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The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects is a book co-created by media analyst Marshall McLuhan and graphic designer Quentin Fiore, coordinated by Jerome Agel. It was published in 1967 and became a bestseller andcult classic.IT is 160 pages and composed in an experimental, collage style with text superimposed on visual elements and vice versa. Some pages are printed backwards and are meant to be read in a mirror Some are intentionally left blank. Most contain photoS and images,modern and historic, juxtaposed in startling ways.The book was intended to make McLuhan's philosophy of media and communication, more accessible to a wider readership through the use of visual metaphor and sparse text.The title is a play on McLuhan's oft-quoted saying "The medium is the message". The book was initiated by Quentin Fiore WHO adopted the term "massage" to denote the effect each medium has on the human sensorium, taking inventory of the "effects" of numerous media in terms of how they "massage" the sensorium.According to McLuhan biographer W. Terrence Gordon, "by the time it appeared in 1967, McLuhan no doubt recognized that his original saying had become a cliché and welcomed the opportunity to throw it back on the compost heap of language to recycle and revitalize it" "Why is the title of the book 'The Medium is the Massage and not The Medium is the Message?' Actually, the title was a mistake and When the book came back from the typesetter's, it had on the cover 'Massage' as it still does. The title was supposed to have read 'The Medium is the Message' but the typesetter had made an error. When McLuhan saw the typo he exclaimed,'Leave it alone! It's great, and right on target!' Now there are possible four readings for the last word of the title, all of them accurate: Message and Mess Age, Massage and Mass Age."He argues in the book that the dominant communication media of our time will shape how humans think, act and perceive the world around them. ... Read more

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The concept "the medium is the message" is the hub around which Marshall McLuhan's explorations revolved. McLuhan's interests ranged from sixteenth-century literature to twentieth-century business practices. With wit and literary flair, he reported the media's influence on society and on the individual. He concluded that we could not escape being transformed by the forces that are hidden deeply within the electronic telecommunications revolution of the sixties. For McLuhan, the new mediums of film, television, and the emerging realm of the digital were the modern equivalent of Gutenberg's printing press.
Michel Moos' premise is that Marshall McLuhan's importance derives from his achievements in rethinking the entire process of education and training itself, not with his popular fame as media guru, and he analyzes McLuhan's work from the feedback effect his vision continues to provide, rather than from the perspective of interpreting McLuhan's pronouncements on the electronic media. Moos contrasts ... Read more

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Anyone who has ever considered media and its relation to humanity has most likely heard the name Marshall McLuhan. Famous for his adages, he was a careful student of 20th century media, in particular film and television, and a prolific lecturer and author. Unquestionably, McLuhan’s writings are important, but all too often impenetrable. As technology speeds ahead and forces us to reconsider our relationship with it, McLuhan’s career merits a freshly creative and accessible examination. W. Terrence Gordon’s Everyman’s McLuhan does just that.As McLuhan’s official biographer, Gordon is the perfect man to decipher the more confusing and problematic aspects of the McLuhan legacy. By applying McLuhan’s ideas and theories to the realities of 21st century technology and media, like phones that play films and computer chip implants, Everyman’s McLuhan fosters a dialogue that was important when McLuhan was alive, but is even more relevant today as the line blurs between humans and the technologies we regularly use ... Read more

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A Practical Guide to Understanding the Importance of Marshall McLuhan
Certainly one of the more important minds of the 20th century was Marshall McLuhan, a man whose grappling with the new technology of his time producedoften quoted but rarely genuinely understood 'philosophy'.The reliable Wikipedia defines it well: 'In The Mechanical Bride, McLuhan turned his attention to analyzing and commenting on numerous examples of persuasion in contemporary popular culture. This followed naturally from his earlier work as both dialectic and rhetoric in the classical trivium aimed at persuasion. At this point his focus shifted dramatically, turning inward to study the influence of communication media independent of their content. His famous slogan, "the medium is the message" (elaborated in his 1964 book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man) calls attention to this intrinsic effect of communications media.... at the empirical level of consciousness, the medium is the message, whereas at the intelligent and rational levels of consciousness, the content is the message'. And that is about as concise a definition of McLuhan's influence to be found...until now.

This extraordinarily well-designed (McLuhan would most assuredly approve!) new book is an exploration of the influence of McLuhan by McLuhan's official biographer W. Terrence Gordon.In the colorful pages (ah, media influence!) designed by Eri Hamaji, Gordon, along with writer Jacob Albert, gives us quotes, the 'terminology', explanations, examples, and a genuine understanding of McLuhan's massive influence not only on the media, but also on the thinking of contemporary man. It is presented with wry wit, integrating visual with written information, and maintaining the position that McLuhan's at times obtuse observations are now available to the general minds of McLuhan's 'global village'.

Once again Buzz Poole and his staff have created a book that integrates design with important information.In this handsome volume there is intellectual enhancement and visual excitement that will reward the reading public, hungry to understand the important minds that shaped our present.Highly recommended. Grady Harp, November 07 ... Read more

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IT�S NOT JUST A GOOD IDEA, IT�S THE LAW
This is the recapitulation of the gestation of McLuhan's thought, which culminates in the Laws of Media. The beginning of the book is almost as incomprehensible as that last sentence, but by the time you get to page 93, you will understand it. McLuhan gives us a tool with which to dig out an understanding from the media we see around us. His tetrad approach to analysis is ably illustrated by his poetic examples in part 4. It's not that things get more apparent, but they do become more transparent from his multiple points of view.

If you've already worked through the Gutenberg Galaxy, and want more, this book is for you. On the other hand, if you are unfamiliar with McLuhan, this might not be the book to start with. However, I found the book to inspire new thoughts and insight that come reflected off his refracting whorl of ideas, so maybe it's as good a place to start as any. ... Read more

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What remains paramount are McLuhan's global standpoint and his zest for the new. He has given a needed twist to the great debate on what is happening to man in this age of technological speedup. ... Read more

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Information age philosophy in a nontraditional format.
I liked this book. The text is presented in an alternative fashion that really makes you think. Marshall McLuhan portrays his philosophy that the written language and industrial technology lead to a non-tribal life style, and a less feeling society, andthat the new information age (television and computers) are leading society back to a tribal, verbal, more feeling society.In Counterblast, McLuhan uses anunorthodox style of text,text as an artform, versustext that is read left to right, to make his point.This book may have been written in the sixties, but a lot of what he has to say is still pertinent to today's information society.Ido not agree with all his views on Television.In that some of the things he saw as benefits,thirty years later I see them as blights.It does make me wonder though, if thirty years from now the things I currently veiw as benefits of the PC,will still be viewed as benefits. ... Read more