Marshall Mcluhan - Radio: The Tribal Drum (1964)

Abstract

Editor's Note: This article is a chapter from Mr. McLuhan's forthcoming book, Understanding Media, slightly revised for publication in AVCR. It deals with the neglected medium of radio and interprets
radio in terms of the inherent communication content of the medium as such. Mr. McLuhan' s major thesis is that the medium is the message. The interpretation of media as unique and intrinsic messages per se parallels and complements the thesis of Edward T. Hall (The Silent Language, Doubleday and Co., I959) that culture is communication and expands and clarifies Sigmund Freud's maxim (Civilization and its Discontents, W. W. Norton & Co., I962) that all media are extensions of the human sensorium. One of the discomforting characteristics of Mr. McLuhan' s writings is that they require the reader to think for himself. The following article on radio as a message--a tribal message---incorporates this requirement and its attendant discomfort.-- C. F. Hoban.