A Second Way to Read McLuhan’s Footnotes to Innis

Abstract

Background Marshall McLuhan claimed his work was a footnote to Harold A. Innis. His claims have been used to argue that McLuhan and Innis offer a coherent system of thought, with a systematic methodology and common set of basic assumptions and presuppositions. This article questions that species of argument and looks to deepen our understanding of the McLuhan-Innis relationship. Analysis McLuhan is read as an analogist, and his footnotes (plural) are interpreted as deliberate violations of normative patterns of academic use in the satiric tradition of Thomas Nashe and the Scriblerus Club. Conclusion and implications McLuhan is repositioned apropos of Innis, figures conventionally associated with the Toronto School of Communication Theory and historians who address themselves to the theme of orality and literacy. This article also invites a reconsideration of McLuhan in relation to the digital era, his contributions to epistemology and understanding media.