{"id":5488,"date":"2015-01-15T09:00:06","date_gmt":"2015-01-15T14:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/?p=5488"},"modified":"2015-01-13T14:43:27","modified_gmt":"2015-01-13T19:43:27","slug":"a-theory-of-communication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/2015\/01\/15\/a-theory-of-communication\/","title":{"rendered":"A Theory of Communication"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Counterblast\"<\/a>Counterblast<\/em> by Marshall McLuhan is a unique book with insights into human interaction with new technologies and media.\u00a0 A Canadian communication theory philosopher, McLuhan investigates the way new media has changed the world, with an interesting focus on television and mass visual media.\u00a0 This printing was designed by Harley Parker, a Canadian artist and designer, who often worked with McLuhan in the area of art and technology.\u00a0 Full of mind-bending illustrations, Counterblast<\/em> is as interesting for the content as the unique images that enhance it.\u00a0\"Counterblast\"<\/a><\/p>\n

McLuhan\u2019s philosophy, that communication technology influences the organization of society, became incredibly popular during his life time, and his most famous work Understanding media <\/em>(1964) caused a sensation in the intellectual world.\u00a0 Counterblast, <\/em>originally written in a shorter form in 1954, discusses the changes that communication technology causes, that are later addressed in Understanding media<\/em>. One of the many interesting quotes in Counterblast<\/em> explicates the impact of television: \u201cTV children have lived several lifetimes by the time they enter grade 1, just as they have travelled farther by the age of 7 than their grandparents ever travelled.\u00a0 The TV adult returns to grade school in order to make possible several new careers for himself.\u00a0 Acceleration of information movement can have, as one of its consequences, a multiplicity of jobs for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Counterblast\"<\/a>McLuhan is well represented in the Harvard Libraries and many of his books can be found in the catalog.\u00a0 The Santo Domingo Collection copy of Counterblast<\/em>\u00a0[by] Marshall McLuhan, designed by Harley Parker<\/span>\u00a0<\/a>is inscribed by McLuhan to his friend D\u2019Arcy Hayman, an artist and writer also interested in communication technology.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thanks to Emma Clement, Santo Domingo Library Assistant, for contributing this post.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection. Counterblast by Marshall McLuhan is a unique book with insights into human interaction with new technologies and media.\u00a0 A Canadian communication theory philosopher, McLuhan investigates the way new media has changed the world, with an interesting focus on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6243,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[72741],"tags":[113736,72720],"class_list":["post-5488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-widener-library","tag-julio-mario-santo-domingo","tag-julio-mario-santo-domingo-collection"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5TUly-1qw","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5488"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5497,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488\/revisions\/5497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}