|
''The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects'' is a book co-created by media analyst Marshall McLuhan and graphic designer Quentin Fiore, and coordinated by Jerome Agel. It was published by Bantam books in 1967 and became a bestseller with a cult following. The book is 160 pages in length and composed in an experimental, collage style with text superimposed on visual elements and vice versa. Some pages are printed backwards and are meant to be read in a mirror (see Mirror writing). Some are intentionally left blank. Most contain photographs and images both modern and historic, juxtaposed in startling ways. The book was intended to make McLuhan's philosophy of media and communication, considered by some incomprehensible and esoteric, more accessible to a wider readership through the use of visual metaphor and sparse text. ==Origin of the title== The title is a play on McLuhan's oft-quoted saying "The medium is the message". The book was initiated by Quentin Fiore.〔McLuhan & Fiore, 1967〕 McLuhan adopted the term "massage" to denote the effect each medium has on the human sensorium, taking inventory of the "effects" of numerous media in terms of how they "massage" the sensorium. According to McLuhan biographer W. Terrence Gordon, "by the time it appeared in 1967, McLuhan no doubt recognized that his original saying had become a cliché and welcomed the opportunity to throw it back on the compost heap of language to recycle and revitalize it. But the new title is more than McLuhan indulging his insatiable taste for puns, more than a clever fusion of self-mockery and self-rescue — the subtitle is 'An Inventory of Effects,' underscoring the lesson compressed into the original saying." (Gordon, p. 175.) However, the FAQ section on the website maintained by McLuhan's estate says that this interpretation is incomplete and makes its own leap of logic as to why McLuhan left it as is:〔()〕 "Why is the title of the book ''The Medium is the Massage'' and not ''The Medium is the Message''? Actually, the title was a mistake. When the book came back from the typesetter's, it had on the cover 'Massage' as it still does. The title was supposed to have read ''The Medium is the Message'' but the typesetter had made an error. When McLuhan saw the typo he exclaimed, 'Leave it alone! It's great, and right on target!' Thus, there are now four possible readings for the last word of the title, all of them accurate: ''Message'' and ''Mess Age'', ''Massage'' and ''Mass Age''." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Medium Is the Massage」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|