here in the ’90s, and also in terms of the kinds of 
dynamics that go on that help us gain some insight 
into these generational changes. Later, after 
McLuhan, a group of scholars came along and 
some of them studied the shift that he’d talked 
about from orality to literacy—that is from the 
culture of the spoken word to the culture of the 
written word. They were inspired by McLuhan, and 
many of them had the courage to say that they 
were inspired by McLuhan because he put this big 
master pattern together, and that was the key. 
Those who came after him then needed to do the 
more precise work. Their precision then, inspired by 
McLuhan, allowed them to say there really is