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     ERIC NO: ED089386
AVAILABILITY: EDRS Price - MF01/PC01 Plus Postage.
      AUTHOR: Ryan, Michael G.
       TITLE: The Social Ancestry of Marshall McLuhan's Theories.
        YEAR: Dec 1972
    ABSTRACT: A historical review of the background of the theories and 
              observations of Marshall McLuhan demonstrates that these ideas 
              arose from or were first articulated by several antecedent 
              social scientists. Some of McLuhan's ideas arise directly from 
              the linguistic observations of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Other ideas 
              show signs of having been influenced by Buckminster Fuller and 
              Walter Ong in the area of the extension of human sensory 
              systems through the use of machines and electronic media. Most 
              especially, however, McLuhan's postulations are rooted in 
              other social scientists such as Cooley, Mead, and Simmel. 
              Along with McLuhan, these scholars have regarded communication 
              as the integral aspect in man's adaptation to social change. 
              This theoretical communicational base, along with his 
              variations and refinements of earlier work, are what make 
              McLuhan's work so important to those who seek to understand 
              social, symbol-making man. (CH)
       NOTES: 9p.  Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Speech 
              Communication Association (Chicago, Dec. 1972)
  MAJOR DESC: Communication (Thought Transfer); History; Mediation Theory; 
              Sociocultural Patterns
  MINOR DESC: Codification; Information Theory; Interaction; Mass Media; 
              Social Structure
 IDENTIFIERS: McLuhan (Marshall)