摘要：This essay argues that Marshall McLuhan!ˉs mostimportant ideas on the media are to be found in
the early writings of the 1940s and 1950s. McLuhan!ˉs work did not provide policy makers with
concrete recommendations, nor did he leave communication scholars with a theory of the media;
but he developed new methodological !(R)probes!ˉ r thinking through the effects of a variety of
media on environments and bodies in the newly mediated context of North America in the post-
WWII period. His approach to media technology was aesthetic, interdisciplinary, transnational,
phenomenological and driven by a commitment to pedagogy. His work was prophetic in terms of
recognizing that electronic media would transform experiences of space and time, and the
interrelation between global and local cultures.
