Summary: The author, Marshall McLuhan, starts out mentioning the increase popularity and questioning on local resources like the newspaper or daily “book.” One story in particular summarizes present society in one line—”a thousand and one astonishing tales are being told by anonymous narrator to an equally anonymous audience.” Though we are advancing in many new ways, we still have this natural tendency to be mindless on the web. McLuhan goes on to continue to explain that this society is greedy for much greater intelligence and increasing levels of personal and social integrity. Now, the ordinary human being is not only curious on local or national news, but also has interests engaged onto stories around the globe. He continues to explain industrial man has lost the concept of the beauty within. Our society is filled with a mask to cover the actually content of the news. He ends off with concluding that we are consumed by the wonders of technology and advancement that we had forgotten the meaning of its content.
Main Idea: With the advancement of technology, society has lost its authentic understanding of the content of news/writings.
Key Terms:
- Irrationalism: a belief or theory that opinions and actions should be based on reason and knowledge rather than on religious belief or emotional response
- Discontinuity: a distinct break in physical continuity or sequence in time.
- Newspaper: a printed publication (usually issued daily or weekly) consisting of folded unstapled sheets and containing news, feature articles, advertisements, and correspondence
- Modern: characterized by or using the most up-to-date techniques, ideas, or equipment
- Industrial: relating to or characterized by industry
Commentary: After reading this article, I’ve seen to agree on several points that the author was trying to get across. For one, McLuhan mentions that everything published and viewed is all anonymous. In the world of vast development, it’s easier to lie on the web. Aside from that point of view, an individual can post anything they want online and not be exposed for who they really are. Sometimes it is easier to express your bottled up feelings to a group of unknown people than to your closest friends. Another quote I found interesit in was “man would dunk himself in the newspaper than have any esthetic or intellectual grasp on its character and meaning.” Yes, we still do have some positive side of the web. However, we give into social media mindlessly without thinking about the details. We look at the overall big picture and become too lazy to analyze it. We come to judge on first impressions when we know it does not fully show who an individual really is. We have relied on the web and social media to isolate ourselves from the world around us. From the paying attention to the big headlines, we have forgotten to look at the smaller things on and offline.
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