From Global Village to Global Theater: The Late McLuhan as a Philosopher of Difference, Sense, and Multiplicities
Review of Communication, 17 (4):
303--319 (2017)DOI: 10.1080/15358593.2017.1367825
Zusammenfassung
The late Marshall McLuhan's substitution of the term '' global theater'' for the more celebrated but arguably less effective '' global village,'' with its relational/holistic underpinnings, signals a turn in his media philosophy: from an ontology of identity supporting an organicist theory of mediated interplay (world–self relations) to an ontology of difference, sense, and multiplicities prioritizing the existence of individual objects. The performative concept of '' global theater'' has been overlooked by media ecology commentators, who tend to interpret it as a colorful detail—a loose element in McLuhan's overall system—often associating it with a shift from detached contemplation to involved production. This essay argues that a mere shift from theory to praxis is not enough to fully comprehend this enigmatic concept, which holds one of the keys for understanding the late McLuhan's transition from an extended configuration, anchored in the constitutive subject, to a postfinite philosophy of difference, sense, and multiplicities akin to the '' new realist'' school of contemporary thought, particularly the '' fields-of-sense'' ontology of Markus Gabriel.