Understanding Media
A key method of ‘understanding media’ in the McLuhan tradition is: by examining the nature of the form, you can gain insight into the nature of the effect, and that the place to begin in examining the nature of the form is by tracing it back to its human origin.
Reading, and Understanding Media
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
Exploring the relationship between media and society, it argues that the medium itself shapes human interactions and cultural structures, often overpowering content and leading to profound social consequences.
web.mit.eduMcLuhan said other communication theories studied transportation, while he studied transformation—what happens to people using media. Media ecology is a reversal of communication theories: they study what people do with media; media ecology studies what media do to people.