The "McLuhan" In Digital Age

As we all know, McLuhan is the most famous medium theorist of the twentieth century. He promoted the study field of medium analysis founded by Harold Innis to reach a higher level by right of his theory, that is "The medium is the message". It caused great shake in the western academy, and of course the argument of it is also unavoidable. People all think his theory is hard to understand and some critics regard it as "medium determinism" or "technical determinism". And so it is until the 1980s when McLuhan died and his theory was nearly forgotten in the common academic fields and social fields.With the coming of digital age, great changes have taken place in media environment. New medium with Internet as a representative, bobbed like a cork. Many researchers rediscovered the latent but not so apparent value and significance of McLuhan's theory of medium in the digital age and based on this they brought forward their own theories and views of medium, including the target studied in my paper, Paul Levinson. He is just known as the "McLuhan" in digital age, and the first person of "Post-McLuhan Times".In Levinson's opinion, the reason why McLuhan's theory is rejected by people is that its predictions couldn't be checked because of the limitation of the times. But now, the coming of digital age supplies such chances to Levinson. He inherited the core thought and angel of research of McLuhan and brought forward his own theory of medium by investigating the medium environment of digital age. His theory is mainly "anthroptropic" media evolution and remedial medium . He tried to revise and overcome McLuhan's medium determinism.In my paper, by analyzing the content of Levinson's medium theory I announce his overcoming of McLuhan's view of medium and find the answer to the question why he was named the "McLuhan" in digital age and based on this I try to remind people to pay attention to the great theoretical angels that the field of medium analysis supplied to medium study.