McLuhan and medienwissenschaften. Sense and sensation

Abstract

McLuhan’s concern with the economy of the senses is familiar to media studies, as is his emphasis on their relation to different media and the transitions between them. It follows that it should not be difficult to combine McLuhan’s notion of a sensory economy together with an analysis of a media-system’s functions - and in principle at least, to ground a science of media (Medienwissenschaft) on that basis. But such an undertaking has yet to be ventured, and the fertile ground presented by the senses for media theory lies conspicuously fallow. This paper explores why this is the case, and considers what might be gained or lost through related approaches to McLuhan’s work and to media studies themselves.