Mcluhan And Age Of Information

Marshall McLuhan,a famous master of communication and Technologyphilosopher in20century, is a controversial figure, whoes theory extreme but deeply,and has caused a sensation in the1960s.But his theory was extreme and one-sided,and its analysis of objectivity, scientific, empirical is insufficient, so he was shunnedby people in ten years.The1990s, with the development of computer’s network,multimedia and other new media technologies, McLuhan’s theory to be concernedagain.This thesis aims to seek the new value and new influence of McLuhan’s theory ininformation age. This article start from the his main media theory,"the global village"," the medium is the message "," Medium is the Extensions of Man "," cool mediumand hot medium ", these four main theories were described in the first chapter. Then,based on the characteristics of the new media in the information age,such as “weibo”,This thesis reinterprets some valuable and controversial McLuhan’s theory.In the information age, threre are a lot of new expressions and new meanings inMcLuhan’s four main theories. In this part, this thesis mainly discussions with"extension theory" and virtual reality;"Cold-heat theory" and network media;"message theory" and technological determinism.In the information age, we understand that:McLuhan’s media philosophy is basedon the consistencies among information, media and the era, from information, throughmedia, judge the era feature.Finally, this thesis attempts to use the new explanation of McLuhan’s theory inthe information age to analyze contemporary China society and culture.In this part, McLuhan’s “Medium cold-heat theory” is developed into “Culturecold-heat theory”, Through analyzing the different between cold culture and hotculture in contemporary China, this paper want to find out a key to solve the socialcontradictions and dispute in contemporary ChinaIn McLuhan’s opinion, traditional Chinese culture belonged to the cold culture, but modern Chinese culture has been in a state mixed with cold culture and hot culture.The cultural transformation process is unprecedented, and Chinese people are lack ofexperience to face them, so a large number of contradictions and disputes must comeout.In contemporary China, people should have a correct understanding to thisobjective reality, when the negative changes appear,we should keep a reasonableattitude; and when we set out to solve these negative events, we should be calm andthoroughly.