media theory

technical change alters not only habits of life, but patterns of thought and valuation,

Housing was an image of both the body and the universe for tribal and nonliterate societies.

All the alphabets is use in the Western world, from that of Russia to that of the Basques, from that of Portugal to that of Peru, are derivatives of the Graeco-Roman letters. Their unique separation of sight and sound from semantic and verbal content made them a most radical technology for the translation and homogenization of cultures.

Pope Pius XII was deeply concerned that there be serious study of the media today. On February 17, 1950, he said: It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of modern society and the stability of its inner life depend in large part on the maintenance of an equilibrium between the strength of the techniques of communication and the capacity of

Each new technology creates an environment that is itself regarded as corrupt and degrading. Yet the new one turns its predecessor into an art form.

the beholding of idols, or the use of technology, conforms men to them.

Just as speech lost its magic with writing, and further with printing, when printed money supplanted gold, the compelling aura of it disappeared.

Print created individualism and nationalism in the sixteenth century.

Electromagnetic technology requires utter human docility and quiescence of meditation such as befits an organism that now wears its brain outside its skull and its nerves outside its hide.