McLuhan meets the Net

In 1964, Marshall McLuhan published Understanding Media, a classic discussion of media and their effects on society and the individual. Understanding Media helped transform the 52-year-old McLuhan from a somewhat obscure English professor at the University of Toronto, to an academic and media star, and industrial consultant. In recognition of the book's importance, it has been reissued by MIT Press with an introduction by Lewis Lapham of Harper's [10]. McLuhan understood that computers were a communication medium, 1 but did not discuss them in Understanding Media or after its publication, although he lived until 1980. 1 Regardless, I found this book fascinating and highly relevant today. My copy is now covered with marginal notes, many speculating on how McLuhan would have seen global computer-mediated communication , the Net. What would McLu-han have thought of the Net? This column consists of quotes taken from Understanding Media, 2 followed by comments on how they 15 1 On page 43 of Understanding Media, he refers to " the media of communication from speech to the computer, " but there is no chapter on computers. Robert Appel of Project McLuhan told me that McLuhan never did write on computers or networks [1]. 2 The quotes are all from Part 1, in which McLuhan sets forth his views and theories. Part 2 consists of 26 chapters, each on a different medium , but none on computers.