Esposizione e protezione nell’ecologia dei media di McLuhan

The paper aims to reconstruct and question McLuhan’s theory that media are extensions of human beings. Although this conception has often been taken as a model for the prosthetic paradigm, on closer reading it may reveal epithetical traits: an approach that takes into account the codetermination of inward and outward movement. Through comparison with some of his sources (Hall, Bergson, Ong, Wiener) and with other theorists of technology (Leroi- Gourhan, Flusser, Kittler), the article intends to show how McLuhan was more interested in understanding the human being in his relationship with the media, than in explaining the media using the human model. Working on McLuhan’s specific vocabulary (translation, outering, interiorization, acceleration, amputation), one discovers a conception that involves linguistic, perceptual and operational dimensions. Rather than a strategy of conquest, his notion of extension could be understood as a tactic of protection and playful adaptation to new technological environments.