Canadian intellectual Marshall McLuhan (1911--1980) left a controversial legacy. This dissertation addresses the four chief paradoxes that his work poses for contemporary commentators: the core meaning of his texts; the tradition in which his contribution now seems most intelligible; the divergent response to his work; and the enduring yet fragmentary impact of his contribution to popular and academic life. Taking a rhetoric of inquiry approach, modified by Gerald Holton's writing in the history of science, this reappraisal argues for McLuhan's significance as a theorist of communications as techno-cultural transformation or "mediamorphosis"; for his seminal role within the Toronto School of Communications; and for his inspiring relevance within the interdiscipline of communications, despite the forging of a negative academic consensus against his work in the early 1970s. McLuhan united the ancient arts of grammar and rhetoric into a techno-cultural hermeneutics that constitutes an unexhausted approach to the study of the impacts of media and technologies on sensibilities, literacies and culture.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.37528 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | Jeffrey, Liss, 1955- |
| Contributors | Robinson, Gertrude Voch (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Graduate Communications Program.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001656192, proquestno: NQ44655, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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