M. McLuhan’s Media Theory and Contemporary Book Science Discourse: Points of Confluence

Abstract

Intensive transformations taking place in the system of book communications require the updating of scientific approaches and methodological tools used by book researchers. At the same time, the Russian school of book studies faces a number of difficulties. Geographical and disciplinary isolation of research practices that narrows the possibilities of a comprehensive sociohumanitarian analysis of the social phenomena takes the primary place and can be emphasized among them. The need to include and to interpret conceptual medialogical works in the modern book science discourse determines the relevance of this study. The purpose of this article is to articulate the inherent cross-disciplinary nature of book and reading research and its connection with communication science as a metatheory that explains the historical and cultural development of societies. The subject of the analysis is the work of the Canadian scientist H. M. McLuhan. The research has established the essential characteristics of transitional periods in the history of the dominant means of communication: reformation of society members’ perception and the values shared by them, partial deinstitutionalization and adjustment of functions, goals, tasks of previously existing structures of management and control, integration and cumulation of the cultural and resource potential of communication technologies. Concurrently, the inaccuracies of a purely media-deterministic understanding of the M. McLuhan conception and the impossibility of hierarchical classification of modern media theories have been proved. The practical significance of the research lies in the formation of a pedagogical book science strategy focused on the study of «pre-established» reading models in various communication channels, taking into account the varying degree of influence of micro- and macro-environment factors that determine the polyphony of modern media practices, the structure of educational trajectories, as well as their effectiveness.