Monday, April 29, 5:30 to 7 p.m.

The Medium is the Message: McLuhan’s Prophecy Revisited—Public Affairs and the Media in the 21st Century

A roundtable sponsored by The Schemel Forum in collaboration with the Office of Community Relations In the 1960s Marshall McLuhan, Canadian philosopher of communication theory, made the radical assertion that “the medium is the message.” McLuhan’s insight was that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not by the content it delivers, but by the characteristics of the medium itself. Fast forward to 2013 and observe that the media—both public and social—are unimaginably influential in our daily lives, making it almost impossible to separate fact from fiction and public from private. From city mayors using Twitter to communicate with their constituents to Facebook memes declaring winners following the Presidential debates, the media transform the way we engage with public events and ideas. The roundtable will explore the strengths and weaknesses of a media-driven world and ways in which we might get a grip on this new reality. Limited to 30 participants on a first come-first served basis.
Co-Moderators: Sondra Myers, Director, The Schemel Forum, and Julie Schumacher-Cohen, Director of Community and Government Relations, The University of Scranton
Weinberg Memorial Library, Room 305

The programs are FREE and Open to the Public