home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Understanding McLuhan
/
Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
/
pc
/
mcluhan.dxr
/
06445_Field_TCUM T10.txt
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1996-04-10
|
907b
|
16 lines
and to ourselves, it mattered not in the least whether it turned
out cornflakes or Cadillacs. The restructuring of human work
and association was shaped by the technique of fragmentation
that is the essence of machine technology. The essence of
automation technology is the opposite. It is integral and
decentralist in depth, just as the machine was fragmentary,
centralist, and superficial in its patterning of human
relationships.
The instance of the electric light may prove illuminating in
this connection. The electric light is pure information. It is a
medium without a message, as it were, unless it is used to spell
out some verbal ad or name. This fact, characteristic of all
media, means that the “content” of any medium is always
another medium. The content of writing is speech, just as the
written word is the content of print, and print is the content of