Understanding New Media: Extending Marshall McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan made many predictions in his seminal 1964 publication, Understanding Media: Extensions of Man. Among them were his predictions that the Internet would become a «Global Village», making us more interconnected than television; the closing of the gap between consumers and producers; the elimination of space and time as barriers to communication; and the melting of national borders. He is also famously remembered for coining the expression «the medium is the message». These predictions form the genesis of this new volume by Robert Logan, a friend and colleague who worked with McLuhan. In Understanding New Media Logan expertly updates Understanding Media to analyze the «new media» McLuhan foreshadowed and yet was never able to analyze or experience. The book is designed to reach a new generation of readers as well as appealing to scholars and students who are familiar with Understanding Media. Visit the companion website, understandingnewmedia.org, for the latest updates on this book.

Robert K. Logan is Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Toronto and Chief Scientist of the Strategic Innovation Lab at the Ontario College of Art and Design. He collaborated and published with McLuhan, which influenced this publication and his many other books including The Alphabet Effect, The Sixth Language, The Extended Mind, Collaborate to Compete and What is Information? He brings his experiences in politics and the business world to his understanding of media new and old.