The American stakein literacyas a
technology or uniformity appLiedto every level of education,
government, industry, and social Lifeis totally threatened by
the electrictechnology.The threat of Stahnor Hitler was
external. The electric technology is within the gates,and we
are numb, deaf blind, and mute about its encounterwith the
Gutenberg technology,on and through which the American
way of life was formed. It is, however,no tlme to suggest
strategieswhen the threat has not evenbeenacknowledged
to exist.I am in the position of Louis Pasteurtelling doctors
that their greatestenemywas quite invisible,and quite
unrecognizedby them. Our conventionalresponseto all
media,namelv that it is how they are usedthat counts,is the
numb stanceof the technologicalidiot. For the "content''of a
me&um is like the juicy pieceof meat carriedbv the burglar
to distract the watchdog of the mind. The effect of the
m e d i u mi s m a d es t r o n ! a n d i n t e n s ei u 5 rb e c a u s iet is g i ve n
another medium as "content."The content of a movie is a
novel or a play or an opera.The effect of the movie form rs
not relatedto its program content.The "content"of writing
or print is speech.but the readeris almost entirely unaware
e i t h e ro Fp r i n t o r o f s p e e c h .
funold Toynbeeis innocent of anv understandingof
mediaas they haveshapedhistory but he is frr1J
of examples
that the student of media can use.At one moment he can
seriously suggestthat adult education,such as the Workers
EducationalAssociationin Brttain.is a usefi.rlcounterforceto
the popular press.Toynbee considersthat altiough al-lof the
oriental socletieshavein our time acceptedthe industrial
technologyand its poLiticalconsequences:"On the cultural
plane,however,there is no uniform correspon&ng tendency."
(Somervell,I. 267) This is 1&ethe voiceof the literateman,
floundering in a milieu of ads,who boasts,"Personally,I pay
no attention to ads."The spiritual and cultural reservations
that the oriental peoplesmay have toward our technology
will avail them not at all. The effects of technology do not
occurat the 1evelof opinlons or concepts,but alter sense
ratios or patterns of perception stea&ly and urithout any
resistance.The serlous artist is the onlv oerson able to
13. Twoby McLuhan theNEW M EDIAKiAPER

encountertechnologywrth impunitl', just becausehe ts an individualism and nationalism in the sixteenth centur\r
expertawareof the changesin senseperception. Programand "content"analysisoffer no cluesto the magicof
The operationof the money me&um in seventeenth- these me&a or to their subliminal charge.
century Japan had effects not unLikethe operation of LeonardDoob,in his report Communication in Af ica,tdTs
typography in the \A/estThe penetration of the money of one African who took great pains to hsten eachevening to
economy. r,rvoteC. B.Sansom(in Japan.CresselPresr. the BBCnews,eventhough he could understandnothrng of
London, 1931) "causeda slow but irresistiblerevolution, it. Just to be in the presenceof those soundsat 7 Rtt',t.each
culminating in the breakdon n of feudal government and the day rn,as important for him. His attitude to speechr,r,as
like
resumption of intercourseu-ith foreign countriesafter more ours to melody-the resonantintonation rtas meaning
than two hundred vearsof seclusion."Monev has enough. In the seventeenthcentury our ancestorsstill shared
reorganizedthe senselife ofpeoplesjust becauseit is an this native'sattitude to the forms of media, as is plain in the
extensionof our senselives.This changedoesnot depend following sentiment of the Frenchman Bernard Lam
upon approval or disapprovalof those iir.ing in the sociefir explessed in TheArt of Speaking,London] 690):
funold Toynbeemade one approach to the transforming 'Tls an effectof the Wisdomof God,rvhocreatedMan to
power of media in his conceptof 'etherialization,'rvhich he behaoor.thaLrrhateieri: .r:efi.rl to hisronversat ion
holds to be the principle of progressivesirnplification and (wavoflife) is *asreeable
b _ '_ * - - to him . . because
all yictua,l
--

efficiency in any organization or technology.T1.picalh',he is that conducesto nourishment is reLishable,t'hereas

ignoring the effectof the challengeof these forms upon the other
' _ ^ ' -' thrngs
-' -' _ -b "
that cannot be assimulatedand be turned
into our substanceare insipid.A Discoursecannot be
recnonce of orir.ense. He imapines
''''_ b " that ir '"is "the
" resnonse
'" I of
nleasanr lo the Hearer thar is not easiero rbe Soeak.,
r''*"*-...."..-'-.,."r.*..
our opinions that is relerrantto the effect of me&a and
nor can it be easilvnronouncedunlessrt be heard u'ith
t echro lno ' in cnrie tr'": vnoinr
"' ' " nf r ieu t h,
' - atis 'nlainlu
' "r - ' ". ' t he delight
result of the typographicspell.For the man in a literateand
homogenizedsocletyceasesto be sensitiveto the diverseand H erc i s an enrri l i hri urn theorr of human di et and
"a*-"'*"-'

