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La aldea global: Transformaciones en la vida y los medios de comunicación mundiales en el siglo XXI
En este libro, Marshall McLuhan extiende los conceptos de sus visionarios trabajos anteriores a la actual red electrónica universal. Cuando McLuhan publicó Understanding Media en 1964, no existían los medios de comunicación tal como los conocemos en la actualidad. Sin embargo, las extensiones tecnológicas de la conciencia humana se adelantaban a nuestra capacidad para comprender consecuencias, nunca ha sido tan apremiante. Y si el medio es el mensaje, el mensaje se está volviendo casi imposible de descifrar. En La Aldea Global, McLuhan y el coautor Bruce R. Powers proponen un marco conceptual detallado en cuyos términos pueden comprenderse los avances tecnológicos de las dos últimas teoría, se encuentra el argumento de que los usuarios de la tecnología están atrapados por dos formas distintas de percibir el mundo. Por un lado, está lo que ellos llaman Espacio Visual (la forma de percepción lineal, cuantitativa, característica del mundo occidental); por el otro, el Espacio Acústico (el razonamiento holístico, cualitativo, de Oriente). Los autores sostienen que el medio impreso estimula y conserva la percepción del espacio visual; sin embargo, al igual que la televisión, la tecnología de la base de datos, el satélite de comunicaciones y la red global de medios de comunicación están llevando a sus usuarios hacia una orientación más dinámica y "con muchos núcleos" del Espacio Acústico. Los autores nos advierten que este movimiento hacia el Espacio Acústico puede no ser gradual. De hecho, McLuhan y Powers sostienen que con el advenimiento de la globalización del entorno (el resultado de las comunicaciones mundiales) estos dos puntos de vista mundiales "están chocando a la velocidad de la luz" y aseguran que la "clave para la paz es comprender estos dos sistemas en forma simultánea". Al emplear el concepto de McLuhan del tétrade (una figura para predecir los cambios causados por nuevas tecnologías), los autores analizan esta colisión de puntos de vista. Sin tomar partido, tratan de hacer hoy lo que McLuhan hizo con éxito veinticinco años atrás: observar el mundo que vendrá y ayudarnos a estar preparados para lo que allí encontraremos.
203 pages, Paperback
First published September 28, 1976
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1584 people want to read
About the author
Marshall McLuhan
119 books921 followersHerbert Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory. 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 United States and Canada before moving to the University of Toronto in 1946, where he remained for the rest of his life. He is known as the "father of media studies".
McLuhan coined the expression "the medium is the message" in the first chapter in his Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man and the term global village. He predicted 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 following his death, he continued to be a controversial figure in academic circles. However, with the arrival of the Internet and the World Wide Web, interest was renewed in his work and perspectives.
McLuhan coined the expression "the medium is the message" in the first chapter in his Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man and the term global village. He predicted 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 following his death, he continued to be a controversial figure in academic circles. However, with the arrival of the Internet and the World Wide Web, interest was renewed in his work and perspectives.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
May 10, 2008
Once I actually sat down and read this book it turned out to be one of the best books I have ever read. For me it was a different view of the world, with an excellent foundational layout to give it logic. I read it a while ago and though there are some specifics 'predictions' in it that have not held up the basic theories and reasoning around them remain insightful.
The downside is that it's sort of written like a textbook. A little easier to read, but it's not a novel or story. It also might not be as insightful for people who have grown up in the information age. While it does not deal with technology as such it looks at how different cultural approaches tie into technology and rapid change.
The downside is that it's sort of written like a textbook. A little easier to read, but it's not a novel or story. It also might not be as insightful for people who have grown up in the information age. While it does not deal with technology as such it looks at how different cultural approaches tie into technology and rapid change.
March 21, 2022
Orientalism and Pop Psychology
This is an extremely dated hippie book, jam-packed with cheesy Orientalism and the worst of pop psychology. According to McLuhan and Powers, the mysterious East is so perfect - so Tao. Us brutish Westerners would never understand, but our continued survival depends on it. They take the left-brain right-brain thing to a ridiculous extreme. There is literally a chart in here connecting the word ‘spiritual’ to one part of the brain. I mean - what? They're so specific about which parts of the brain do which things that it reminds me of phrenology. Certainly they are out of their element when it comes to psychology.
The authors criticise the ‘left-brain’ mode of experience which seeks hierarchy and linearity at all costs, and then go ahead and commit the worst crimes of that approach. They insist on putting everything into an extremely unconvincing binary world view. They reduce everything to a dichotomy between east and west, left and right brain, and implicitly place them into a hierarchy with a clear preference for 'oriental' modes of experience. Their attempts to connect this binary thesis to everything they touch are forced and overzealous, like when they randomly drop the idea that dyslexia is probably caused by Western culture's failed attempt to adapt to an Eastern way of experiencing things. Also, the final chapter was of little interest to me as an Australian. It's an essay on Canada as a place of cultural borderlines that really only seems vaguely related to the main themes of the book.
