Part 3. Digital McLuhan.
Keywords.
applicability, global village, one-way, two-way, publisher, editor.
Vocabulary.
stipulate, vouch for, drivel, gem.
You're going to hear an interview with an American high-tech expert on the impact of Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian communications expert.Listen carefully and complete the summary.
Marshall McLuhan, a communications expert from Canada, never touched a personal computer. He died in 1979.
But his research on the media and their effect on the people and society remains relevant today.
Paul Levinson, an American high-tech expert knew professor McLuhan, and discuss his impact in a volume entitled Digital McLuhan: A Guide to the Information Millennium.
Mr Levinson, why is Marshall McLuhan such an important figure?
Well, he did his writing in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
And those decades, of course, were the first years of television.
And he was the first thinker to really look at televison as something that had a serious impact upon our society.
And interestingly, although he was writing about television, an enormous amount of what he said has even more applicability to the Internet age.
For example, he said the television was turning the world into a global village.
And what he meant by that is when everyone watches the same thing on the television screen, that group that's watching that television program is a community of sorts.
It's like the people in a village all hearing and seeing the same thing.
