On Media Determinism:An Interpretation And Defense Of Macluhan

The theme of this paper is interpretation of McLuhan’s media theory, and shows the characteristics of media determinism and transcendental characteristics, and defends the media determinism. This paper is an interdisciplinary research, and it includes the communication studies, philosophy of technology and sociology of knowledge. This research area is divided into technological determinism and social determinism of technology and the media determinism belong to technological determinism. This paper opposes the dichotomy. Firstly, clarify the theoretical error of the technological determinism which are represented by Jacques Ellul and Frankfurt School, and indicates the differences between technological determinism and media determinism. The difference between the hard technological determinism and soft technological determinism comes from Paul Levinson. Secondly, take the actor network theory which belongs to the main theory of social determinism of technology as the object to inner criticism. Finally, it can defend for the media ecology and media determinism from the aspects through the above two steps. The last of this paper will take Marshall McLuhan who is a typical representative of media ecology as the object, and clarify the transcendental characteristics of the media determinism model of the media ecology. It hope to give the answer of the question which about the issues of media technology and social field.