ANYBODY WANT TO DISCUSS MEDIA? The study of media has always fascinated me. The internet is a new electronic medium bringing unforeseeable changes. To most people "media" means newspapers, TV, radio, but it really includes all communication, including art, design, even landscaping. We tend to overlook media's effects on the way we see things, while we concentrate on its content. Printing and reading led literate people to think in sequential, linear fashion, assembling letters into words and translated words into sequences of thought. Television "pulls the individual into its world" and invites involvement by marrying sight and sound, and the viewer becomes more involved.
For reading about media, I suggest "The Medium is the Massage" and
"Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man," by Marshall McLuhan. Both books
are in paperback, and I have attached a page linking to Amazon.com in case
you want the convenience of ordering one of the books by computer. I would
suggest, "The Medium is the Massage" as an introductory book because it is
easier reading and gives a quick overview of McLuhan's ideas.
Marshall McLuhan was a pioneer in observing that the nature of a medium has a
greater effect on its users than the content the medium delivers.
Those two books present basic ideas essential to understanding the many ways
media affect our perceptions and ways of thinking. If you read McLuhan you will look at our communications and culture a bit differently, perhaps with a bit more understanding.
Other books that go into more specialized topics include:
"The Global
Village: Transformations in World Life and Media in the 21st Century,"
"Essential McLuhan,"
"The Gutenberg Galaxy: the Making of Typographical Man,"
"Laws of Media:The New Science,"
"Marshall McLuhan:Escape into Understanding: A Biiography,"
"Media Research: Technology, Art, Communication,"
"War and Peace in the Global Village,"
"Media Messages and Language: The World as Your Classroom,"
"City as Classroom: understanding language and media,"
"Culture is our Business,"
"From Cliche to Archetype"
"Libraries Without Shelves"
"The Mechanical Bride"
"Take Today:the executive as dropout,"and
"Through the Vanishing Point:Space in Poetry and Painting."
For your convenience, I'm including here a hotlink to Amazon.com, if you're interested in purchasing these books. It isn't easy to find them at bookstores, and who likes putting in special orders and then waiting a few weeks?
Here are hotlinks to order two books that will provide an excellent overview of media and its role in our lives and our society.
Order Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man" Now!
Order "Essential McLuhan" Now!
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