Northern Illinois University Press The Medium Is Still the Message: Marshall McLuhan for Our Time

The Medium Is Still the Message presents Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980), history's foremost philosopher of media, as the indispensable guide for understanding the impact of technologies. McLuhan shows that media are not simply tools of communication: they create new environments with transformational effects on politics, economics, culture, identity, religion, and nature. Grant N. Havers argues that McLuhan's key insight—"the medium is the message"—is even more relevant today as humanity grapples with the unintended effects of new media. As McLuhan demonstrated, a lack of understanding about the power of media technologies allows these entities to become idols that enslave their makers. At the same time, they encourage human beings to act like gods who can reinvent reality itself, all the while leading to the decline of literacy, the weakening of democracy, the resurgence of tribalism within the global village, and the elusive search for identity in cyberspace. The Medium Is Still the Message ultimately offers good news: using McLuhan's insights, human beings can escape the technological cave that they have fashioned for themselves.