This shift in emphasis from content to form was presaged according to McLuhan’s somewhat over-stated view in much earlier eras, such as the shift in Renaissance monasteries (McLuhan was a devout Catholic) from the teaching of logic to teaching of rhetoric and grammar. The essence of McLuhan’s ideas about television and other media is summed up in his famous catchphrase “The medium is the message.' (His follow-up to Understanding Media was punningly titled The Medium Is the Massage.) By this, he meant that the form of communication does more to affect the “sensorium” (psyche and society) than does content. McLuhan, whose lecture took place many years before the invention of personal computers or smartphones, undoubtedly would have painted a more complete picture of the future of information technology had he not suffered a debilitating stroke in 1979, dying a year later. The only place he fell short was in assuming such electronic access would require a trip to a library to use one of its computer terminals. Now, of course, McLuhan has been proven largely correct (I almost never check out or even physically handle academic books or journals anymore). At the time, I remember thinking that McLuhan had really gone off the deep end, as I could not imagine such development ever taking place.

The gist of his lecture was that the library of the future would not have any books, as all printed material would henceforth be accessible digitally from computer terminals. In a talk I attended in the mid-1970s at the dedication of SUNY Geneseo’s new college library, McLuhan predicted the internet more than 20 years before it became a reality. McLuhan’s ideas about evolving culture and technology caused him to be in high demand as a speaker and consultant who weighed in as a futurologist on various phenomena such as advertising, print journalism, etc.

Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan