Return to the Tribe: a Marshall McLuhan theory

Among many of Marshall McLuhan’s media theories is the theory of the Global Village. This is a theory about how the media makes our world more connected and shortens the distance between all people.

Most people might assume this new closeness is due to new advances in transportation (jets that travel over 200 miles per hour) and technology (video phones), but the media plays a bigger role in this new global closeness than we might realize. How did we find out about Hurricane Katrina? Flood victims did not call us on the telephone to let us know what was happening, media did. If one city suffers a tragedy, the entire planet can know about it while it is happening simply by turning on their televisions or computers.

Marshall McLuhan’s global village theory says that before media, ancient man depended on each other to survive, forming tribes. As humans grew more civilized they began to write: books, newspapers, magazines. According to McLuhan, “print is the technology of individualism.” McLuhan favored print media because it allows humans to remain individuals. When electronic media emerged, McLuhan said humans took steps backward into the same interdependent tribes of pre-history.

According to McLuhan’s theory, the more technologically advanced we become in our media, the more primitive we become. How is this possible? When humans depended upon tribes for their survival, they shared similar beliefs. If one tribe member experienced a tragedy, the whole tribe learned and responded in the same manner. How did they learn about it? Audio. They heard someone tell them about the tragedy. This same thing takes place in this new Global Village (Tribe.) One person suffers a tragedy, and it is broadcast to the world. How do we learn about it? Audio. We hear the newscaster deliver the news on T.V. Hearing the news requires little effort on our part.

Now, in an individualistic society, in a time after pre-history and before the radio, people got their news from print. Not everybody heard the news at exactly the same time. Everyone read it on his or her own time. It required more than simply hearing about it, it was visual. Receiving the news required people to read the text, comprehend what was being said in writing, and seeing it gave people the option to reread it for complete understanding. With the news process being so long as it was, it gave people more time to think about it and form their own thoughts on the subject instead of having it jammed down their throats while it’s happening. This is why Marshall McLuhan believed print to be the media of the more civilized individual man.

But, is being part of a tribe really all that bad? Yes, McLuhan believed electronic media makes humans dependent on one another, which in a way it does. But in a positive light, our smaller world has contributed to more peace negotiations and understanding. It connects people who might have been enemies in an individualistic society. All forms of media have good and bad qualities which is why we can’t just depend on one form. Yes, watch the news on T.V. and surf the web, but don’t forget about the wisdom that can be gained from a book or newspaper. “The medium is the message.” Don’t limit yourself to just one.