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 Excellent update of McLuhan's metaphors to today's media September 6, 1999
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
I'm a multimedia artist and an educator, and McLuhan's metaphors have helped me grasp the media revolution that has been part of my life since the 50's My understanding of Marshall McLuhan's media concepts has improved by a quantum leap since reading Dr. Paul Levinson's digital mcluhan. This book has helped me understand how my early studies of media in the `60s, influenced by McLuhan, relate to my interest in digital media today. The writing is scholarly, yet concise and easy to understand. The author communicates joy in being able to tie everything together into our emerging Internet-centric multimedia universe. This is an academic book that should interest all educated media-savvy readers because of its clear, methodical explanation of McLuhan's insights. One of the best features of this tome is a clear, step by step discussion of McLuhan's metaphors: hot/cool media, the global village, acoustic/visual space, linear/mosaic, light-through/light-on, the "rear view mirror" of media perception, and the "tetrad" or four laws of media."McLuhan asks four questions to clarify the nature & impact of a medium- 1. What does it enhance or amplify in the culture? 2. What does it obsolesce or push out of prominence? 3. What does it retrieve from the past, from the realm of the previously obsolesced? 4. What doees the medium reverse or flip into when it reaches the limits of its potential?" Now I will attempt to apply these media metaphors to my career as a multimedia artist. Professor George Drury, of the Humanistic Studies first introduced me to McLuhan in 1966 at Monteith College, Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Knowing my interest in multimedia, he suggested that I read Understanding Media while I was taking his Seminar on the Divine Comedy. Dr Levison discusses the media revolution that the use of "electric" rock music created.I was doing "light shows"(lumia, the art of light and color) at rock concerts nights while attending class days. This is a harmonic echo of my `60s experiences. Using McLuhan's metaphors, I viewed lumia (the art of projected light and color) through the rear view mirror of art history: as an extension of the Gothic cathedral's 3D space, and stained glass windows. So, for me, the'60s "dance concert" then is an extension of the metaphor of acoustic space. Students then and now live in a "field" of knowledge, created by media. In the `60's my favorite media included lumia, electric rock, film animation, comics, and 35 mm photography . Members of today's "Generation Y " having grown up with computers, video games, and the web have a more intuitive grasp of digital media, especially 4 dimensional concepts and interactivity ("view then do then view, etc."). The WWW is developing as they grow up. This field of knowledge, unlike linear "book" knowledge is hyperlinked-a mosaic of information. As Mcluhan says, "there are no remote places, under instant circuitry, it's now, right there"(quote from a QuickTime digital video). Understanding Media and The Medium is the Massage gave me some intellectual tools to understand the media of the emerging 60's Detroit Underground Rock Scene. Gutenberg Galaxy helped me with my two other chosen art forms typography(and its parent calligraphy) and photography. The metaphor of the light-through/light-on was especially helpful in understanding illuminated manuscripts, another medium I began to study at the beginning of my college education. As McLuhan became "trendy", I internalized his teachings. I had integrated many of his metaphors into my thinking, but none of my peers could fill in the gaps in my knowledge, and my professors either dismissed him outright or were uneasy with his popularity. After. receiving my M.A. in `72 and and working for two years as Curatorial Assistant for Precolumbian Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts, I packed my library and my art tools and moved to New York to pursue a career as a freelance multimedia artist. I designed and created multimedia for slide/film presentations for corporate communications and museums. These electro optical/mechanical devices were controlled by punched paper tape running through early minicomputers. I discovered that employers and fellow artists were "closet" McLuhanites. I was also involved in the revival of calligraphy when I joined the Society of Scribes late in 1974. There I met and studied with Donald Jackson, Alice, Paul Freeman and Arthur Baker. Shades of Gutenberg Galaxy! Now I could create illuminated manuscripts and digitally controlled projected corporate communications I had barely commenced using digital media when McLuhan passed on the last day of 1980. I knew that there were many more things about media that he could