Think About it. The Massage. We have just passed two anniversaries, the beginning of the WWW (the pervasive, intrusive internet) and the announcement of the resultant Global Village. Interestingly, the recognition of the fruits of the computer communication came 25 years before Tim Berners-Lee, in 1989 wrote a proposal for what would eventually become the World Wide Web. In his long and arduous tome Understanding Media, published 50 years ago, Marshall McLuhan theorized that speech, printing and soon-to-be electronic media would not only be a medium of communication, but the message itself.
Later in a more accessible volume, The Medium is the Massage (Spelling is correct.) he popularized the view that the way information is presented affects our ways of living, profoundly.Whether or not you agree with McLuhan, you will acknowledge that the bombardment of information coupled with our participation in electronic social (sometimes anti-social) media indeed affects the way we act, live and work. At the time, it has brought the people on this earth closer together in a group interdependent culturally, financially and politically.
If you’d like to hear the best stereo ever and receive the aural massage of a lifetime while receiving the message of Marshall McLuhan, turn up your speakers and listen.
There seems little doubt then, that the predictions of 5o years ago brought to fruition 25 years ago have created for all of us a deep and thorough mental Massage. Think About it.
The Medium is the Massage Side A & B, Published on Jun 22, 2016, digitally remastered for the 100th Anniversary of Herbert Marshall McLuhan; with Marshall McLuhan Long-playing Record produced by John Simon. Conceived and co-ordinated by Jerome Agel. Written by Marshall McLuhan, Quentin Fiore, and Jerome Agel. Columbia CS 9501, CL2701 (1968). This is the companion LP to McLuhan’s book with the same title.