Refactoring
Let's get serious about improving this page. Here's a proposed plan. --Chris vLS 20:28, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I would be happy to leave this page alone for good, in fact i am doing so. I hope you get the help you need as 80% of this site as it stands now is original material mostly what I have contributed.That is why it appears on my blog site.The original stub is still in there somewhere I took nothing from this site only tried to enhanced it.TM Here is what Mcluhan said in UM about this issue of original material-- so beware.
"Some of the principal extensions, together with some of their psychic and social consequences, are studied in this book. Just how little consideration has been given to such matters in the past can be gathered from the consternation of one of the editors of this book. He noted in dismay that "seventy-five per cent of your material is new. A successful book cannot venture to be more than ten per cent new." Such a risk seems quite worth taking at the present time when the stakes are very high, and the need to understand the effects of the extensions of man becomes more urgent by the hour"MM
Message
Apparently someone is the author of many of the essays that have appeared in this entry. He even said "goodbye" to wikipedia at one point, tired of having he contributions reverted out. He added a link to his blog (http://terrymockler.blogspot.com), which currently contains the entirity of the McLuhan essay/entry.
- Terry, clearly you have real passion and depth in this field. But it consistently appears that your mission and style do not mesh well with the style of wikipedia. Your essay seems to bring out several dimensions of McLuhan that go well beyond the modest aims of wikipedia, which include no original ideas but simply summarizing the mainstream, even pedestrian, scholarship.
- I suggest that you keep on with your deeper interpretative work, but keep this work on your blog. Or even look to adding something in wikinfo or Everything 2, which would be better homes for your work. That will allow the community to return this page to a more usable form, without everyone frustrating each other. Thoughts? --Chris vLS 00:32, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Talk
Poor entry about mmcl. He was a communications theorist. If the message is incomprhensible its because you have not put enough content in,(dangling participal not0 silly rabbit. The revival of the astral plane through medium of the disincarnate internet hearlds the arrival of the transdermal retina. Will consult Pontifical Institute. He was a medi-ated philosopher not a communications theorist: Oral culture tenured english proof.
speel checked prof red. Read Bacon for breakfast.
Oy. -- Zoe
I think that it has to be linked with 'Mass Media' because he was the first one that used that word
Pino.
Removed from the article:
Marshall McLuhan once stated that he considered all of his work to be a mere "footnote" to the work of Harold Innis. Harold Innis, author of The Bias of Communication and Communication and Empire was a reknown Canadian economist, who influenced the development of McLuhan's ideas about the nature of and significance of the relationship of communications media to culture.This led to a growing awareness and concern over the relationship of technological change to the nature of communications media.This debate is often referred to as technological determinism. This relationship between the work of these two scholars is considered to be a major part of the foundation for the Toronto School of Communication. It is also worthwhile mentioning that while Marshall McLuhan's major contributions were to the study of media worldwide, Marshall McLuhan and Harold Innis were also part of a small group of Canadian intellectual giants born in the early part of the 20th Century who emerged to make major contributions and play a vital role in forming the character of Canadian intellectual life well into the 21st century. Having survived the devastation to Canadian culture by the first and second world wars and the great depression Canada, more than other western countries because of colonialism and American cultural dominance seemed to suffer more than others in their struggle to assert their cultural identity in this period. Argus like they in turn have influenced the world.Through the Toronto School of Communications Marshall McLuhan was able to broaden his evolving definition of media to encompass all physical and psychological environments and effects of human artifacts under the influence of communications media. Walter Ong who was a student of Marshall McLuhan's developed his theory of secondary orality based on the work of this school. Ong who was also a student of Marshall McLuhan's proposed secondary orality as a means to resolve some of the conflicts presented by the relationships identified by Marshall McLuhan and the Toronto School of Communication. This growing field of study necessitated a new classification of knowledge that became known as Media Ecology.Early usage of this term in relation to media can be found in the work of Marshall McLuhan and Jacques Ellul. Marshall McLuhan is credited as the philosophical founder of the discipline of Media ecology, McLuhan coined this term that serves to encompass this broadened definition of media and it's effects that the Toronto School of Communication did not. There are several successors to Marshall McLuhan in this field, who were influenced by Marshall McLuhan to one degree or