Exploring Blogs

Responses to first part of Lingua Fracta:
- Cheri Lemieux Spiegel's post
- Diane Cooke's post

Responses to finishing Lingua Fracta:
- Eric Sentell's post
- Mat Reynold's post





My partner in the canonical book assignment (McLuhan's Understanding Media):
- Jennifer Buckner's post
- (Reading Eric's post above and seeing that he was also reading McLuhan led me to read his McLuhan post ... so I have two on three topics versus three on two topics. Hope that is okay ...) Eric Sentell's post


I really enjoyed this -- thank you for the time to do it. For me, one of the things I am left pondering is the connection between Brooke's concept of perspective, Gane and Beer's concept of interface, and McLuhan's concept of the medium as the extension of man. I had not made these links before tonight, and now I am thinking about what McLuhan would think about Brooke's perspective (something I wrote about on Mat's blog) -- I think he would like it -- as well as what the interface as an extension of ourselves does to promote or combat the narcosis that comes with the unexamined medium (something Eric and Jennifer really got me thinking about). I think interfaces are designed so often today to fall into the background unexamined -- to create a "true user-driven experience." But in the end, this is a trick, isn't it? No interface really goes away -- no medium really does not exist -- and we only play into McLuhan's worry that we are leaving such media unexamined when we overlook the interfaces.

Images from:Cover of Lingua Fracta from Hampton Press
Marshall McLuhan Portrait from the Estate of Corrine & Marshall McLuhan