Visual and Acoustic Space
Having said all that, some of the ideas in this book are astonishingly relevant. The book's central metaphor about visual and acoustic space is more powerful than the authors probably could have imagined in 1980. They write about a hybrid between the computer and phone being the next big thing, and predict the fundamental nature of the Internet with incredible accuracy. They describe it as a shift from a visual mode of experience to an acoustic one. Visual space has defined Western culture since the time of Aristotle. In visual space, everything is clearly delineated. Our visual percepts are defined by solid boundaries, and we focus on one thing at a time, apart from its environment. Acoustic space is less centralised. Sounds come from multiple sources simultaneously and ricochet throughout the environment; it's much harder to focus on one centre apart from its environment. Traditional media are distinctly visual - in print, for example, we focus on words one at a time in sequence; there is a clear, linear structure as in visual space. In the new media, there are a myriad of centres; each user is both producer and consumer, everywhere and nowhere, dislocated and simultaneous. New media are decentralising - there is no authoritative voice anymore:
When everything is instantaneous, time and space are contracted and we all move within an eternal instant: The body of electronic man “will remain in one place but his mind will float out into the electronic void, being everywhere at once in the data bank” (97). All of a sudden, we're existing in a synchronous or ahistorical mode. It really reminds me of the Neoplatonic One, an absolute that simultaneously contains us and is contained within us; a circle without borders, each of its individual manifestations being the centre. You can also see hints of this sense in the disjointed nature of postmodernism, with its total disregard for historicity.
I also like that the authors challenge the Shannon-Weaver model of communications, revealing it to be hopelessly linear and outdated. They suggest that the multiplicity and instantaneity of new technologies may even begin to challenge the dominant notion of efficient cause. Complex networks of instantaneous, simultaneous interaction like the stock market or Twitter actually make the notion of efficient cause less useful, or less relevant – it seems more pertinent to speak in terms of general correlations and tendencies; qualitative explanations may actually be more helpful than quantitative. The authors also suggest that new technologies may challenge the subject-object distinction characteristic of visual space, where we endeavour to behold everything in isolation and from a detached perspective, as the reader of a phonetic alphabet processes the orderly contours of a newspaper article, or a scientist records data only after defining dependent and independent variables. The authors suggest that it'll become increasingly difficult to look at phenomena in isolation because context shapes content; in other words, the medium is the message.
Facebook
Here's a visionary prediction of the information marketplace spearheaded by Facebook and Google:
Tribalism
McLuhan and Powers also seem to predict the renewed tribalism and populist xenophobia we're seeing across the western world in response to globalisation - endless hysteria about immigration and cultural incompatibility:
“Video-related technologies compress the sequent into the simultaneous and emphasize the pre-literate group will, re-establishing the tribal chieftain” (99).
They describe technology as an extension of the body, so it becomes the platform for an almost physical invasion of another person's space:
Vaporwave
The authors even manage to shed light on this new technologically-focused nostalgia for the 80s using the concept of ground and figure in art. Figure is the focal point of the piece and ground is the background or environment:
McLuhan and Powers extend the concept of figure and ground to technology, with figure being the central, highly visible part of a new technology, and ground being the hidden context that it brings with it and from which it's born. When a new technology or figure brings a new ground, the old ground becomes figure - for the first time, it's conceptualised consciously and not taken for granted, giving rise to some sort of generational nostalgia like the current fascination with videotape and corporate muzak.
This is an extremely dated hippie book, jam-packed with cheesy Orientalism and the worst of pop psychology. According to McLuhan and Powers, the mysterious East is so perfect - so Tao. Us brutish Westerners would never understand, but our continued survival depends on it. They take the left-brain right-brain thing to a ridiculous extreme. There is literally a chart in here connecting the word ‘spiritual’ to one part of the brain. I mean - what? They're so specific about which parts of the brain do which things that it reminds me of phrenology. Certainly they are out of their element when it comes to psychology.
The authors criticise the ‘left-brain’ mode of experience which seeks hierarchy and linearity at all costs, and then go ahead and commit the worst crimes of that approach. They insist on putting everything into an extremely unconvincing binary world view. They reduce everything to a dichotomy between east and west, left and right brain, and implicitly place them into a hierarchy with a clear preference for 'oriental' modes of experience. Their attempts to connect this binary thesis to everything they touch are forced and overzealous, like when they randomly drop the idea that dyslexia is probably caused by Western culture's failed attempt to adapt to an Eastern way of experiencing things. Also, the final chapter was of little interest to me as an Australian. It's an essay on Canada as a place of cultural borderlines that really only seems vaguely related to the main themes of the book.
Visual and Acoustic Space
Having said all that, some of the ideas in this book are astonishingly relevant. The book's central metaphor about visual and acoustic space is more powerful than the authors probably could have imagined in 1980. They write about a hybrid between the computer and phone being the next big thing, and predict the fundamental nature of the Internet with incredible accuracy. They describe it as a shift from a visual mode of experience to an acoustic one. Visual space has defined Western culture since the time of Aristotle. In visual space, everything is clearly delineated. Our visual percepts are defined by solid boundaries, and we focus on one thing at a time, apart from its environment. Acoustic space is less centralised. Sounds come from multiple sources simultaneously and ricochet throughout the environment; it's much harder to focus on one centre apart from its environment. Traditional media are distinctly visual - in print, for example, we focus on words one at a time in sequence; there is a clear, linear structure as in visual space. In the new media, there are a myriad of centres; each user is both producer and consumer, everywhere and nowhere, dislocated and simultaneous. New media are decentralising - there is no authoritative voice anymore:
“Electronic man loses touch with the concept of a ruling center as well as the restrains of social rules based on interconnection. Hierarchies constantly dissolve and reform. The computer, the satellite, the data base, and the nascent multi-carrier telecommunications corporation will break apart what remains of the old print-oriented ethos” (92).
