Free Republic

There are dangerous trade-offs associated with new media. The influence of television -- popularized in the 1950s and in full swing in the 1960s -- reshaped the political and cultural landscape. The computer revolution hummed along quietly until the internet and desktop and laptop machines blended in the early 1990s to set off the phenomenon predicted at the advent of television by Canadian academic Marshall McLuhan. The medium, said McLuhan, would soon be the message, a famous statement that Woody Allen immortalized in the film Annie Hall. Medium Cool, a cult hit film of the 1960s, ensured McLuhan's permanent fame....

ROME, SEPT. 20, 2005 (ZENIT.org).- A Polish priest, Father Dariusz Gronowski, has written a doctoral thesis on communications theorist Marshall McLuhan, showing the influence that mass media has had on the Church. Father Gronowski is a professor at the School of Institutional Social Communication in the University of the Holy Cross in Rome. In this interview with ZENIT he delves into the faith of McLuhan (1911-1980), an aspect that is frequently overlooked about the Edmonton, Alberta, native who first coined the expression "global village." The priest's dissertation has been published under the title: "L'impatto dei Media sulla Chiesa secondo Marshall...