The paradoxical effects of macluhanisme: Cazeneuve,Baudrillard and Barthes

In the mid-1960s the controversial ideas of media guru Marshall McLuhan hit France like a cyclone. ‘Macluhanisme’ is the summarization of the basic tenets of his theory and marks the paradoxical mire into which one was thrown by engaging with them. For to criticize McLuhan was to resist his truth by rationalization. Criticism. also put one in the position of being labelled a counter-revolutionary since McLuhan aligned himself, albeit rhetorically and despite his conservative politics, with counter-cultural tendencies. Moreover, he was condemned by university professors as a charlatan, but widely supported by media workers. This support exposed the political issue of who was, in French intellectual life, in a position to authenticate ideas. This study traces the effects of macluhanisme through the work of the sociologist of the media and administrator Jean Cazeneuve, the cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard, whose debts to McLuhan are well-recognized but little explored, and Roland Barthes, with whom McLuhan met in Paris to discuss (but never accomplished) a collaborative project.