Marco Adria is an author and expert on online communications, social media, and public involvement. His book, Technology and Nationalism, won the Lewis Mumford Award from the New York-based Media Ecology Association. He is a Professor Emeritus of Communication, University of Alberta. In 2015-16 he was Visiting Professor of Communication, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico.

In the news . . .
Media appearances

24 February 2016, Calgary Journal
Read the article
On what Marshall McLuhan might say about augmented reality: "It may create a loop of information and images, making it difficult to, for example, draw on memory and experience rather than information, or provide time for contemplation in place of continuous analysis."

28 January 2016, Edmonton Journal
Read the article
On completion of renovations at McLuhan House: "There’s a multimedia installation created by local artist and McLuhan scholar Marco Adria, an interactive sculpture made out of flickering TV screens, where the viewer’s real-time video image shares pride of place with archival television footage."

4 April 2014, Edmonton Journal
Read the article
On the Internet and the new nationalisms: "The Internet can function like an echo chamber, a place in which the only voices we hear are very much like our own. We can communicate with anyone around the world, and we do. But particularly in times in which we experience fear or anger, we can use the Internet to retreat to closed online groups."

14 March 2014, Economic Pulse, Central Alberta TV
On privacy and broadband: "We're going to continue to debate this question about the privacy of individuals' information. [Canada is] a minority in the world and in history with this idea that we have private information. . . . Other cultures don't have that sense of privacy and never have. The question historically is whether we're going to be able to maintain privacy of information."

11 December 2013, Alberta PrimeTime, CTV2
On the numbing effect of media: “The Internet experience is one of extreme juxtapositions. We see war scenes from Syria, horrific scenes of death and destruction, followed by a puppy story. We get used to this, and it’s part of the numbing experience of the Internet. It’s a more intense version of what began with the newspaper and on television, these violent shifts of perspective.”

11 December 2013, Alberta@Noon, CBC Radio 1
Listen to the podcast
On Canada Post’s announcement that it will reduce its services: “The home is a more isolated place today than it was previously. . . . Although cancelling home delivery is a relatively small change, the Canadian way of life is changing today as a result of the Internet. . . . History indicates that even when there are significant disadvantages for the disabled, it doesn't slow down the implementation of new technologies."

11 December 2013, CBC News Online
Read the article
On the loss of door-to-door mail delivery in Canada: "Canada Post started a number of years ago with this strategy of setting up the community mailboxes. It's been relatively successful. People don't really mind going down the block to get the mail . . . and now what we have is a balance of quite a few people [who] don't have the door-to-door service and so the reaction against it is going to be significant but it's going to be manageable."

11 July 2013, Alberta@Noon, CBC Radio 1
Listen to the podcast
On privatizing Canada Post: "Every sovereign country has a postal service, so I don't think we'd want to fall behind in that way. . . . All countries need to be able to communicate with their citizens, without the danger of an individual's privacy or autonomy of action being encroached. . . . Your words online get mixed with other people's words, so your individuality is given up a little, and that can be a good thing when you're trading ideas online. But when you receive a letter delivered by Canada Post, no one else can look at that. If they do, you have recourse under the law. . . .  But I would be very surprised if door-to-door service exists in two years."

19 April 2013, Edmonton Journal
Read the article
On Marshall McLuhan's view of early television: "McLuhan was getting the sense of the all-pervasiveness of the television screen that people didn't understand when they were watching these friendly, funny shows. This technology was bound to become us."

30 January 2013, Alberta Primetime, CTV2
On self-photoshopping on the web: “We’ve been colourizing photos for 75 years, fixing some of the imperfections. What’s different now is the pace at which we put things online. . . . We have always looked for approval, for the ‘likes’ that Facebook offers. We expect those ‘likes’ to come much more quickly now.”

21 November 2012, Alberta@Noon, CBC Radio 1
On the fate of the Christmas card in the age of social media: “What you hear in these comments [from callers] is the transformation of the Christmas card, rather than a decline. There are something like a couple of billion Christmas cards still sold each year in the U.S. and Canada, so they’re not disappearing entirely. But in the past if you wanted to look at a stack of Christmas cards in July, you’d have to go into the archive, into your closet. Now you can go online and see all the things people are doing with Christmas cards. So in a way this mode of expression has declined. In another way it has branched out and blossomed in a way that we couldn’t have imagined previously.”

28 September 2011, CTV News
On the online generational divide: “When browsing the Web, for older people there’s a need to work through the logic and sequence of daily events, whereas young people see everything at once.”

27 June 2011, Alberta Primetime, CTV2
On the postal strike with the advent of email: "No single group - union, management, or public - was satisfied with the outcome of the strike. Centralization of mail-processing centres by Canada Post will continue, the final-offer selection method that was imposed to resolve the salary negotiations is usually not preferred by unions, and most importantly the opportunity for the public to comment on service changes was lost for the foreseeable future."

8 June 2011, Alberta Primetime, CTV2
On the postal strike and privacy of messages: "The right to private communication through the postal system is a relatively new development, from the 20th century. Some services of Canada Post are not likely to be in demand as online services proliferate. For example, about three-quarters of Canadians now pay their routine utility bills online. However, the right to private communications protected by law, which the posted letter still offers, will be of increasing, not decreasing, value to Canadians."

2 June 2011, CityTV
On the postal strike and changes in the role of Canada Post: "By law, no one may open the letter you receive through Canada Post. It's protection that Canadians will continue to value for the foreseeable future, even if the kind of services Canada Post provides are transformed."

31 May 2011, Alberta@Noon, CBC Radio 1
Listen to the podcast
On postal mail and privacy: "In an age of surveillance and identity theft, the personal letter sent by post for either business or personal purposes is a uniquely private form of communication. Now that telephone books are significantly reduced as an index of individual identity, the loss of a postal address would leave people much closer to the disembodied identity predicted by communication scholars."

19 May 2011, CBC News Online
Read the blog
On Facebook as a site for memorializing the dead: "Talking to the dead online can be easier than talking to people in real life, which can be messy and not turn out as you want."

27 August 2010, Figure/Ground website
Visit the website
On new media and the design of cities: "We’re now seeing something to which Marshall McLuhan pointed long ago, which is that the city is a 'composite.' In the language of the Internet, the city is a mash-up. Media can be understood not just as allowing us to see the city more closely and more intensively, they are also what we see."