Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/07143_Field_TCUM T708.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 949b | 16 lines

the psychic action of technology bespeaks some inherent
function, some essential numbing of consciousness such as
occurs under stress and shock conditions.

     The history of radio is instructive as an indicator of the
bias and blindness induced in any society by its pre-existent
technology. The word “wireless,” still used for radio in Britain,
manifests the negative “horseless-carriage” attitude toward a
new form. Early wireless was regarded as a form of telegraph,
and was not seen even in relation to the telephone. David
Sarnoff in 1916 sent a memo to the Director of the American
Marconi Company that employed him, advocating the idea of a
music box in the home. It was ignored. That was the year of the
Irish Easter rebellion and of the first radio broadcast . Wireless
had already been used on ships as ship-to-shore “telegraph.”
The Irish rebels used a ship’s wireless to make, not a point-to-