On JPod

From a draught essay this term (edited):

["Douglas Coupland"'s arrival into the novel in his large black SUV]. These surreal developments within the narrative of JPod suggest that, for Coupland, the content of a work does not convey its social message, but rather the form of the medium itself does: in this case, the Gutenberg text. Marshall McLuhan is engaged by Coupland's text through its formal arrangement. By including the computer as the central dialogue, Coupland effectively comments on the new medium by making it itself the message. That is, the content of JPod is not the plot but the work within the plot: an integration of internet and language, which, as McLuhan argues, appropriates both as art, and therefore, in this radical sense, the book's message.