teach me. As Tom Wolfe said in McLuhan Hot and Cool : "Suppose he is what he sounds like, the most important thinker since Newton, Darwin, Freud, Einstein and Pavlov. What if he is right?" In 1985 I bought my first desktop publishing system consisting of a Mac computer with (512K of RAM) and Laserwriter printer. The software was MacWrite, MacPaint, PageMaker, VideoWorks, and Microsoft Chart. I had reinvented myself as a digital multimedia artist and continued using McLuhan metaphors to better comprehend the new media of desktop computing. When the `90s came around, it was with pleasure(and self congratulation) that I noticed his re-emergence in popular media as the patron saint of WIRED Magazine. It was there I first encountered Paul Levinson's writing, a March 1994 article ("Burning Down the House") that debunked the then "politically correct" notion that real world violence is a product of media (T.V.) influence rather than real world problems. "Telnet to the Future" (July `94) used Science Fiction metaphors to discuss info transfer through video and Internet media. In "Web of Weeds"(November 1995) Levinson quoted another McLuhan metaphor, that "the electronic world has margins everywhere and centers nowhere", which I thought apropos of my work in multimedia. In March of 1998 I attended the McLuhan Symposium at Fordham University organized by Lance Strate as I had begun teaching a class in multimedia production at Fordham. As I listened to the many excellent papers that were read, I was again reminded that the metaphors worked as well(or better) for me in `98 as they had in `68. I was happy to see Dr. Levinson there and listened closey to his presentation analyzing hot/cool media. digital mcluhan is a good book not only because of the author's deep understanding of a complex subject (he was lucky enough to have a personal relationship with McLuhan). but also because of how he links McLuhan's metaphors to today's digital media: Insightful, clear, and fun to absorb. I do have a few minor quibbles. Perhaps because Dr. Levinson was such an early adopter of the personal computer, he is dismissive of the impact of the Mac OS/gui. He makes a polarity of MSDOS ("business") and Macintosh ("fun", "playful fuzziness"). Sometimes he almost seems to be a Microsoft booster. Most of those involved visual media like the graphic arts, love the elegance and functionality of the Mac graphic user interface and never used the command line interface of DOS. Of course, Windows is improving with each incarnation, and I really like the left/right mouse buttons, sort of the left brain/right brain analogy of "point and click". digital mcluhan could have included more on how software opens up "tight" communications professions, with only a few practictioners, for example, typographers . During the first half of the 20th century there were probably no more than a hundred serious type designers in Europe and North America (I'm personally aware of a dozen on two). With the arrival of desktop publishing, the numbers began to increase exponentially into today's thousands of individuals who think of themselves as typographers. I think the same phenomenon is occuring today with desktop video creating a horde of new video editors. There is almost no discussion of the importance of comics in 20th century. They are the color publishing of hand drawn, hand lettered, hand lettered art combining a pictorial and written narrative. For instance are traditional "golden/silver age (40's-60's) Batman comics (a cool medium) "heated" in their "new" (`90's) (printed in "hifi"(extra colors, embossing, advanced illustrative/novelistic writing techniques on quality, glossy paper) incarnation? Did the new series of Batman movies, initiated by the brilliant work of director Tim Burton, with their advanced special effects and more "adult" content have anything to do with this? And how do using digital media alter our thinking? Photography is a high def, high info medium, usable as evidence ("pictures don't lie"), a hot medium. Photoshop is a cool medium, capable of high info (depending on image resolution) as it is mutable (antialiasing, image processing, effects filters). It also makes the various models of "light-through" and "light-on" color more visible, for example when we view the "channels" that are the basic components of the image. There are other reversals of digital media. Software usage migrates u
For any who would apply McLuhan's perspective to modern time September 6, 2001
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
The author worked with McLuhan at the end of the 1970s and here explains the public's fascination with and perceptions of McLuhan and his theories. Chapters provide modern links between these theories and the experiences of the computer world in modern times, developed after he died in 1980. Essential for any who would apply McLuhan's perspective to modern times.
