Google celebrates 106th birthday of Marshall McLuhan with a colourful doodle

Continuing with its fascinating way of commemorating historic events and legends, Google came up with an interesting doodle in remembrance of Marshall McLuhan’s 106th birthday. McLuhan, who was a media theorist, was born on July 21, 1911 in Canada. His research work is propagated as one of the cornerstones in the study of media theory. He is believed to have predicted the invention of World Wide Web about thirty years before it came into being and is known for coining the terms “the medium is the message” and “global village”. Although he largely remained a controversial figure in the study of media and its perspectives, the invention of the Internet resulted in renewed fascination and interest in McLuhan’s theories.

The doodle commemorating McLuhan, interestingly documents how fundamental the philosopher and theorist’s ideals are. The first four boxes depicts the different eras of communication, in progression from the left to the right. Starting from how people communicated verbally, to the shift to ‘written texts as forms of communication’, to McLuhan’s television appearance, his popular concept of “global village” and eventually the electronic age — the six panels show how important inventions in communication throughout the course made the transition for the better.

McLuhan’s popular books are The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man, The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects and War and Peace in the Global Village. Countries like India, Japan, Indonesia, Australia, South America and Western Europe can see the animated doodle celebrating McLuhan’s 106th birthday.