When everything is instantaneous, time and space are contracted and we all move within an eternal instant: The body of electronic man “will remain in one place but his mind will float out into the electronic void, being everywhere at once in the data bank” (97). All of a sudden, we're existing in a synchronous or ahistorical mode. It really reminds me of the Neoplatonic One, an absolute that simultaneously contains us and is contained within us; a circle without borders, each of its individual manifestations being the centre. You can also see hints of this sense in the disjointed nature of postmodernism, with its total disregard for historicity.
I also like that the authors challenge the Shannon-Weaver model of communications, revealing it to be hopelessly linear and outdated. They suggest that the multiplicity and instantaneity of new technologies may even begin to challenge the dominant notion of efficient cause. Complex networks of instantaneous, simultaneous interaction like the stock market or Twitter actually make the notion of efficient cause less useful, or less relevant – it seems more pertinent to speak in terms of general correlations and tendencies; qualitative explanations may actually be more helpful than quantitative. The authors also suggest that new technologies may challenge the subject-object distinction characteristic of visual space, where we endeavour to behold everything in isolation and from a detached perspective, as the reader of a phonetic alphabet processes the orderly contours of a newspaper article, or a scientist records data only after defining dependent and independent variables. The authors suggest that it'll become increasingly difficult to look at phenomena in isolation because context shapes content; in other words, the medium is the message.
Here's a visionary prediction of the information marketplace spearheaded by Facebook and Google:
“Communication media of the future will accentuate the extensions of our nervous systems, which can be disembodied and made totally collective. New population patterns will fuel the shift from smokestack industries to a marketing-information economy, primarily in the US and Europe. Video-related technologies are the critical instruments of such change. The ultimate interactive nature of some video-related technologies will produce the dominant right-hemisphere social patterns of the next century. For example, the new telecommunication multi-carrier corporation, dedicated solely to moving all kinds of data at the speed of light, will continually generate tailor-made products and services for individual consumers who have pre-signalled their preferences through an ongoing data base. Users will simultaneously become producers and consumers” (83).
Tribalism
McLuhan and Powers also seem to predict the renewed tribalism and populist xenophobia we're seeing across the western world in response to globalisation - endless hysteria about immigration and cultural incompatibility:
“Video-related technologies compress the sequent into the simultaneous and emphasize the pre-literate group will, re-establishing the tribal chieftain” (99).
They describe technology as an extension of the body, so it becomes the platform for an almost physical invasion of another person's space:
“We extend parts of ourselves into the environment to do some intensely elevated function […] and then find ways to fight about it […] The first humanoid uttering his first intelligible grunt, or “word,” outered himself and set up a dynamic relationship with himself, other creatures, and the world outside his skin […] Conflict occurs, not because of human inefficiency, but technology moving at incompatible speeds” (93).
Vaporwave
The authors even manage to shed light on this new technologically-focused nostalgia for the 80s using the concept of ground and figure in art. Figure is the focal point of the piece and ground is the background or environment:
"In the order of things, ground comes first. The figures arrive later. Coming events cast their shadows before them. The ground of any technology is both the situation that gives rise to it as well as the whole environment of services and disservices that the technology brings with it. These are the side effects, and they impose themselves haphazardly as a new form of culture [...] As an old ground is displaced by the content of the new situation, it becomes available to ordinary attention as figure. At the same time a new nostalgia is born" (6).
McLuhan and Powers extend the concept of figure and ground to technology, with figure being the central, highly visible part of a new technology, and ground being the hidden context that it brings with it and from which it's born. When a new technology or figure brings a new ground, the old ground becomes figure - for the first time, it's conceptualised consciously and not taken for granted, giving rise to some sort of generational nostalgia like the current fascination with videotape and corporate muzak.
Read
January 3, 2023kitabın kendisi güzeldi ama çevirisi sağ olsun gözlerim kanadı. hani çeviri hocamız bizle dalga geçer, sınavda aklınıza gelen her şeyi slaş, slaş koyup yazmayın birini seçin yoksa kabul etmem diye. bu çeviri tam olarak öyle bir çeviriydi. kitabın türkçesini okumakla kalmıyorsunuz, yayınevi ve çevirmen sağ olsun size aynı anda hem aslını hem çevirisini okutuyor.
yani her kelimeyi altta açıklamak, neredeyse her kavramın ingilizcesini vermek neden diye sorguladım ben kitap boyunca. ne anlama geldiğini bilmeyen okuyucu varsa gider sözlüğe, internete bakar yani bu kadar zorlamak neden.
kitap cidden şahane ama böyle bir çeviriyi asla hak etmiyor.
yani her kelimeyi altta açıklamak, neredeyse her kavramın ingilizcesini vermek neden diye sorguladım ben kitap boyunca. ne anlama geldiğini bilmeyen okuyucu varsa gider sözlüğe, internete bakar yani bu kadar zorlamak neden.
kitap cidden şahane ama böyle bir çeviriyi asla hak etmiyor.