 Presents McLuhanýs ideas about media December 21, 1999
Azlan Adnan (Kota Kinabalu)
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
Marshall McLuhan was a media theorist whose path-breaking insights about the impact of media are regarded as seminal.Digital McLuhan is actually two intertwining books: one presents McLuhan's ideas about media and their impact upon our lives, the other presents the author's ideas about how McLuhan's ideas can help us make sense of our new digital age. It presents a lucid assessment and readable explication of McLuhan's method and 13 of his major insights and what they can tell us about the new world we are well on the way to creating. It highlights and explains the truly prophetic nature of McLuhan's theories on media. At the time they were first propounded, everyone thought McLuhan was talking about television, but what he was really talking about was the Internet-two decades before it appeared. Paul Levinson explains the relevance of McLuhan's work for an understanding of new media. This guide to the information millennium is a deliberate wake-up call to those unaware of the profound power of the Internet to reshape our lives and society. Paul Levinson is President and founder of Connected Education, offering postgraduates courses on the Internet for more than a decade. He is author of The Soft Edge, Mind at Large, Electronic Chronicles and Learning Cyberspace. He is visiting Professor of Communications at Fordham University in New York City. He obtained a PhD in Media Biology from New York University in 1979. Reviewed by Azlan Adnan. Formerly Business Development Manager with KPMG, Azlan is currently Managing Partner of Azlan & Koh Knowledge and Professional Management Group, an education and management consulting practice based in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysian Borneo. He holds a Master's degree in International Business and Management from the University of Westminster in London.
 I prefer "The Soft Edge" December 2, 1999
Arnold Kling (Silver Spring, Md USA)
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
Both this book and Levinson's other recent book, "The Soft Edge," explore differences in media and how these differences affect the way we interact. For example, radio was a very centralizing medium, in part because the ratio of receivers to senders was very high.The ideas in Levinson's two books overlap considerably. In "The Soft Edge," the organizing method is historical. Media are analyzed in the order in which they were invented. In "Digital McLuhan," the ideas instead are organized around various phrases of Marshall McLuhan (such as "global village"). Levinson tries to argue that in the computer/Internet era that emerged after McLuhan's death in 1980, these metaphors apply at least as well as, if not better than, they did during the TV era of his heyday. I preferred the presentation in "The Soft Edge." Perhaps this is simply because I read it first, so that the ideas here seemed less interesting. Or it could be that the historical approach is more satisfying. Also, I have to admit that I did not come away from this book with great admiration for McLuhan. The man who coined the phrase "The medium is the message" took the methodological position that I would characterize as "The aphorism is the theory." I find myself sympathetic with McLuhan's critics who would like to see the colorful phrases used as an adjunct to the scientific method, rather than as a substitute for it.
 Read Mcluhan's Work in Its Originality First December 19, 1999
Eric Chuang (Taiwan)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Most people would agree that Marshall Mcluhan is the truly innovative, visionary character in media research. After Mcluhan, although there have been people trying to establish a different kind of theory or methodology regarding media research which is intended to be independent of Mcluhan's influence, their efforts seem to be fruitless. Most of their work becomes expansionary (and sometimes redundant) explanations of Mcluhan. We can discern from such a phenomenon that Mcluhan is indeed the master of modern media theory, and hence his work and ideas are requirements for those who are interested in this particular subject (as well as other sociological studies). Therefore, I would recommend people to read Mcluhan's work in its originality first, try to develop their own way of critical thinking about media, and then apply the methodological approach to the study of the new medium, the Internet. I think Paul Levinson did the same thing in this book. The writer did a lengthy analytical examination of the influence and potential of the new media whose development is instigated by recent enhancement of Internet related technologies. On the one hand, by adopting Mcluhan's media theory (tetrad, discarnate man, acoustic space, decentralization, global village¡K, etc.), the writer is able to come to the conclusion that the Internet will eventually become "the medium of media." On the other hand, the writer falls short of drawing evidence from other sides of the story such as technological, commercial, social, and governmental influences on future development of what he terms "the medium of media." Therefore, although the writer's optimism concluding that most people will benefit from the forthcoming growth of the Internet industry is encouraging enough, one may judge it to be a little too simplistic and naive.
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