global village
Mediated Communication November 2004
Marshall Mcluhan’s Global Village and its relevance in today’s society
Nicholas Jones 1960’s America was a time of challenging authority and established conventions. It was into this era that a Professor of Media studies at Toronto University rose to media personality status. Marshall Mcluhan is famous for introducing society to catchy aphorisms such as “the medium is the message”. Although his theories have always been contested, they were popular at the time and are currently enjoying a revival. One such theory is his vision of the “Global Village” which I will discuss in this essay.
To understand the term, a comprehension of some of his other ideas is necessary. Mcluhan was influenced by Harold Adams Innis who suggested that each medium of communication had a time “bias” which affected the stability of society. In short, he saw that “time biased” media such as stone carving would endure time and lead to a stable society. “Space biased” media, such as papyrus, could easily be revised and lead to an unstable culture (Meyrowitz 1985:17). Mcluhan went beyond this to suggest that different media have “sensory bias” (Postman went beyond this to argue that the medium contains an “ideological bias”). Mcluhan saw each new media invention as an extension of some human faculty. In The Medium is the Massage he notes, “All new media are extensions of some human faculty” (Mcluhan and Fiore 1967:26). The book illustrates some examples; the wheel of the foot, the book of the eye, clothing of the skin and electronic circuitry of the central nervous system. In terms of the “global village” the last extension is the most important. He saw us as breaking our ties with a local society and, through our new electronic extensions, connecting globally to a new world of total involvement. “We now live in a Global Village…a simultaneous happening” (Mcluhan & Fiore 1967:63). He refers to the village as a global community,
Marshall Mcluhan’s Global Village and its relevance in today’s society
Nicholas Jones 1960’s America was a time of challenging authority and established conventions. It was into this era that a Professor of Media studies at Toronto University rose to media personality status. Marshall Mcluhan is famous for introducing society to catchy aphorisms such as “the medium is the message”. Although his theories have always been contested, they were popular at the time and are currently enjoying a revival. One such theory is his vision of the “Global Village” which I will discuss in this essay.
To understand the term, a comprehension of some of his other ideas is necessary. Mcluhan was influenced by Harold Adams Innis who suggested that each medium of communication had a time “bias” which affected the stability of society. In short, he saw that “time biased” media such as stone carving would endure time and lead to a stable society. “Space biased” media, such as papyrus, could easily be revised and lead to an unstable culture (Meyrowitz 1985:17). Mcluhan went beyond this to suggest that different media have “sensory bias” (Postman went beyond this to argue that the medium contains an “ideological bias”). Mcluhan saw each new media invention as an extension of some human faculty. In The Medium is the Massage he notes, “All new media are extensions of some human faculty” (Mcluhan and Fiore 1967:26). The book illustrates some examples; the wheel of the foot, the book of the eye, clothing of the skin and electronic circuitry of the central nervous system. In terms of the “global village” the last extension is the most important. He saw us as breaking our ties with a local society and, through our new electronic extensions, connecting globally to a new world of total involvement. “We now live in a Global Village…a simultaneous happening” (Mcluhan & Fiore 1967:63). He refers to the village as a global community,