March 3, 2009
For me, this was my first encounter with the term “global village,” and in this context it's a world linked through electronic technologies. Call it a shot across the bow. It came in the late 1980s, long before the world wide web. And today, here I sit, in effect, talking to the world through my laptop computer.
As a Thoreauian nature boy, this linkage scared me because of what might be lost in the transition. It brought to mind images of the Borg, the beehive-like aliens on “Star Trek: the Next Generation,” who had lost all sense of being an individual to the “collective.”
McLuhan and Powers write, “As new technological man races toward this totality and inclusiveness, he will no longer, as in earlier times, have an experience of nature, as “nature-in-the-wild.” He will have lost touch, and by now we should realize that touch is not simply skin pressure, but a grasp of all senses at once, a kind of tactility. When we lose nature as a direct experience we lose a balance wheel, the touchstone of natural law.”
“As it did for the nineteenth-century plainsmen, going out to be alone raises the ultimate question: who am I? We remove ourselves from the anonymity of the crowd. Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon or a glacial tundra, we are swept with a sense of immensity, a feeling of awe, which—for most of us—is swiftly followed by a prayer and thanksgiving…Today we reclaim and repossess ourselves in forest and glen and take stock, once again, of our individual worth. We have tried to demonstrate how video-related technologies. Taking advantage of left-hemisphere overload, will implode our inner sensibilities…But more than that, these technologies will invade our inner peace, occupying our every waking moment. We will need a place to hide.”
Yes, I was somewhat scared.
As a Thoreauian nature boy, this linkage scared me because of what might be lost in the transition. It brought to mind images of the Borg, the beehive-like aliens on “Star Trek: the Next Generation,” who had lost all sense of being an individual to the “collective.”
McLuhan and Powers write, “As new technological man races toward this totality and inclusiveness, he will no longer, as in earlier times, have an experience of nature, as “nature-in-the-wild.” He will have lost touch, and by now we should realize that touch is not simply skin pressure, but a grasp of all senses at once, a kind of tactility. When we lose nature as a direct experience we lose a balance wheel, the touchstone of natural law.”
“As it did for the nineteenth-century plainsmen, going out to be alone raises the ultimate question: who am I? We remove ourselves from the anonymity of the crowd. Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon or a glacial tundra, we are swept with a sense of immensity, a feeling of awe, which—for most of us—is swiftly followed by a prayer and thanksgiving…Today we reclaim and repossess ourselves in forest and glen and take stock, once again, of our individual worth. We have tried to demonstrate how video-related technologies. Taking advantage of left-hemisphere overload, will implode our inner sensibilities…But more than that, these technologies will invade our inner peace, occupying our every waking moment. We will need a place to hide.”
Yes, I was somewhat scared.
June 8, 2020
L'ho trovato datato, apocalittico e pieno di stereotipi culturali. Alcuni passaggi erano orgasmici, è vero, ma tante cose mi hanno anche lasciato pieno di dubbi e di domande.
August 5, 2024
Marshall McLuhan, para mí, ha sido, de calle, la persona más inteligente del Siglo XX. Por la calidad de sus trabajos y observaciones pero también por lo zorro que fue primero huyendo de lo abstruso a la hora de plasmar sus cavilaciones (en un ámbito donde la norma es el uso del léxico y semántica incomprensibles para revestirse los autores de cierto prestigio y encubrir la absoluta nada que puebla sus trabajos y escritos) y lo que se prestó a engrosar parte de la cultura pop en lugar de evitarla. Hasta sacó un discazo cut-up décadas antes de Coldcut y DJ Shadow jugando a inventar el género.
McLuhan tiene un corpus teórico que deja el que considero el libro más importante del Siglo XX (Understanding Media) por esa su valentía al intentar elaborar una especie de teoría del todo partiendo de algo así tipo El Mundo Como Voluntad y Representación de Schopenhauer pero salpimentándolo con neurociencia, antropología, lingüística semiótica y, sobre todo, una intuición que los demás no tenían y una manera de escribir (medio aforismos, medio divulgación) fácilmente legible y asimilable pero no por ella simplificadora de lo que iba comentando.
La Aldea Global no es un libro suyo: es un libro que elabora Bruce R. Powers tras casi una década estructurando y organizando grabaciones y textos de McLuhan después de su muerte a finales de los 70. En ese sentido nos priva del McLuhan locuaz y lenguaraz, el cual en sus anotaciones no existe. Y, a la vez, nos descubre al McLuhan predictivo, al McLuhan que en 1978 o así, tal era su capacidad anticipatoria con esa intuición que Dios le dio, de forma confusa (por lo antedicho de no haber podido revisar sus anotaciones antes de volcar un texto definitivamente hilvanado) clava la actualidad del multitasking, del relegar a un segundo plano el pensamiento secuencial inherente a la cultura occidental euclidiana por uno más próximo a lo holístico. Además de muchas otras cosas y encima citar a otro gigante como Jacques Ellul y su Propaganda.
