7 Marshall McLuhan, from Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964)

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. CONTENTS v
3. An Introduction 1
4. Contributor 1
5. THE SHANNON KNOT
6. 1 Claude Shannon, from A Mathematical Theory of Communication (1948) 20
7. 2 Norbert Wiener, from Cybernetics; or, Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948) 29
8. 3 Harold Garfinkel, from Toward a Sociological Theory of Information (1952) 37
9. 4 Donald MacKay, from “The Place of ‘Meaning’ in the Theory of Information” (1955) 41
10. 5 Claude Shannon, “The Bandwagon” (1956) 51
11. 6 Gregory Bateson, from “The Cybernetics of ‘Self ’: A Theory of Alcoholism” (1972) 53
12. 7 John Durham Peters, from “Information: Notes Toward a Critical History” (1988) 60
13. 8 N. Katherine Hayles, from “Contesting for the Body of Information: The Macy Conferences on Cybernetics” (1999) 69
14. 9 Peter Janich, from What Is Information? (2006) 76
15. 10 Matthieu Triclot, from The Cybernetic Moment (2008) 82
16. ORDER, NUMBER
17. 1 Michel Foucault, from The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (1966) 93
18. 2 Mary Poovey, from A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society (1998) 105
19. 3 Ian Hacking, from The Taming of Chance (1990) 113
20. 4 Thomas Richards, from The Imperial Archive: Knowledge and the Fantasy of Empire (1994) 121
21. 5 Friedrich Hayek, from “The Use of Knowledge in Society” (1945) 127
22. 6 Claude Lévi-Strauss, from “The Mathematics of Man” (1954) 133
23. 7 Lily Kay, from Who Wrote the Book of Life? A History of the Genetic Code (2000) 146
24. THE WORK OF ART
25. 1 Martin Heidegger, from “The Origin of the Work of Art” (1950) 163
26. 2 Walter Benjamin, from “The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov” (1936) 170
27. 3 Yuri M. Lotman, “The Future for Structural Poetics” (1979) 177
28. 4 Abraham Moles, from Information Theory and Esthetic Perception (1958) 185
29. 5 Haroldo De Campos, from “The Informational Temperature of the Text” (1960) 194
30. 6 Umberto Eco, from The Open Work (1962) 201
31. 7 William R. Paulson, from The Noise of Culture: Literary Texts in a World of Information (1988) 209
32. MEDIA ECOLOGIES
33. 1 Frances Yates, from The Art of Memory (1966) 219
34. 2 Mary J. Carruthers, from “Ars oblivionalis, ars inveniendi: The Cherub Figure and the Arts of Memory” (2009) 226
35. 3 Michael E. Hobart and Zachary S. Schiffman, from Information Ages: Literacy, Numeracy, and the Computer Revolution (1998) 235
36. 4 Walter Ong, from Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982) 242
37. 5 Sigmund Freud, from “A Note Upon the ‘Mystic Writing-Pad’ ” (1925) 248
38. 6 Vannevar Bush, from “As We May Think” (1945) 253
39. 7 Marshall McLuhan, from Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964) 260
40. 8 Friedrich Kittler, from “There Is No Software” (1993) 265
41. 9 Vilém Flusser, from Form and Material (1993) and Recoding (1987) 271
42. 10 Lisa Gitelman, from Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents (2014) 279
43. INFORMED SOCIETY
44. 1 James Beniger, from The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society (1986) 289
45. 2 Yoneji Masuda, from The Information Society as Post-Industrial Society (1981) 300
46. 3 Paul Virilio, from The Information Bomb (1999) 313
47. 4 C. A. Bayly, from Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870 (1996) 318
48. 5 Mary Elizabeth Berry, from Japan in Print: Information and Nation in the Early Modern Period (2006) 327
49. 6 Ann Blair, from Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information Before the Modern Age (2010) 341
50. 7 Elias Muhanna, from “Why Was the Fourteenth Century a Century of Arabic Encyclopaedism?” (2013) 352
51. 8 Steven Marks, from The Information Nexus: Global Capitalism from the Renaissance to the Present (2016) 361
52. Acknowledgments 373
53. Index 379