The summary and the critical reflection of from marshall mcluhan to harold innis

The article From Marshall McLuhan to Harold Innis, of From the Global Village to the World Empire, written by Gaetan Tremblay is a critical analysis of the two well-known Canadian thinkers, Marshall McLuhan and Harold Innis, along with the author’s own thought of the metaphor, global village. Tremblay compares and contrasts the two thinkers by their academic background, working methods, and their written books. Throughout the article, the author spells our his disagreement with some of McLuhan’s logic and methods leading up to his theories and explains that Harold Innis . In the article, Tremblay explains why he believes McLuhan is overly-valued while Innis should gain much more attention. The author uses a disagreeable tone in many of the pages regarding McLuhan. Examples of this can be found when the author mocks McLuhan, and occasionally referring to him just as the oracle, through the uses of exclamation marks to emphasize the ridiculousness he feels. Tremblay makes clear of his main points as McLuhan is not born of academic background while Innis is. As a result, McLuhan’s logic and reasoning is not all-the-time trustworthy and rational. While the author explains his contradictions of trying to justify McLuhan’s explanation of his theories, I do agree with Luhan’s theories to some extent. Each time when a newer media arise, it can enhance the quality of our lives by making some things more convenient to do. Such as the invention of a typewriter since there is more production and less work required compared to handwritten papers. In order words, it can extend one or more of our senses thus enhancing the quality of life. Of course, this only applies to the media that is required in the society otherwise it will not last long. Although I do agree with McLuhan’s perception theory, I can only accept his technological determinism to some extent. As human beings, we all follow conformity. If an appropriate new media forms, its use will spread through the public until everyone works with it to some level. For example, the internet. Since majority of North Americans are exposed to this kind of media on every day, a routine is created and our behavior and society will be reformed. Therefore I agree that society is shaped through media. At least at the moment in the 21st century, the peak of technology. However, unlike McLuhan, I do not think that new media will always be destroying our lives. For example, rather than spending a lot of time writing letters, we can now use emails which conserves our energy and trees. Such as transportation, internet, agricultural machinery increases immensely of our productivity than the past. However it does make global warming worse and having people die of obesity from too much food and people die of starvation in developing countries. New media made some parts of the world heaven and others are no difference than the past.

I am influenced by Tremblay at sections of the article regarding Innis as well as how he feels about the metaphor Global Village. The article convinces me that Innis has a better way of logic than McLuhan. At the beginning when I first started learning and researching about McLuhan, I did not pay much attention to Harold Innis. After this reading, I learned more about Innis’ communication theory such as time and space-biased media. The fact that time-based media lasts for generations but does take a very long time to make, like hand-copied monuments, and how space-biased media can get messages across large distances, such as the radio, makes a lot more sense to me. In my opinion, I do agree with Tremblay Innis’ points than McLuhan. This is because, as the author stated before, Innis’: “ Working method is based on the careful study of history books, the accumulation of clues and evidence, and the cross-checking of information sources.”

No theory of perception (no extensions) but is on bias which implied depends on how it is to be produced, durableness, and how convenient it can make life. Uses historical records to validate (synonym please) his assumptions which are found in his two books. Such as the great empire of ancient Egypt based on the uses of stone and papyrus. I do feel more trustworthy toward Innis than McLuhan when they both presented their theories. Only because it makes logical sense through many historical records as evidences to validate his points. This allows him to be very credible. The popular media can create ‘ monopolies of knowledge’ (The ruling class gets to control knowledge and thus shape reality for the rest of the people). The author thinks that McLuhan only presents his theory based off of his judgments thus not doing much explaining but rather exploring. The fact that McLuhan, according to the Tremblay, does not allow debate for his theories makes him unopened and a little selfish in my opinion.

Conclusion: Through this article, I have learned more about the history of the two famous thinkers and gaining some insight on how a professor, like Tremblay, reacts to them.