本书是一部媒介文化研究的经典著作。作者认为，电话、电报、广播、电视等电子媒介的广泛使用，塑造了一个新的文化形态和传播方式。通过对不同媒介的比较，以及与种种文化现象的关联，作者勾画了一种电子媒介文化社会的图景，并对其发展趋向作出了某些预言

30 years after its publication Marshall McLuhan's The Medium is the Massage remains his most entertaining, provocative, and piquant book. With every technological and social "advance" McLuhan's proclamation that "the media work us over completely" becomes more evident and plain. In his words, Uso pervasive are they in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, or unaltered'. McLuhan's remarkable observation that "societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication" is undoubtedly more relevant today than ever before. With the rise of the internet and the explosion of the digital revolution there has never been a better time to revisit Marshall McLuhan. New printing - 2011 - with cover design by Shepard Fairey.