another such as Neil Postman. Neil Postman focused on critiquing aspects of the relationship of technological change to society and education. Neil Postman is the author of numerous books on Media and Education and founded the first school of media ecology studies at New York University. Following another line of development in Marshall McLuhan's work Derrick de Kerckhove author of Connected Intelligence and The Skin of Culture pioneered the study of psychotechnology Derrick de Kerckhove was also Marshall McLuhan's student and his successor as director of the Program for Studies in Culture and Technology founded by Marshall McLuhan at the University of Toronto Eric McLuhan, Marshall's son and author of Electric Language also co-authored with his father Laws of Media the New Science. This was a sincere effort to formalize Marshall McLuhan's thinking into a series of media laws. Early journal entries that Marshall Mcluhan wrote intimated his explicit intention to do so later in life, although it was never his intention to formulate a general or unified field theory of culture. Also of note is Paul Levinson who was a friend of Marshall McLuhan and has emerged as a significant McLuhan revisionist. He is author of Digital McLuhan. and The Soft Edge To this inner circle could be added a legion of biographers, media studies interpreters and students of media science as a revival in McLuhan's thinking is well underway. Marshall Mcluhan's numerous publications continue to appear in reprint. Marshall McLuhan was educated at Cambridge University in England,and was a student of I.A. Richards. He was influenced by Richards' work the new criticism. and Wyndham Lewis and James Joyce among others. Marshall McLuhan has also influenced and helped found other branches of thought and learning such as crossdisciplinary studies Marshall McLuhan's work has also been associated with other philosophical movements of the twentieth century such as Postmodernism that emerged principally in France out of language and cultural studies there in parallel but distinct lines to McLuhan's philosophies taking place in the English speaking world. Consequently certain aspects of literature,language,and philosophy are preserved in this field. Jacques Ellul and Jean Baudrillard have made significant contributions to the development of media ecology as a discipline in Europe. There is also a religious dimension to Marshall McLuhan. However science has reduced religious sensability to the level of a mere superstition in both the modern and postmodern ages. Marshall McLuhan it could be argued succeeded in synthesizing the opposite approaches to media implied by absolutists in both science and religion. However no absolute theory of media has emerged from this effort. Similarly as did Pierre Teilhard de Chardinin linking Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution with religion with his concept of the 'noosphere" Marshall McLuhan has been branded a heretic. Although no implicit link between their work or philosophical outlook exists. This is because Marshall McLuhan emerged from a literary and anglocentric environment.Marshall McLuhan did find much room for many commonalities between science and religeon in a middle ground that media provides. McLuhan's staunchest critics and opponents disagree vehemently with this approach and what they considered it's undigestible and watered down conclusions.
This is a rather indigestible wodge of text, and appears to me to make little sense in places. I've removed it until others can review it and check whether some or all of it should be restored to the article. -- The Anome 23:16, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Yes, it is way too long for a single paragraph. I think that after some minor modifications it can be moved back, I will try to work on it soon. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:08, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
recent additions
Perhaps I do not understand how this wikipedia business works but this is the second time I have tried to add to this page and had my work ripped off the page with little or no explanation.It just so happens that I spend many hours doing research on the subject of Marshall McLuhan and many hours writing and I do know something about the topic.If it is wikipedias policy to employ editors who monitor these pages as they are being edited and then are free to erase all someones efforts without stating a reason then you have surely lost a contributor for good.Wikipedia is no free encyclopedia.Why not let others who have an interest have their say.If all this is is a censored encyclopedia then I will take my work to a more respectable encyclopedia like britannica.
Calm down man. It's good stuff; it's just not an encyclopedia entry.
This is an essay, not an encyclopedia entry
Interesting information but needs serious refactoring. For starters, separating information about the content of his writings, and bibliographical information. A quotes section. I'll do this myself when I get the chance, but in the meantime... Delief 18:56, 28 Nov 2004 (NL)
- Totally agree. Came to the page hoping to learn something and was quickly bogged down. Since I don't have the expertise, and since the subject is well-know, I have added it to Pages needing attention. --Chris vLS 23:07, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
McLuhan entry needs work
Agree with complaints. Terrible entry. Will work on this and send my students in asap. Dr J McLuhan global research network, U of Toronto.
