The Medium is the Message or Marshall McLuhan The Medium is the Message or

The Medium is the Massage or

Marshall McLuhan was fond of puns, jokes, and play Marshall McLuhan was fond of puns, jokes, and play. All were part of his unorthodox method Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are his.

I am an intellectual thug… “I am an intellectual thug who has been slowly accumulating a private arsenal with every intention of using it. In a mindless age every insight takes on the character of a lethal weapon. Every man of good will is the enemy of society. I should prefer to de-fuse this gigantic human bomb [technological culture and society] by starting a dialogue somewhere on the side-lines to distract the trigger-men, or to needle the somnambulists.” Letter to Ezra Pound, 1951

McLuhan was a pop icon who revolutionized the way we look at media

Two things to get from McLuhan: The Medium is the Message The Global Village

What does McLuhan mean by medium? "All media are extensions of some human faculty- psychic, or physical.“ For example:

The wheel is an extension of…

the foot

The book is an extension of…

The eye

Clothing is an extension of… Kente cloth from Ghana

the skin.

Electric media is an extension of…

the nervous system Prof. Seung’s Connectome, a neural mapping of individual nervous systems

Electric media for McLuhan was everything from the lightbulb to the computer He wasn't aware of the Web, or social media. He died in 1980. But he saw it coming.

The medium is the message For most people, media is the envelope that contains and transports the message (content). What matters is the message, the content. The letter.

The medium is the message For McLuhan, what matters is how the media, the envelope, the post office, the process of remote messaging, changes the human environment. He doesn't care what's in envelopes, but that they exist.

For McLuhan, the medium is the message.

"Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication."

What you text isn't important. What's important is that everyone you know has a device that texts.

Most people are focused on the content, not the media.

David Sarnoff radio and television pioneer "We are too prone to make technological instruments the scapegoats for the sins of those who wield them. The products of modern science are not in themselves good or bad; it is the way they are used that determines their value.”

McLuhan’s response: "Suppose we were to say, “Apple Pie is in itself neither good nor bad; it is the way that it is used that determines its value”... Again, “Firearms are in themselves neither good nor bad; it is the way that they are used that determines their value”. That is, if the slugs reach the right people firearms are good. If the TV tube fires the right ammunition at the right people it is good."

Why don't we see all this? Why are we so oblivious?

Because like fish in water, media is the environment all around us. We're so used to it we don't even notice it.

In HWKWWK, we want you to be aware of the media environment because if the water is bad, the fish is in trouble.

"Environments are not passive wrappings, but are, rather, active processes which are invisible. The ground rules, pervasive structure, and over-all patterns of environments elude easy perception. Anti-environments, or countersituations made by artists, provide means of direct attention and enable us to see and understand more clearly."

So how does it work? Let's take an example: The printed word

Books before printing were rare, unique, and non-linear.

With the advent of mechanical printing, books became ubiquitous, uniform, and linear.

This technological change had an incredible impact on people and human society.

McLuhan cites several changes caused by the media of printing. The rise of the "individual“ The primacy of vision Seeing the world as linear, structured, uniform Mechanization Commodification Solitude as a societal value Detachment and non-involvement Authorship Industrialization Public education Nationalism

Printing and Nationalism The uniformity of books, and their mass produced ubiquity, meant: The end of regional differences. The establishment of state run public education The sense of a shared group destiny and status A 'correct“ (national) language: grammar, spelling, syntax, and pronunciation

In the electric age, the demise of the printed word may mean the end of nationalism, and nations. McLuhan called this "the global village."

"Electric circuitry has overthrown the regime of “time” and “space” and pours upon us instantly and continuously the concerns of all other men. It has reconstituted dialogue on a global scale. Its message is Total Change, ending psychic, social, economic, and political parochialism. The old civic, state, and national groupings have become unworkable."

"Electric circuitry has overthrown the regime of “time” and “space” and pours upon us instantly and continuously the concerns of all other men.”

"The global village is a return to the tribal world that existed in pre-literacy" Qagyuhl dancers Farmers in Mali Tribal Extension of aural Communal, holistic Handcrafted Pre-literate Typographic Extension of visual Individual Specialization and fragmentation Mechanical Literate Electric Age Extension of nervous system Inclusive, interconnected Pattern, Mosaic Virtual (electronic) Post-literate?

"The electric media will create a world of dropouts from the old fragmented society, with its neatly compartmentalized analytic functions, and cause people to drop in to the new integrated global- village community."

Finally, a warning... "Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit from taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don't really have any rights left. Leasing our eyes and ears and nerves to commercial interests is like handing over the common speech to a private corporation, or like giving the earth's atmosphere to a company as a monopoly."