discontinuous life of forms. He acquiresthe i-llusionof the expressionsuchas evennow lve are only striving to work
third &mension and the "privatepornt of uen' ' as part of his out againfor media after centuriesof fragmentation and
Narcissusfi-ration, and is quite shut off fuom Blakes specialism.
or that of the Psalmist.that we becomerthat
a1^.areness P n n eP i r r <X l l w : c d e e n l rr.o' n c e r n e dr h a t t h e r eb e r e r i o u s
r,r'ebehold. study ofthe media today On Februarl'17 1950 he said:
Today n'hen \{'e h'ant to get our bearings in our or,r'n Ir iq nnr rn pr:ooplrtinn to <:v thrr thp ftrr'rre of

culture, and have need to stand asidefrom the bias and modernso.i etv '/ *and stehi ri tvof
' the "'_"_"/ i t.'nner
"' '_" """' l i fe
' ..'r'
oenend
pressureexertedbl anv technicalform ofhuman expression rn l argepart on i he mai ntenanceof an equi l i brirm
we have only to r,rsit a society r,r,herethat particular form has beruee. rhe strengthof the re.hni que.of

it rnrasunknorn'n. communicationand tbe capacitvof the in&iidual.s orn'n

not been felt, or a historical period in rn",hich
Professorl\rilbur Schramm made such a tactical mot'e in
studf ing Televisionin the Livesof Our Children.He found areas
where TV had not penetratedat all and ran sometests,Srnce
he had made no study of the peculiarnature of the T\r
image,his tests l^rereof "content" preferences,r.ier,r.ingtime,
and vocabularrrcounts. ln a rt'ord, his approach to the
problemwasa Literaryone.albeitunconsciouslv so
Consequentlvhe had nothing to report. Had his methods
beenemnlorredin 1500 e n.to discoverthe effectsof the
nrinted
r ' - ". ' - book in the lir,esof children or adults,he couldhave
r^-,..1 n 6 ,L :.. tl- ,o,( ,.J[3pq.g<
ur .'- L in hum ar - ar C,o.ial
^,', ^f rr r L
1. s r. r o l u C t r . r ' - r ] r i r C I r,' m t\? o .C' d n h ' . f,,l t
reactron.
Failure in this respect has for centuries been tlpical and
total for mankind. Sublimlnal and docile acceptance of media
impact has made them prisons i.rnthout r,valls for their
human users. As A. J Liebling remarked in his book The Press,
a man is not free if he cannot see r,r'herehe is going, even if
he has a gun to help him get there. For each of the media is
also a porn'erfu1 \^reapon'"vith n'hich to clobber other media
and other bpi ouos.
''r- The resul t i s that the D resentaqe has
r''""'-b' " been
one of multinle riril rry;rs that are not lirnited to tl-ie r'r'orld of
al t an d entertai nment .In I4tarand H uman Progress.
P l ofessor
:r :ie d J LI Nef declaled:

:l
,,L-
v 7962,64
13. Twoby Mcl-uhan

The totalr'varsof our time havebeentheresu-lt

of a
mistakes.. . .
seriesof intellectua.l
If the formative power in the media are the me&a
themselves,that raisesa host of large matters that can only
be mentloned here, although they deservevolumes. Namely,
that technological media are staplesor natura-lresources,
exacdy as are coal and cotton and oil. Anybody will concede
that society whose economy is dependent upon one or two
major stapleslike cotton, or grain, or lumber, or fish, or cattle
is going to have some obrrioussocial patterns of organization
as a resu]t. Stresson a few major staplescreatesextreme
instability in the economy but great endurancein the popuJa-
tion. The pathos and humor of the AmericanSouth are
embeddedin suchan economyof limited staples.For a
society configured by reliance on a few commo&ties accepts
them as a socialbond quite as much as the metropolis does
the press.Cotton and oil, like ra&o and TV become"fixed
us, may be perceived in another connection mentioned by
the psychologist C. C. Jung:
Every Roman was surrounded by slaves.The slaveand
his psychologyrflooded ancient Italy, and every Roman
becameinwardly,and of courseunwitLingly.a slave.
Becauseliving constantly in the atmosphere of slaves,he
becameinfectedthrough fhe unconsciouswith rheir
psychology.No one can shield himself from such an
infl uence (Contributionsto Analytical Psychology,
London,
7928).
The GaLaxy Reconfi gured -Notes
L. Jerusalem,III,74.
2. Ibi d., 11,36.
3. Thi s N ew toni antheme'i s devel opedby mysel fapropos"Tenny s on
and PicturesquePoetry"in John KiLtham,ed., Citicol Essayson the
Poetryof Tennyson,pp. 67-85.
4. John R uski n,ModernPai nters,vol . III, p. 96.

charges"on the entire psychiclife of the community. And this 5.S ee H . M. l vl cl uhan,"Joyce,Mal l arm6and the Pres s ,"S ew anee
Review,winter, 1954, pp.38-55.
pervasivefact createsthe unique cultural flavor of any
Cultureand Society,1780-1850, p.
6. Cited by RaymondWiLLiams,
society.It pays through the nose and a.llits other sensesfor 38.
eachstaple that shapesits life. fssays, p. 145.
7. In SeLected
That our human senses,of which all me&a are extensions. 8. "The S ocj aLand IntettectuaIBackground" i n TheM odernA ge (The
are a-lsofixed chargeson our personal energies,and that they Peti canGui deto E ngl i shLi terature),p. 47.
also configure the awarenessand experienceof eachone of