Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/06923_Field_TCUM T488.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 1KB | 16 lines

     Long before big business and corporations became aware
of the image of their operation as a fiction to be carefully
tattooed upon the public sensorium, the press had created the
image of the community as a series of on-going actions unified
by datelines. Apart from the vernacular used, the dateline is the
only organizing principle of the newspaper image of the
community. Take off the dateline, and one day’s paper is the
same as the next. Yet to read a week-old newspaper without
noticing that it is not today’s is a disconcerting experience. As
soon as the press recognized that news presentation was not a
repetition of occurrences and reports but a direct cause of
events, many things began to happen. Advertising and
promotion, until then restricted, broke onto the front page,
with the aid of Barnum, as sensational stories. Today’s press
agent regards the newspaper as a ventriloquist does his
dummy. He can make it say what he wants. He looks on it as a