Phases

From the Wikipedia:

"McLuhan's media history:

Marshall McLuhan defined media as anything requiring use of the human body. Under this definition, both computers and clothing can be identified as media. When a media is introduced it is adapted to human senses so that it becomes an extension of the individual, and its capabilities influence the whole of society, leading to change.[25] McLuhan states that there are three inventions[clarification needed] that transformed the world: the phonetic alphabet, by virtue of its ability to make speech visible, which McLuhan argues gave rise to the discipline of rhetoric in ancient time and to the study of language and poetics, which was also known as grammar. The printing press in the nineteenth century and the telegraph led to both the modern newspaper and also to journalism as an academic pursuit.[26] The introduction of broadcasting in the form of radio, following on the heels of mass circulation newspapers, magazines, as well as the movies, resulted in the study of mass communication.[26] Due to these technologies, the world was taken from one era into the next. In order to understand the effects of symbolic environment, McLuhan splits history into four periods:[27] the Tribal Age, the Literacy Age, the Print Age, and the Electronic Age.

McLuhan states that, in order to study media effectively, one must study not only content but also the whole cultural environment in which media thrives.[28] He argues that using a detached view allows the individual to observe the phenomenon of the whole as it operates within the environment. The effects of media - speech, writing, printing, photograph, radio or television – should be studied within the social and cultural spheres impacted by this technology. McLuhan argues that all media, regardless of content, acts on the senses and reshapes sensory balance, further reshaping the society that created it. This differs from the viewpoints of scholars such as Neil Postman, who argue that society should take a moral view of new media whether good or bad.[29] McLuhan further notes that media introduced in the past brought gradual changes, which allowed people and society some time to adjust.

Tribal age

The first period in history that McLuhan describes is the Tribal Age. To McLuhan, this was a time of community, with the ear being the dominant sense organ. With everyone able to hear at the same time, listening to someone in a group a unifying act, deepening the feeling of community. In this set up, McLuhan argues, everything was more immediate, more present, and fostered more passion and spontaneity.

Literacy age

The second age McLuhan outlines is the Literacy Age, beginning with the invention of writing. To McLuhan, this was a time of private detachment, with the eye being the dominant sense organ. Turning sounds into visible objects radically altered the symbolic environment. Words were no longer alive and immediate, they were able to be read over and over again. Even though people would read the same words, the act of reading made communication an individual act, leading to more independent thought. Tribes didn't need to come together to get information anymore.

Print age

The third stage McLuhan describes is the Print Age, when individual media products were mass-produced due to the invention of the printing press. It gave the ability to reproduce the same text over and over again. With printing came a new visual stress: the portable book, which allowed people to carry media so they could read in privacy isolated from others. Libraries were created to hold these books and also gave freedom to be alienated from others and from their immediate surroundings.

Electronic age

Lastly, McLuhan describes the Electronic Age, otherwise included under the information age, as an era of instant communication and a return to an environment with simultaneous sounds and touch. It started with a device created by Samuel Morse's invention of the telegraph and led to the telephone, the cell phone, television, internet, DVD, video games, etc. This ability to communicate instantly returns people to the tradition of sound and touch rather than sight. McLuhan argues that being able to be in constant contact with the world becomes a nosy generation where everyone knows everyone's business and everyone's business is everyone else's. This phenomenon is called the global village.[2]

Later scholars have described the growth of open access and open science, with their potential for highly distributed and low cost publishing reaching much larger audiences, as a potential "de-professionalizing force"."

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_ecology)

Update by Robert Logan

From the Wikipedia:

"Updating the ages

Robert K. Logan is professor emeritus of physics at the University of Toronto and Chief Scientist of the Strategic Innovation Lab at the Ontario College of Art and Design. He worked collaboratively with Marshall McLuhan at the University of Toronto, co-publishing various works and producing his own works, heavily inspired by McLuhan. Logan updates the era of communications, adding two new eras:

Age of nonverbal mimetic communication (characteristic of archaic Homo sapiens)
Age of orality
Age of literacy
Age of electric mass media
Age of digital interactive media, or 'new media' "