Contributors
Moved these lines of credit from the main article, since wikipedia doesn't put this kind of information into articles. We leave it on talk and history pages. --Chris vLS 18:29, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Removed essay stuff on other authors
Removed the following.
- In relation to this article perhaps the most relevant among his many works is The Disappearance of Childhoodin which Postman asserts that childhood as an invention of the print era has dissappeared altogether from western culture in the electronic age.One need only watch a 'Save the Children' commercial to see where childhood has disappeared to and in what state it currently exists. I wonder what else will pop up there? The truth perhaps?
--Chris vLS 21:44, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This page has serious issues
Apparently (see above) we have students at a school or something devoted to Marshall McLuhan making something like 75 different edits from an unregistered account at one IP address just in the last couple of days. I'm not sure these people are the best choice to be writing a nuetral encyclopedia article. The page sounds like a missive nominating the guy for sainthood. I'm not even sure what to tag this thing, or what to try to revert to since the oddness goes back so far. If the students and supporters of the guy are reading this, please consider using restraint in making edits. DreamGuy 01:11, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)
- Considering the horrendous mess that this page is, and the lack of good, proper writing throughout, perhaps a total rewrite is in order? Too much opinion, not enough coherent factual data. Reminds me of 'McLuhan's Wake,' a terrible excuse for a documentary, which resorts to transforming the man into a demigod of sorts. Hopefully there is someone out there with enough factual knowledge on this subject to give this entry a desperately needed fresh start.
- Actually, it can't tell if the students are a problem, it appears that the author of the bulk of the article is continuing to add to it. I do think a lot needs to be re-written, because it is either 1) wandering and unstructured (example: the McLuhan and Mass Media section goes from his education to his aphorism, to 'software' to influence by Innis to 'hot' and 'cold' media), 2) non-objective (much of the conclusion section, e.g. "His whole life was a search for the truth."), 3) fragmentary or unexplained ("McLuhan can be related to Einstein or Freud via such disparate fieds as quantuum mechanics and the realm of the infinitessimally small"). --Chris vLS 19:26, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Deleted essay on "Demystifying McLuhan"
Here is the text I removed.
Demystifying McLuhan
Amidst the erudite references, aphorisms and varying collaborative writings styles there is a terminology and a roadmap that allows people to validate media for themselves via interpretation or discovery. Of course McLuhan was not giving you gospel. Neither was he talking about biological extensions like cobwebs or human instincts like fear or good and evil for that matter.McLuhan wanted people to find the truth themselves in an active way by applying his theories to the real world. Among the most important of these are the following:
The collapse of time and space-At extreemly high speeds of operation media collapse time and space as human constructs.The transition from Innis to McLuhan.
Hot and cold media-low definition, high information, low participation,high definiton low information,high participation.
Definition of media-Any extension of the human sensory system-Language is the first form of mass media.Breakpoint boundary a phenomena related to hybrid (creative)energy when a new media of communication is formed that is completely different form the ones that went before(all media have as their content media or a medium that preceded it except for light).
Medium and Message-The importance of the medium is the hidden environment of change it produces.Except for light (where the medium and the message are the same and so the message is itself the hidden environment, media come in pairs. Global Village is media
pressed to an extreem (proliferation).
Acoustic space and media-Tribal man lived in this space.Closely related to the invention of language and mass media.
Visual media-and visual space-Invented by the Romans who enclosed the arch inside the rectangle. Made book culture predominant in western culture. Still with us but no longer completely dominant.
Media as translators-information from natural phenomena communicated via extensions of the senses. Definition of media-Any extension of the human sensory system
Western culture "winds the tape backward" The phenomena of reversal in his laws of media (enhancement is to obsolescence as it is to reversal and retrieval is to reversal as it is to obsolescence and visa-versa.)
Figure and ground- also coming in pairs-the various content of media are in dynamic interplay. A related concept- ""Synesthesia"" The blending of the human senses or sensorium. The opposite-A 'haptic sense- one of being in touch)
- Some of this material could be reinstated if it were better sourced and reworked, a good deal of it is widely agreed on as being usable simplifications of MM. But not all. Stirling Newberry 21:13, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
|
