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Understanding McLuhan
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Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
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07142_Field_TCUM T707.txt
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1996-04-10
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To the student of media, it is difficult to explain the
human indifference to social effects of these radical forces. The
phonetic alphabet and the printed word that exploded the
closed tribal world into the open society of fragmented
functions and specialist knowledge and action have never been
studied in their roles as a magical transformer. The antithetic
electric power of instant information that reverses social
explosion into implosion, private enterprise into organization
man, and expanding empires into common markets, has
obtained as little recognition as the written word. The power of
radio to retribalize mankind, its almost instant reversal of
individualism into collectivism, Fascist or Marxist, has gone
unnoticed. So extraordinary is this unawareness that it is what
needs to be explained. The transforming power of media is easy
to explain, but the ignoring of this power is not at all easy to
explain. It goes without saying that the universal ignoring of