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. |
Page generated in 0.0018 seconds