cyber mobility 2007- rethinking marshall mcluhan now

MORE ON MARSHALL MCLUHAN even to be reconsidered today round about the cyberspace ENVIRONMENTS ARE NOT PASSIVE WRAPPINGS, but are rather actıve processes which are invisible ANTIENVIRONMENTS, OR COUNTER SITUATIONS MADE BY ARTISTS PROVIDING MEANS OF DIRECT ATTENTION AND ENABLE US TO SEE AND UNDERSTAND MORE CLEARLY

Marshall McLuhan's lasting contribution is his vision of the ways in which history and culture and individuals are modified and, to some extent, determined by technology. His work will continue to be discussed and debated, dismissed and praised because of the ongoing need to consider not just the influence of technology upon society but also upon individuals and their
habitual modes of perception. Consider a characterisation by James J. O'Donnell of the work of McLuhan and some of his colleagues: "...those who offer technologically determinist analyses of the history of western cultures--the Havelocks, Ongs, McLuhans, and their followers--remain marginalized.... The determinists see culture as a series of behaviours determined by
the powers and limits of each generation's "hardware", that is, the technologies of communication..."[1] There is only one McLuhan, one Havelock, one Ong: the audience O'Donnell had in mind seems to have occasioned this remark from him, for he is otherwise open to the arguments of the so-called "determinists." Is he accurate in saying that McLuhan "offers a technologically determinist analysis of the history of western cultures"? The short answer is that McLuhan was concerned with exploring the ways in which culture and history are determined by technology, not the ways in which they aren't; he may have overstated his case, but has posed interesting questions.