Herbert Marshall McLuhan, was a Canadian professor, philosopher, and public intellectual. His work is one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory, as well as having practical applications in the advertising and television industries. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge; he began his teaching career as a Professor of English at several universities in the U.S. and Canada before moving to the University of Toronto, where he remained for the rest of his life.
McLuhan is known for coining the expression "the medium is the message" and the term global village, and for predicting the World Wide Web almost 30 years before it was invented. He was a fixture in media discourse in the late 1960s, though his influence began to wane in the early 1970s. In the years after his death, he continued to be a controversial figure in academic circles. With the arrival of the Internet and the World Wide Web, however, interest was renewed in his work and perspective.
“The most human thing about us is our technology.”
Man and the future of organizations, Volume 5, School of Business Administration, Georgia State University, 1974, p. 19
1970s
Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 61
“Prose is private drama; poetry is corporate drama.”
Source: 1990s and beyond, The Book of Probes : Marshall McLuhan (2011), p. 275
“Primitivism has become the vulgar cliche of much modern art and speculation.”
Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 77
Letter to The Listener October 1971, Letters of Marshall McLuhan (1987), p. 443
1970s
Source: 1990s and beyond, The Book of Probes : Marshall McLuhan (2011), p. 381
“The automated presidential surrogate is the superlative nobody.”
Source: 1970s, Take Today : The Executive as Dropout (1972), p. 157
Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 72
Source: 1960s, Understanding Media (1964), p. 178-179
Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 241
“The dyslexic: Everyman as cubist.”
Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 76
Interview between Californian Governor Jerry Brown and Marshall McLuhan, 1977
1970s
Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 44
1970s, Culture Is Our Business (1970)
“The new science of communication is percept, not concept.”
Source: 1990s and beyond, The Book of Probes : Marshall McLuhan (2011), p. 259
“Every mode of technology is a reflex of our most intimate psychological experience.”
Source: 1990s and beyond, The Book of Probes : Marshall McLuhan (2011), p. 171
Source: 1960s, Understanding Media (1964), p. 16
1960s, Playboy Interview (1969)
Source: 1960s, Understanding Media (1964), p. 24
Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 136
“The nuclear bomb will turn warfare into the juggling of images.”
Source: 1990s and beyond, The Book of Probes : Marshall McLuhan (2011), p. 360
Source: 1960s, Understanding Media (1964), p. 4
Source: 1960s, Understanding Media (1964), p. 334
Variant: In television, images are projected at you. You are the screen. The images wrap around you. You are the vanishing point. (p. 125)
Source: 1960s, The Medium is the Message (1967), p. 125
Source: 1960s, Understanding Media (1964), p. 264
“Chinese script is not visual but iconic and tactile. It does not disturb the tribal bonds.”
Source: 1970s, Culture Is Our Business (1970), p. 72
1960s, The Medium is the Message (1967)
Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 96
“The bias of each medium of communication is far more distorting than the deliberate lie.”
JQ. Journalism quarterly, Volume 50, Association for Education in Journalism, 1973, p. 145
1970s
“We are not Argus-eyed, but Argus-eared.”
Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 69
“The manuscript shaped medieval literary conventions at all levels.”
Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 99
“Today we experience, in reverse, what pre-literate man faced with the advent of writing.”
Source: 1990s and beyond, A McLuhan Sourcebook (1995), p. 273
“It is the poets and painters who react instantly to a new medium like radio or TV.”
Source: 1960s, Understanding Media (1964), p. 53
Source: 1960s, Counterblast (1969), p. 106
“Typography extended its character to the regulation and fixations of languages.”
Variant: Typography extended its character to the regulation and fixation of languages. (p. 229)
Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 260
“The only cool PR is provided by one's enemies. They toil incessantly and for free.”
88
1970s, Culture Is Our Business (1970)
Source: 1950s, The Mechanical Bride (1951), p. 7
“Man works when he is partially involved. When he is totally involved he is at play or leisure.”
1990s and beyond, "The Agenbite of Outwit" (1998)
“Literacy affects the physiology as well as the psychic life of the African.”
Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 38
“The divorce of poetry and music was first reflected by the printed page.”
Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 227
Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 154
“The young are really the heirs to a generation of incompetence.”
1970s, Culture Is Our Business (1970)
Source: 1960s, Counterblast (1969), p. 14
“The percept takes priority of the concept.”
Letter to Edward T. Hall, 1971, Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 397
1970s
