The Post-Gutenberg Galaxy

We here at The Daily Wenzel are sometimes invited to discussions with Barb Brown, of the Barb Brown Technology blog. Usually these discussions centre around the use and adoption of new technologies and have got us re-visiting the work of Marshall McLuhan, particularly The Gutenberg Galaxy. Surprisingly while you can access Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle, one of our favourite and most influential books, as an e-text, McLuhan's work is nowhere to be found.

At any rate, the line that resonates with us most was that technology was not just a tool that man invents, but also a tool by which man is re-invented. This is especially true when we consider how we have a tendency to reshape our lives in the context of a new technology - Time Magazine's article awarding YouTube the Invention of the Year award is perhaps a prime example. Most notoriously, in our minds, is the example of Frederick Taylor, the turn-if-the-century efficiency expert who exported the assembly line model to various craft industries. In the process he destroyed centuries of craft traditions, eliminated much worker control over the nature and rate of output, and also directly contributed to the relative de-skilling of many occupations as the complex jobs performed by a single artisan were reduced to a series of repetitive movements for a several workers.

In another work, Understanding Media, McLuhan suggested that electricity would take us back to a pre-print oral culture. In print cultures, McLuhan argued, meaning was fixed and static as books could last a long, long time. The oral tradition however, was susceptible to subtle shifts and changes, with the stories slowly evolving over time. In all likelihood, McLuhan was thinking of radio and television at the time, but the ephemeral nature of most blogs and websites only adds to his thinking.