Marshall Mcluhan Theory

“You don’t like those ideas? I got others” – Marshall McLuhan (Logan 2011). Great theorists build on theories and never cease to seek.

Seeing how communication theories are used every day and also used to create new theories, this study shows one of the fundamental theorists in communications and media.

The viewpoint of the theorists, Marshall McLuhan, will be explained and discussed in terms of ‘today’. This study is rather important as so many theories were created with some of his viewpoints – yet not really understood. McLuhan had a difficult way of writing and thinking, thus leaving the readers rather confused (Logan 2011).

The study will show main viewpoints of the theorist, an explanation of it in terms of modern day, and will follow with a conclusion.

Secondary research will be done to gather journals, interview, documents and previous studies with information about the theorist and his theories. Textbooks, online documents and website pages will be used.

Challenges will arise during the study. McLuhan had a different way of thinking, he lived in a different time, and some of the material might be outdated. To overcome these challenges, the information must be validated by various sources.

1. The theorist
Marshall McLuhan was a communication theorist born in Canada and lived from 1911-1980 (Curtis 2011). He is one of the great thinkers when it comes to defining the media and predicted the Word Wide Web through his ‘Global Village” theory three decades before it was invented (Curtis 2011). Theorists after McLuhan used his theories as a basis to work from – this truly shows some significance to McLuhan (Siapera 2012, p. 7).

At first, McLuhan did not expect to explore media and technology theories. In 1936, during his ...

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...t being next to them, you are able to hear people/things you could not have heard at your location, etc.

McLuhan argued that the media contained previous media: the print contained writing, writing originated from speech. It all goes back to the basic form of communication and media. He also reasoned that the message is actually not the content of the medium, but the characteristics of the medium.

The ‘Global Village’ encompasses all his theories by saying that the earth has shrunk due to the fact that communication is so easy around the world.

By looking at the three main theories of McLuhan one can understand why he is seen as one of the fundamental theorists in media and technology. Even though he had a peculiar way of thinking and writing, his theories make sense and are easy to understand. Whether one reads this in 1990 or 2020, it will still be relevant.