Interperetation Of Phenomenology In McLuhan's Communication Ideology

During the era of information explosion, McLuhan is coming into another rush time. However, it is too superficial to just stay in his accurate prophecy. In the histroy of communication research, McLuhan is a scholar who has a profound influence and an important status. His life changes radically and also his reputation which once went through rises and falls. There are various reviews about him, no matter they are praises or censures. Most scholars held a critical attitude against his several main viewpoint such as "'the medium is the message"and"hot medium and cold medium"and"the medium is the extension of man"and"global village". Because they think these words are only curry favour by claptrap. Maybe we can through a new perspective to interpret Mcluhan's ideological essence. It should be noted here that is, this paper aims to provide a way of thinking, not a final conclusion.First of all, let us see the paper's structure. The author explains Mcluhan's several important ideas in the first part of the thesis. Because no matter we choose which perspective to study Mcluhan 's communication thought, the premise is to understand his meaning. Then, this paper analyzes different evaluations to Mcluhan's communication thought from the academic circles and therefore leads to the focal point of the thesis. The author sorts out two main criticism points against Mcluhan's communication thought. They are confused logic and bad ideology. The purpose of this thesis is to provide a phenomenological method to interpret Mcluhan's communication thought. The article thinks, phenomenology as the most important and main philosophic thoughts in the modern west is of great significance on the perspective of methodology. Because of the phenomenological method fundamentally means a essential intuition as the core of the philosophical method. Based on the research of Mcluhan's text, this paper discovers that McLuhan's communication research obviously embodies the phenomenological spirit of facing matter it self. And obviously, "the medium is the message" declares the essence of medium. It is McLuhan's most representative argument. Because based on the phenomenological description, it is the inevitable result of the medium effect of self-consciousness introspection. In fact, it displays the successful application of universal intuition in medium understanding and it also leads us to the conclusion that there is a remarkable relationship between McLuhan's communication research and phenomenological method. Although phenomenology never occures in Mcluhan's words literally and never did him study phenomenology, he really follows the basic principles of phenomenology and utilizes the basic methods of phenomenology objectively in his academic practice. For example, he adopts the intuitionistic methodology and studies medium return to the life world. It is precisely the core of phenomenological spirit. At the end of the thesis, the author will emphasize on the improtance of phenomenological method during the development of communication.So the author points out that it is feasible to interpret Mcluhan's communication thought through phenomenology. In view of the above situation, the author wants to rethink Mcluhan's communication thought through a philosophical perspective——phenomenology. Thus on Mcluhan's communication thought, we can have more accurate and profound understanding and judgment.