McLuhan and the Symbolism of Knowledge: University as a "Market Place"

This paper aims at deepening some McLuhan’s reflections about the evolution of higher education systems in the era of mainstream media and interactional complexity. In particular, this survey proposes a sociological and historical approach to McLuhan’s analysis of mass education,. To the fore are the cognitive shifts fostered by the advent of the so called mass universities, compared by McLuhan to cultural “marketplaces”. In this regard, his reflections interlace with Vico’s criticism of the disciplinary fragmentation that afflicted Universities in the Enlightenment Age, because of the increasing specialization and segmentation of knowledge. Hence, the drawbacks and advantages of the globalized University turned into “teaching machines” and suspended between innovation, autonomy and automation.