理解麦克卢汉
Understanding McLuhan

摘要 麦克卢汉赋予媒介以全新含义，将其定义为人的延伸，并指出，媒介技术更多是 通过它们的形式而非它们所传递的内容来塑造社会。他辨明了电力媒介给人类社会 带来的冲击，其笔下再部落化的“地球村”经常被描绘成一个和平且和谐的社区，其 实，如果仔细阅读麦克卢汉，我们会发现他的幽暗意识。麦克卢汉在一个更宽广的和 人类行为、人类思维方式相关的领域中探讨媒介，恢复了媒介原有的广阔内涵，从而 规定了日后媒介研究的语境，即我们与媒介的关系是相互构造的——我们创造它们， 它们也创造我们。尽管电力媒介时代是无意识和冷漠的时代，但它同时也是我们认识 到这种无意识的时代。一旦我们对媒介环境产生了意识，发现媒介带来的影响可能会 损害我们的社会或文化，那么我们就有机会在效果变得无所不在之前，影响新的创新 的发展和演变。也因此，将麦克卢汉视为一个技术决定论者的看法失之简单。
Rejecting how media is conventionally viewed, McLuhan defnes it as an extension of man, and points out that media technologies shape society more by their forms rather than by what they convey. He has identifed the impacts of the electric media on human society. His “global village”, re-tribalized, is often portrayed as a peaceful and harmonious community. Yet, deep down, he had a decidedly ambivalent perspective on technoculture. McLuhan explores media in a wider feld of human behavior and human thinking, restoring its original broad connotations, and setting the context for future media studies: that is, our relationship with media is a mutual one -- we shape media and, thereafter, our media also shapes us. Although the age of electric media is hypnotic and apathetic, it is also enabling us to grope toward a consciousness of the unconscious. Once we have a sense of the surrounding media environment and detect the harmful effects it has brought to our society and culture, we might be able to in?uence the development and evolution of new innovations before those effects become ubiquitous. Therefore, to label McLuhan as a technical determinist is overly simplistic