Out of Bounds: The Message is the Medium

Abstract

R r me, a lowly prison scribe, to try to transpose the timely aphorism uttered by one of Canada's leading scholars (recently deceased) may seem a little pretentious, if not totally antithetical. But I know in my mind that Marshall McLuhan, who was routinely called a media guru and the oracle of the electric age, would have welcomed contrary insight from anyone with the temerity to tinker with his favorite toys-words. McLuhan's brash statement that "the medium is the message" turned the world of communications on its head, as did many of his theories-a term he disliked. From what I understand, he preferred to call his concepts a "probe" into the collective consciousness surrounding the art and science of communication: a probe designed to stir controversy and stimulate dialogue, a process that inevitably leads to the development of character and mental powers, which is how the dictionary defines education.Herbert Marshall McLuhan was born in Edmonton, Alberta, on July 21, 1911. Several years later his family moved to Wmnipeg, Manitoba, where he grew up while receiving a modest grade school education. He enrolled at the University of Manitoba with the intent of becoming an engineer, but quickly switched to English literature. He was awarded his B.A. degree at Manitoba in 1933, and his M.A. degree in 1934. He studied overseas at Trinity Hall in Cambridge University, taking another B.A. degree in 1936, another M.A. in 1940, and his Ph.D. in 1942, in the respective fields of medieval education, Renaissance literature, and Elizabethan rhetoric. Upon his return to North America, he taught at the