PD: al loro con Marshall, que esto es una nota suya en bruto de 1978 o así sacada del capítulo "Aspectos Globales De Las Tecnologías Relacionadas Con El Vídeo"
El robotismo, o el pensamiento del hemisferio derecho, es la capacidad de ser una presencia consciente en varios lugares al mismo tiempo'. Es un modo del hemisferio derecho: el modo dominante del cerebro de las capacidades mecánicas extendidas de nuestros cuerpos, armonizadas a un solo momento y un solo lugar. Los medios de comunicación del futuro acentuarán las extensiones de nuestros sistemas nerviosos, los cuales pueden ser separados del cuerpo y ser convertidos en colectivos. Las nuevas normas poblacionales alimentarán el cambio de las industrias de chimenea a la economía con información de márketing, en particular en los Estados Unidos y Europa. Las tecnologías relacionadas con el vídeo son los instrumentos críticos de dicho cambio. La naturaleza fundamentalmente interactiva de algunas tecnologías relacionadas con el vídeo producirán las normas sociales dominantes del hemisferio derecho durante el próximo siglo. Por ejemplo, la nueva corporación de telecomunicaciones multiportadora, dedicada sólo a mover todo tipo de información a la velocidad de la luz, generará de manera continua productos y servicios hechos a medida para consumidores individuales que señalaron sus preferencias con anterioridad a través de una base de datos continua. Los usuarios se convertirán en productores y consumidores en forma simultánea.
McLuhan tiene un corpus teórico que deja el que considero el libro más importante del Siglo XX (Understanding Media) por esa su valentía al intentar elaborar una especie de teoría del todo partiendo de algo así tipo El Mundo Como Voluntad y Representación de Schopenhauer pero salpimentándolo con neurociencia, antropología, lingüística semiótica y, sobre todo, una intuición que los demás no tenían y una manera de escribir (medio aforismos, medio divulgación) fácilmente legible y asimilable pero no por ella simplificadora de lo que iba comentando.
La Aldea Global no es un libro suyo: es un libro que elabora Bruce R. Powers tras casi una década estructurando y organizando grabaciones y textos de McLuhan después de su muerte a finales de los 70. En ese sentido nos priva del McLuhan locuaz y lenguaraz, el cual en sus anotaciones no existe. Y, a la vez, nos descubre al McLuhan predictivo, al McLuhan que en 1978 o así, tal era su capacidad anticipatoria con esa intuición que Dios le dio, de forma confusa (por lo antedicho de no haber podido revisar sus anotaciones antes de volcar un texto definitivamente hilvanado) clava la actualidad del multitasking, del relegar a un segundo plano el pensamiento secuencial inherente a la cultura occidental euclidiana por uno más próximo a lo holístico. Además de muchas otras cosas y encima citar a otro gigante como Jacques Ellul y su Propaganda.
PD: al loro con Marshall, que esto es una nota suya en bruto de 1978 o así sacada del capítulo "Aspectos Globales De Las Tecnologías Relacionadas Con El Vídeo"
El robotismo, o el pensamiento del hemisferio derecho, es la capacidad de ser una presencia consciente en varios lugares al mismo tiempo'. Es un modo del hemisferio derecho: el modo dominante del cerebro de las capacidades mecánicas extendidas de nuestros cuerpos, armonizadas a un solo momento y un solo lugar. Los medios de comunicación del futuro acentuarán las extensiones de nuestros sistemas nerviosos, los cuales pueden ser separados del cuerpo y ser convertidos en colectivos. Las nuevas normas poblacionales alimentarán el cambio de las industrias de chimenea a la economía con información de márketing, en particular en los Estados Unidos y Europa. Las tecnologías relacionadas con el vídeo son los instrumentos críticos de dicho cambio. La naturaleza fundamentalmente interactiva de algunas tecnologías relacionadas con el vídeo producirán las normas sociales dominantes del hemisferio derecho durante el próximo siglo. Por ejemplo, la nueva corporación de telecomunicaciones multiportadora, dedicada sólo a mover todo tipo de información a la velocidad de la luz, generará de manera continua productos y servicios hechos a medida para consumidores individuales que señalaron sus preferencias con anterioridad a través de una base de datos continua. Los usuarios se convertirán en productores y consumidores en forma simultánea.
September 14, 2023
That book waited on the shelf for a few years. I bought it after I had read “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man” (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...) and was truly astonished by the view McLuhan presented in there. I was thrilled and excited to read more about his ideas. Well, unfortunately, it came out the book was not as good as I expected. It’s not an easy task to write comprehensively what’s wrong with it due to its complexity, but if I were just to enumerate things that I have a bad impression about after reading there would be: over-obsession about the East, biased view on roles of the left/right hemispheres of the brain, and derivative projection of the duality into the world, West vs East, highly stressed technological determinism that bounds human agency. As a result, there might be leftist opposition to ideas of nationalism as a byproduct of rational left-hemisphere-driven societies and as a result -- shortsightedness of seeing the opposite, that there is another nationalism that exists as well — anti-colonial, postcolonial, the one that fights for freedom from oppression (Russian invasion of Ukraine). As for me, the book offers too much of a postmodern outlook on the world with its dissolving tendency to answer the very simple question — what is it? What is the human being? What is the technology? The text does not say many explicit wrongs, it just says too many things that could hardly be seen as making much sense apart from sounding really thought-provoking with a conclusion “it might be so”.
