读麦讲演在光速下生活（1974）012

　　This is really just an opening theme. I want to mention, by way of explaining my own approach to these matters, that my kind of study in communication is a study of transformation, whereas information theory and all the existing theories of communication that I know of are theories of transformation. All the official theories of communication studied in the schools of North America are theories of how you move data from point A to point B to point C with minimal distortion. That is not what I study at all. Information theory I understand and I use, but information theory is a theory of transportation, and it has nothing to do with the effects which these forms have on you. It’s like a railway train concerned with moving goods along a track. The track may be blocked, may be interfered with. The problem in the transportation theory of communication is to get the noise, get the interference off the track and let it go through. Many educators think that the problem in education is just to get the information through, get it past the barrier, the opposition of the young, just to move it and keep it going. I don’t have much interest in that theory. My theory or concern is with what these media do to the people who use them. What did writing do to the people who invented it and used it? What do the other media of our time do to the people who use them? Mine is a transformation theory, how people are changed by the instruments they employ. And I wish there were a lot more people in this field that I mention of transformation, but there are extremely few, and I would be embarrassed to mention more than two or three.
　　这实际上只是一个开局的主题。通过解释我自己对这些问题的看法，我想说的是，在传播学方面我这种类型的研究是一种关于转化的研究，而信息论和我所知的各种现有传播学理论都是关于转移的理论。北美院校里被人研究的所有官方的传播理论都是关于如何以最小失真将数据从A点转移到B点再到C点的理论。这根本不是我研究的东西。信息论我懂、我也用，信息论绝对是一种关于转移的理论，它与这些形式对你的作用影响无关。这就像一列负责沿着一条铁路运送货物的火车，这条线路可能被阻塞，也可能受到干扰。通信传输理论中的问题是要将噪音、干扰从线路中移除从而使之畅通。许多教育工作者认为，教育的问题就是要让信息被理解，使之越过障碍——年轻人的对立——就是要使之运转、要使之不停顿地继续下去。我对那种理论不太感兴趣。我的理论或关注是这些媒介对使用它们的人们产生什么影响，书写对发明并运用书写的人们产生什么影响？我们时代的其余媒介对使用它们的人们产生什么影响？我的理论是一种转化理论，即，人们是如何被他们使用的工具所改造的。我也希望在我谈到的转化这一领域里有更多的人，然而人相当少，我都不好意思说不止两三人。
　　按： 麦氏夫子自道。麦氏类型的媒介研究，研究的是转化，人被他使用的媒介、技术所转化。相形之下，各种学院派传播理论研究的是转移，信息的转移包括干扰、噪音以及系统的存续，研究的目标不在于各种信息技术、信息媒介对人、对群体、对社会的作用影响。
　　书面-机械的教育体系的目的在于让内容被年轻人理解接受，而不关注内容或媒介对年轻人个人及群体乃至环境的作用影响。除此以外，教育体系的目的更在于自身的存续。使之运转，move it，快点！