Understanding Media

The medium is the message, compressed into four words that still organize every argument about technology. McLuhan's claim is that the tools we use to communicate reshape us more than the content they carry, that the form of a medium does its work below the level of what is said. His prose is difficult and his reach is enormous, but the frame he built is the one nearly every later thinker about media and politics still works inside, whether they credit him or not.

The Canadian theorist who compressed a century of argument about technology into four words: the medium is the message. Understanding Media argues that the tools we use to communicate reshape us more than the content they carry. His prose is difficult and his claims are large, but the frame he built is the one nearly every later argument about technology still works inside.