Nevertheless, I think the best part of it is a description of media tetrad, referenced over and over again across the text. A model that describes the impact of any information technology not only on the local scale — the scale of the user i.e. the figure but with an aim to understand the impact on the scale of the group, the society i.e. the ground. And that one I think is worth saying that you should read the book, especially if you are looking for a broader understating of main McLuhan’s idea such as “medium is the message”. Idea by which he was pushing through an idealistic, linear, sequential "on;y one in a time" Euclidean way of thinking, as the dominant model of viewing the world in the West, what, in his opinion, made us blind, unaware of the ways in which technology alters the ground, the society's, when staying too much fixated on a figure, on our own personalities. When you get into the car it does not just “get faster from A to B”, it’s a new urban planning and outlook of cities, it’s a new life, and that change is what the medium brings to the world and that change is it's message. Evaluation of any medium by four questions that constitute the tetrad gives the chance to see it’s full message.
What does the medium enhance?
What does the medium make obsolete?
What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier?
What does the medium reverse or flip into when pushed to extremes?
Nevertheless, I think the best part of it is a description of media tetrad, referenced over and over again across the text. A model that describes the impact of any information technology not only on the local scale — the scale of the user i.e. the figure but with an aim to understand the impact on the scale of the group, the society i.e. the ground. And that one I think is worth saying that you should read the book, especially if you are looking for a broader understating of main McLuhan’s idea such as “medium is the message”. Idea by which he was pushing through an idealistic, linear, sequential "on;y one in a time" Euclidean way of thinking, as the dominant model of viewing the world in the West, what, in his opinion, made us blind, unaware of the ways in which technology alters the ground, the society's, when staying too much fixated on a figure, on our own personalities. When you get into the car it does not just “get faster from A to B”, it’s a new urban planning and outlook of cities, it’s a new life, and that change is what the medium brings to the world and that change is it's message. Evaluation of any medium by four questions that constitute the tetrad gives the chance to see it’s full message.
What does the medium enhance?
What does the medium make obsolete?
What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier?
What does the medium reverse or flip into when pushed to extremes?
March 20, 2018
This is an insanely good book on our relationships with technology, how they reshape our lives.
To me, the importance is this. With more tech development, we have more opportunities to reshape our experience, theoretically, to improve our lives given our conditions. But unless we understand how that shaping happens, and the degree to which it does, we are not going to be able to see, and at least we'll undervalue, the costs imposed on our lives from interaction with the new tech. And we're going to undervalue benefits that interaction with new tech can have as well.
With tech there are first order benefits, but also second order and third order consequences. Most of us look only at first order benefits. For instance, social media. First order benefit: social stimulation. But there's a cost: streamlined peer comparison. This actually creates the temporary rush, the first order "benefit".
Or look at cars: shorter commutes. When abused, makes cars make commutes MORE challenging through congestion, especially in cities. A reversal happens when we maximally engage with new technology. Entering that reversal is the path of least resistance, when we abuse the short term benefits that seem to be cost-free. That illusion happens we don't have the education that this book provides and encouarges.
Another example: porn offers sexuality. But it reduces our sexuality when we abuse it and find ourselves desensitized to both normal porn and normal sex. We need balance, and when there's new technology and we don't understand what it does to us, we don't find that balance. We tend towards maximal use.
This book does well to explain these things. And my book does well in that regard, specifically related to social media, pornography, based on work experience in social media: https://www.breakingthefeedbackloop.com/.
To me, the importance is this. With more tech development, we have more opportunities to reshape our experience, theoretically, to improve our lives given our conditions. But unless we understand how that shaping happens, and the degree to which it does, we are not going to be able to see, and at least we'll undervalue, the costs imposed on our lives from interaction with the new tech. And we're going to undervalue benefits that interaction with new tech can have as well.
With tech there are first order benefits, but also second order and third order consequences. Most of us look only at first order benefits. For instance, social media. First order benefit: social stimulation. But there's a cost: streamlined peer comparison. This actually creates the temporary rush, the first order "benefit".
Or look at cars: shorter commutes. When abused, makes cars make commutes MORE challenging through congestion, especially in cities. A reversal happens when we maximally engage with new technology. Entering that reversal is the path of least resistance, when we abuse the short term benefits that seem to be cost-free. That illusion happens we don't have the education that this book provides and encouarges.
Another example: porn offers sexuality. But it reduces our sexuality when we abuse it and find ourselves desensitized to both normal porn and normal sex. We need balance, and when there's new technology and we don't understand what it does to us, we don't find that balance. We tend towards maximal use.
This book does well to explain these things. And my book does well in that regard, specifically related to social media, pornography, based on work experience in social media: https://www.breakingthefeedbackloop.com/.
October 24, 2017
"There are no straight lines in space; as Einstein pointed out parallel lines do not meet in infinity. They simply curve back upon themselves. We have invented the straight line to give us a sense of location on the Earth's surface. But Euclidean reference will not work in outer space. True nature, as we should understand it, is acoustic. Acoustic space has no center. It consists of boundless random resonations. It is the kind of orientation we have when we are swimming or riding a bicycle - multisensuous, full of kinetic space. Euclidean mathematics has not a real grasp of the acoustic; it is too rational." - page 133
As with all of McLuhan's writings, The Global Village provides an overview of the current world before the fact, over 30 years ago. Even today, the theorizations are still relevant and thought-provoking about the nature of the world. A key line of thought in the book is the distinction between the thinking process of the western and eastern worlds and how the western world needs to become more and more accustomed with embracing and utilizing eastern thought process as a unified global village. I highly recommend this to anyone who would like to proactively get ahead in utilising a global thinking perspective on reality.
