Herbert Marshall McLuhan was a genius, probably the only person who could genuinely of called themselves a “social media guru” or infact probably more likely a “social technology guru”. The strange fact being that Herbert was born in 1911 and died in 1980, way before any of us could have predicted a technology revolution that was social media.
In 1962, Herbert Marshall McLuhan predicted changes which the new electronic age would bring within his seminal text, The Gutenberg Galaxy. The writing of The Gutenberg Galaxy (or as it has been renamed The Gutenberg Galaxy: Making of a Typography Man) triggered the reasoning that McLuhan’s futuristic predictions would make him a guru of his time, but I still think these predictions resonate him as the only genuine social media guru. You may even recall one of his greatest soundbites “the medium is the message”.
McLuhan’s main thinking was developed around the idea that as new technologies brought interesting new ways of how an individual’s understanding of time, space, and self, they would enable the restoration of community and collectivity to an otherwise fragmented society. To me, this thinking is at the very core of what we now call social media or social technology, a use of technology to enhance our fragmented and somewhat disillusioned society. Again, the changing perception of how an individual feels about their self (me-culture), time (always-on/real-time/clip culture) and space (myspace/facebook) all seem to ring true even if you hark back to this book from 48 years ago.
RIP Herbert Marshall McLuhan. The person all the social media “gurus” should worship and adore.
