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Understanding McLuhan
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Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
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06967_Field_TCUM T532.txt
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1996-04-10
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930b
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16 lines
“meaning” of a poem is to a poem, or the words of a song are
to a song. Highly literate people cannot cope with the
nonverbal art of the pictorial, so they dance impatiently up and
down to express a pointless disapproval that renders them
futile and gives new power and authority to the ads. The
unconscious depth-messages of ads are never attacked by the
literate, because of their incapacity to notice or discuss
nonverbal forms of arrangement and meaning. They have not
the art to argue with pictures. When early in TV broadcasting
hidden ads were tried out, the literate were in a great panic
until they were dropped. The fact that typography is itself
mainly subliminal in effect and that pictures are, as well, is a
secret that is safe from the book-oriented community.
When the movies came, the entire pattern of American life
went on the screen as a nonstop ad. Whatever any actor or