As with all of McLuhan's writings, The Global Village provides an overview of the current world before the fact, over 30 years ago. Even today, the theorizations are still relevant and thought-provoking about the nature of the world. A key line of thought in the book is the distinction between the thinking process of the western and eastern worlds and how the western world needs to become more and more accustomed with embracing and utilizing eastern thought process as a unified global village. I highly recommend this to anyone who would like to proactively get ahead in utilising a global thinking perspective on reality.
November 10, 2025
If you want an in depth exposition of McLuhan's famous concept of global village, this is not the place. Start from Gutenberg Galaxy and then move on to Understanding Media. This is a collection of his notes, a bit disjointed, often interesting, sometimes far-fetched, but you can tell immediately that he has considerable deduction skill, his conclusions are far reaching and daring. This book contained an elaboration of global village, in the distinction between the 'visual' culture of Western civilization with its emphasis on left-brain, linear, centralized, constructive, non-tolerant, ambitious, and the 'acoustic' non-western culture with its emphasis on right-brain, decentralized, inclusive, many truths. His argument is that that the best way to navigate the internet age is to combine both and ensure dialogue. I think the examples he gave are not exactly spot on and tight, and it could have easily been otherwise. The key takeaway is that technological change often bring about changes in society that is often missed. It might take a whole generation to fully see the change and to develop proper perspective. He is one of the few who foresaw the potential of the internet as a kind of extension of human senses (and consciousness), so that tells a lot about him.
March 21, 2024
Una y otra vez queda manifiesta la enorme clarividencia de Marshall McLuhan. Pensemos que aunque se publicara en 1989, es un libro póstumo (falleció en 1980), y encontramos "profecías" como esta:
¿En ese futuro cercano, qué pasa con la persona que no ha desempeñado bien su papel como para obtener un crédito continuo? Entonces será, tal como lo es ahora, un don nadie. ( Y bien sabemos, un don nadie paga en efectivo.) Sin embargo, la definición de status tenderá a endurecerse a medida que las normas de pago de las TFE vayan abarcando transacciones más pequeñas de modo tal que las tarjetas de crédito llegará a utilizarse para casi todos los pagos que en la actualidad se realizan en efectivo. Aquellos que sólo puedan pagar en efectivo serán consideradas como personas de crédito riesgoso y por lo tanto, tendrán dificultades en obtener empleo.
¿En ese futuro cercano, qué pasa con la persona que no ha desempeñado bien su papel como para obtener un crédito continuo? Entonces será, tal como lo es ahora, un don nadie. ( Y bien sabemos, un don nadie paga en efectivo.) Sin embargo, la definición de status tenderá a endurecerse a medida que las normas de pago de las TFE vayan abarcando transacciones más pequeñas de modo tal que las tarjetas de crédito llegará a utilizarse para casi todos los pagos que en la actualidad se realizan en efectivo. Aquellos que sólo puedan pagar en efectivo serán consideradas como personas de crédito riesgoso y por lo tanto, tendrán dificultades en obtener empleo.
January 13, 2025
The Tetrad analysis is relevant in any technology today.
Information is only helpful up to the point that humans can interpret what they are reading. Information overload gives to action without thought or consequence. A story is needed….
Global Media Networking Tetrad:
(A) Instantaneous diverse media transmission on global basis: simultaneous planetary feed and counter-feed
(B) Erodes human ability to code and decode in real time
(C) Brings back Tower of Babel: group voice in the ether
(D)
Reverses into loss of specialism; programmed earth
Information is only helpful up to the point that humans can interpret what they are reading. Information overload gives to action without thought or consequence. A story is needed….
Global Media Networking Tetrad:
(A) Instantaneous diverse media transmission on global basis: simultaneous planetary feed and counter-feed
(B) Erodes human ability to code and decode in real time
(C) Brings back Tower of Babel: group voice in the ether
(D)
Reverses into loss of specialism; programmed earth
June 10, 2019
The tetrad analysis of the life cycle of techologies is still the most revealing framework when looking at any technology and its effects in the world.
November 18, 2020
Muhteşem! 30 yıl önceden bugün ve sonrasına ve tabii ki tarihin akışına çoklu bir bakış.
May 9, 2022
An interesting read that can relate to today’s media over-saturation but be wary of the racist and ableist statements regarding Black people.
Want to read
March 2, 2024Free Press
April 22, 2023
honestamente no fue tan terrible el leerlo y lo encontré bastante interesante, ahora que lo termine me pongo a pensar que debió ser super revolucionario para la época en que se publico, ya que habla del impacto tecnológico que tuvieron muchos aparatos en la época del 2000. (me imagino como debieron reaccionar los hippies de aquel entoncesXDDD)
no obstante, no le veo el sentido de apoyo de investigación en la actualidad, sirve bastante cómo cultura general y poder conocer las teorías o posturas de pensadores de aquel entonces, pero muchas de las ideas que postula mcluhan, hoy en día están más que obsoletas, además que ninguna se apoya en hechos o fuentes.
eso sí, me gusto bastante que el caballero a ratos se fuera en volas más filosóficas, hizo para mí más entrete la lectura.
no obstante, no le veo el sentido de apoyo de investigación en la actualidad, sirve bastante cómo cultura general y poder conocer las teorías o posturas de pensadores de aquel entonces, pero muchas de las ideas que postula mcluhan, hoy en día están más que obsoletas, además que ninguna se apoya en hechos o fuentes.
eso sí, me gusto bastante que el caballero a ratos se fuera en volas más filosóficas, hizo para mí más entrete la lectura.
