Marshall McLuhan: The world is a global village

You could draw links from McMulhan's theory to those of Gauntlett and Collaboration and Henry Jenkins and participatory culture.

The emergence of “new media” and “social media” — it has all looked fairly revolutionary, the beginning of something entirely new. But, when you step back and consider it, these innovations mark perhaps just an acceleration of a trend that began long ago — one that Marshall McLuhan, the famed communication theorist, first outlined in the 1960s. The vintage clip above gives you a feel for this, and McLuhan himself appears at around the 2:45 minute mark. As you watch this video, you start to realize how prescient McLuhan was, and how social media is almost the logical fulfillment of the trend he saw emerging. We’ve added this piece to our YouTube Favorites, along with another McLuhan clip from the same period.

Think about the work of Ivan Illich and Co. that we looked at when we were unpicking David Gauntlett's approach to online media. Remember we suggested that they foresaw or predicted the changes that online media could make. Moreover think about the "We Live in Public" film and how Josh Harris predicted the sensation that is online media and it's power to encourage participation.