Thoughts on McLuhan

Intro Martin Bangemann was, according to some, the first to use and define the term information society in '93 when he, together with a group of others, wrote the recommendations to the European Council on the measure that should be taken into consideration for the infrastructure of information. "Europe and the global information society". I would like to start this essay by quoting a short paragraph from the report: "The information infrastructure can prove an extraordinary instrument for serving the people of Europe and improving our society by fully reflecting the original and often unique values which underpin and give meaning to our lives."

Marshall McLuan would not be too pleased with these statements. In the thinking of McLuhan, we surround ourselves with various tools in our life. We wear clothing, use glasses, use tools to perform work etc. etc. McLuhan believes that these tools fundamentally are extensions of ourselves, e.g. that the glasses are an extension of our eyes or our sight. However, these tools are not entities without context or impact; we create and shape the tools that in turn shape us; we er influenced by the inventions that we create, as in this case the technology. Parallel to this, we distance ourselves from the tools we create according to McLuhan. The story of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own image, however without knowing that it was his own image, is used as an analogy of how we distance us from our actions and become numb to the impacts of the very tools we create ourselves. McLuhan says we create this distance fundamentally to protect ourselves.

"We have to understand to be able to be opposed" and McLuhan suggest the four everlasting laws of media as a tool to analyze and understand. These are the four fundamental questions we need to ask when confronted with new media. We need to do this to be able to get involved and to control what is happening to our society and our lives, as opposed to be numb, distance ourselves from the tools we create and the consequences. As McLuhan says: "Nothing is inevitable as long as we are prepared to pay attention"

To be able to analyze the expected changes from the future information society, I will, to be able to stay within the limits of the assignemnt, focus specifically on the changes I believe will occur on the internet and specifically on the fitire web sites, as explained in the "future web site" short assignment.