October 9, 2013
The Global Village, published posthumously is one of Marshall McLuhan's best works (1989). The book, a collaborative effort with McLuhan's long-time friend and colleague Bruce Powers, summarizes McLuhan's lifelong exploration and analysis of media, culture and man's relationship with technology. McLuhan was a media philosopher, author, professor, scholar and is best known for coining the term the medium is the message.
McLuhan's books are challenging reads, which is why I persevered and read the entire book--to challenge my comprehension skills for one, but also to gain another perspective on how our culture is assimilating and responding to technology. And though the book was written over twenty years ago, it is just as relevant today as it was in 1989. The book prompts reflection and forward thinking at the same time.
McLuhan and Powers introduce a framework for analyzing media via a tetrad. A tetrad is any set of four things; McLuhan uses the tetrad as a pedagogical tool for examining an artifact or concept (not necessarily a communication medium) through a metaphoric lens, which according to McLuhan translates to "two grounds and two figures in dynamic and analogical relationship to each other". You can see how the idea can stretch one's cognitive processes. The framework began to make sense when reviewing the tetradic glossary at the end of the book which examines twenty or more ideas and artifacts through the tetrad framework, including periodic tables, a clock, cable television, and the telephone.
What would be a most challenging in a media and communications class might be to have students apply the tetrad structure to current technological tools and applications. How might the iPhone be viewed? Or Twitter? Though provoking to say the least.
The more I read of McLuhan's work, and about McLuhan himself, the more I am convinced the man was a genius. He predicts events, media tools and media culture during his lifetime that no one could have imagined or even considered in the 70's and 80's. Yet he could see into the future, see how our society is shaped and influenced by technological forces on media.
McLuhan's website: http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/
McLuhan's books are challenging reads, which is why I persevered and read the entire book--to challenge my comprehension skills for one, but also to gain another perspective on how our culture is assimilating and responding to technology. And though the book was written over twenty years ago, it is just as relevant today as it was in 1989. The book prompts reflection and forward thinking at the same time.
McLuhan and Powers introduce a framework for analyzing media via a tetrad. A tetrad is any set of four things; McLuhan uses the tetrad as a pedagogical tool for examining an artifact or concept (not necessarily a communication medium) through a metaphoric lens, which according to McLuhan translates to "two grounds and two figures in dynamic and analogical relationship to each other". You can see how the idea can stretch one's cognitive processes. The framework began to make sense when reviewing the tetradic glossary at the end of the book which examines twenty or more ideas and artifacts through the tetrad framework, including periodic tables, a clock, cable television, and the telephone.
What would be a most challenging in a media and communications class might be to have students apply the tetrad structure to current technological tools and applications. How might the iPhone be viewed? Or Twitter? Though provoking to say the least.
The more I read of McLuhan's work, and about McLuhan himself, the more I am convinced the man was a genius. He predicts events, media tools and media culture during his lifetime that no one could have imagined or even considered in the 70's and 80's. Yet he could see into the future, see how our society is shaped and influenced by technological forces on media.
McLuhan's website: http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/
July 18, 2013
Vital vital vital read for understanding the world and technology of today, how to use media and how it influences us, both consciously and unconsciously, the both hemispheres alignment of the brain, the ongoing changes. Absolutely prophetic best along with Understanding Media. Technical yet approachable and useable in everyday life, assuming the moment, the realities out there, being crafted constantly. Sort of mad and genius..
Currently reading
September 18, 2007I love media theory. I am a geek for it.
I am taking my time reading this not because it's particularly heavy - although it is more dense than some of his other works - but because I am savoring the words. These are the kinds of words that inspire me to make things and think differently about the world around me. I'll update this when I have more thoughts...
I am taking my time reading this not because it's particularly heavy - although it is more dense than some of his other works - but because I am savoring the words. These are the kinds of words that inspire me to make things and think differently about the world around me. I'll update this when I have more thoughts...
May 27, 2008
A good read, I was pleasantly surprised to find many intriguing ideas presented in true McLuhan fashion. I found this to be a much more accessible read than Understanding Media with many more clear applications and examples. While many of the concepts may show their age, I was amazed to find that the majority still apply some 20-30 years later now.
Read
August 5, 2011It is amazing how prescient McLuhan was. Some of this text reads like prophecy. The Global Village, as McLuhan imagined it, wasn't the utopia most people assume. There is much to think about in this text and it demands more than one reading.
May 12, 2015
Manera particular de ver el mundo es la de McLuhan; y aunque BRP ayuda a explicar las ideas de tétrade, cliché, arquetipo, visual, acústico, sincrónico y diacrónico, su pensamiento es complejo y difícil de digerir. Buen libro
May 20, 2008
ternyata semua perkembangan teknologi informasi dan komunikasi yg terjadi saat ini sudah diramalkan berpuluh tahun yg lalu.
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