Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan
Published 1964 · 400 pages · 80,000 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism, Media & Technology, Nonfiction, Philosophy
How hard is Understanding Media to read?
Understanding Media scores 59 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 42 out of 100
- Coined terminology. Assumes wide cultural literacy.
- Sentence structure: 45 out of 100
- Abstraction: 58 out of 100
- Highly abstract media theory.
- Information density: 52 out of 100
- Dense with ideas, examples, and provocations.
- Narrative indirection: 22 out of 100
- Non-linear, mosaic-style argumentation.
- Symbolic density: 25 out of 100
- Media as extensions of the body. Metaphor-rich.
- Ironic distance: 20 out of 100
- Playful, provocative intellectual stance.
- Resolution withholding: 18 out of 100
- McLuhan probes rather than concludes.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- Twenty-six media chapters. No linear argument.
How Understanding Media is regarded
Understanding Media holds a literary regard score of 71 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.