McLuhan For Beginners

158 Pages·2012·84.4 MB·English

by  Gordon

FOR BtGINNLRS
w.
TERRENCE GORDON
BY
SUSAN WILLMARTH
ILLUSTRATIONS BY

For Beginners LLC
155 Main Street, Suite 211
Danbury, CT 06810 USA
www.forbeginnersbooks.com
Text: © 2012 W. Terrence Gordon
Illustrations: © 2012 Susan Willmarth
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
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permission of the publisher.
A For Beginners® Documentary Comic Book
Copyright © 2012
Cataloging-in-Publication information is available from the Library of Congress.
eISBN: 978-1-939994-16-5
For Beginners® and Beginners Documentary Comic Books® are published
by For Beginners LLC.
v3.1
"Archim.edes once said, .
'Give me a place to
stand and I will move
the world.' Today he
would have pointed to
our electric media and
said, 'I will stand on
your eyes, your ears,
your nerves, and your
brain, and the world will
move in any tempo or
pattern I choose'"
-Marshall Mcluhan
Understanding Media, page 68.
Marshall McWH01 .................. ~···········································1
What Is So Special About Marshall McLuhan? .......... 2
McLuhan'5 Point Of View .................................................. 11
Stepping Into McLuhan's Bio ........................................1 5
lnfluences ............................................................................. 18
Student & Teacher .......................................................... 23
THE MECHANICAL BRIDE ..............................................2 5
EXPLORATIONS & Idea Consultants ........................... 26
Exploring THE GUTENBERG GALAXY ........................ 28
Understanding UNDERSTANDING MEDIA ................ 34
(Re)Defining Media ........................................................... 42
(Re)Defining Message ..................................................... 44
Medium= Message ......................................................... 45
Media Gains & Losses ................................................... 48
Classifying Media: Hot & Cool ...................................... 50
Station Break ................................................................... 64
Amputations ..................................................................... 66
Sense Ratios .....................................................................5 9
The Microphone At Mass .............................................. 62
Rubbing Media Together ................................. :. ............. 63
Medium + Medium = Message ..................................... 64
It's A Triple Play! ............................................................... 67
The Alphabet ..................................................................... 68
Media Metaphors .............................................................. 71
The Money Is The Metaphor .......................................... 74
The Key To The Car ...........................................................7 6
Art For Our Sake .............................................................. 78
Electronic Pentecost ........................................................ 81
Comparing Media ............................................................. 84
McLuhan On Television .................................................... 85
Mosaic Man And "AII-At-Onceness" .......................... 87
Connecting The Dots .......................................................9 3
TV As Teaching Tool ......................................................... 98
McLuhan On Advertising ............................................... 99
CULTURE IS OUR BUSINESS =
Business Is Our Culture ...............................................1 01
The Global Village ..........................................................1 03
FROM CLICHE TO ARCHETYPE .................................... 107
Cliches & Probes ................................................................ 111
Archetypes .........................................................................1 13
THE MECHANICAL BRIDE: Comic Strips ................... 114
Kroker's PANIC ENCYCLOPEDIA ................................... 118
Panic Art ............................................................................. 119
Panic Ads .......................................................................... 120
Closure: THE LAWS OF MEDIA ...................................1 22
The Four Laws .................................................................. 123
Extension ........................................................................... 124
Obsolescence .................................................................... 125
Retrieval ............................................................................ 126
Reversal .............................................................................. 127
Media Tetrads ................................................................. 128
A Tetrad Sampler. ............................................................ 131
Wrapping It Up ...............................................................1 33
"What haven't you noticed lately?" ........................... 136
6ibliography ....................................................................1 39
lndex ................................................................................. 145
v
The author gratefully acknowl
edges the help of the following peo
ple:
Eric McLuhan
Arthur Kraker
Greg Skinner
John Barry
Lee Robertson
Jane Williamson
and Tim, isn't this a surprise,
after all these years?

f yol! are like niOst people,
You've proBably heard of
Marshal/ McLuhan-the man
. ·Playboy rnagazit1e called "the
High Priest of Fbpcult" and the
. "Metaphysician of Media"-
and You probably even recog-
a
nize couple of the phrases he .
carne up With-·:the medium is
the rnessaqe" arid "the global
. vil!age"..c_but thilt's about it.
Notanty have You never read
~)
any Of McLuhan's books, you've
probably never read anything
that makes you. think You
should.