In the early ’60s an English professor called Marshall McLuhan found he couldn’t communicate with his American students. This, he thought, might have something to do with television, a conclusion that triggered one of the best known explorations of media in this age.
McLuhan became an endless source of metaphors and aphorisms, quoted more than he was read, always in flux, revising his thoughts, theories, and his public image. His words keep circulating now, long after his death, adapted to new forms of media. Wired Magazine adopted him as its patron saint.
Even as dot-gone glory dims and we examine a future of intuitive software, the “new electric information environment ” seems apt. Marshall McLuhan once again in the campfire’s glow of the global village.
Guests:
Paul Levinson, Professor and Department Chair of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University and the author of “Digital McLuhan”
Derrick de Kerckhove, director of The McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, Toronto University
Kevin Kelly, a founding editor of “Wired Magazine”