a review of religion and media
by S. Brent Plate Meaning is produced by, in, and through social, political, and economic institutions, cultural and religious forces, technology, education, and human bodily engagement with the physical world. Continue Reading →
by S. Brent Plate
In the midst of media hoopla about another technology being laid to rest–namely the end of the space shuttle program–there was a lesser-told story in the news this week about the centenary of one of the more technologically engaged and provocative thinkers of recent years: Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980). Coming from a background in literature, McLuhan has exerted a significant influence over media studies for decades since his death in 1980. Adequate bios and overview of McLuhan and his work can be found here and here, and an interesting 1967 New York Times piece is here. Douglas Coupland (author of Generation X, Life After God, and Generation A) recently published his own quirky biography, Marshall McLuhan (see a review at the National Post, here).
But what does McLuhan mean for scholars and students interested in religion? A few have outlined these facets, some pointing to McLuhan’s conversion to Catholicism; by all accounts he was deeply committed to his faith. Of more interest are the implications of his otherwise secular, media-oriented ideas on the way we understand religion itself. A broader query would ask: what does media have to do with religion anyway? An answer to which McLuhan strangely offered little. Some of the sporadic, direct engagements between media and religion were posthumously collected in The Medium and the Light.
It would be one of McLuhan’s own students, the Jesuit priest and St. Louis University professor Walter Ong, who laid out some of the ramifications of media transitions for the practices and understandings of the verbal dimensions of religion. Continue Reading →