McLuhan: a guide for the perplexed

Abstract

Most undergraduate university students at the turn of the twenty-first century and some of their younger professors were born after McLuhan died in 1980 and have not been exposed to his ideas. They belong to the generation that McLuhan predicted would demand a curriculum adapted to a world retribalized by the dominance of electronic technology. But in the experience of this writer, exposure to McLuhan’s ideas can still act as an irritant, even to young people. They greet with skepticism his notion that they share a tribal ency-clopedia, fail to recognize the satire of Adbusters, shrug off the ques-tion “What if howis more powerful than what?” That is the question McLuhan challenged the world to ponder when he said that the medium is the message.