The Medium is the Massage
Quentin FioreThe Medium is the Massageby Marshall
McLuhan and Quentin Fiore (b. 1920 ) is the
touchstone of media lore and doctrine from the
1960 s. It was required reading for everyone
concerned with what McLuhan dubbed the
“electric age,” or how technology in general,
and new communications media specifically,
would alter people’s lives. McLuhan was a
philosopher and prognosticator whose books
The Mechanical Bride,The Gutenberg Galaxy:
The Making of Typographic Man,and
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man,
explored the evolution of technology and its
effects on the way mankind thinks, acts, and
reacts. He was revered by some, attacked by
others. Critics called him a fake, charlatan, and
savant, arguing that his ideas were simplistic,
obtuse, and contradictory. McLuhan countered
that contradiction was endemic to
contemporary life; contradiction was the
metaphor for television, a medium that allowed
a person to ponder two or more ideas at one time.
McLuhan believed that the invention of printing had shattered
community by destroying the oral tradition. He argued that writing and
reading were solitary acts that conflicted with tribal unity, memory, and
imagination. Electronic media, television mostly, was destined to return us
to a global village, allowing individuals once again to take an active role in
the communications process. Media were extensions of human activity
(e.g., the wheel was an extension of the foot). Television, he insisted, would
allow for greater individual participation.
Was this genius or hocus-pocus? Critic Marvin Kitman referred to
this book as “The Tedium is the Message.” Indeed The Medium is the
Massage’s contents by McLuhan and graphics by Fiore came under harsh
criticism. But this should not eclipse the historic nature of Fiore’s work.
The Medium is the Massage(the title comes from mass-age, a
double-entendre used to underscore McLuhan’s notion that media are so320