Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage

Citation: McLuhan, Marshall and Fiore, Quentin. The Medium is the Massage. New York: Bantom Books, 1967. Print.

Summary:

Although we only read a fragment of this text, we were still able to grasp the main point of the text, which is “Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication,” (8).…In other words, the means by which information is relayed (be it text, television, internet) affects people more than the information itself….form supersedes content. It is incredible how relevant this text still is today in our digital age of information when we consider that it was written in 1967. The text, which is peppered with curious and seemingly random (but very deliberate) images has a cautionary, almost advisory feel to it, warning that society and people can be completely altered by technology and the ever-changing modes of communication….it speaks of the hesitancies and fears surrounding “womb-to-tomb surveillance” (12) and the increasing obsolescence of the traditional education, “where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects, and schedules” (18). However, it manages to retain a thread of optimism for the benefits that technology can bring society, like inevitable awareness and the necessity of being involved with one another… “Too many people know too much about each other. Our new environment compels commitment and participation, we have become irrevocably involved with, and responsible for, each other” (24).

Response:

I was pretty fascinated by this text, feeling a little unnerved and shaken from the cautionary insinuations, but put it down feeling equally optimistic at the same time. I really enjoyed the format of the reading as well…the short snippets of provocative and profound text interspersed with thoughtful images…it was effective. I appreciated that McLuhan emphasizes the fact that technology affects every aspect of our lives… it’s a massage that leaves “no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered” (26),  a realization that undoubtedly reference’s Schivelbusch’s  thoughts toward technology altering our perception of time and space in The Railway Journey.   Also, I was amazed at how relevant this text seemed for today’s Facebook culture…ideas were presented in the text that could almost be considered prophesies when we consider when the text was written. Ideas like, “The family circle has widened. The worldpool of information fathered by electric media….Character no longer is shaped by only two earnest, fumbling experts. Now all the world’s a sage,” (14), which definitely suggests the Facebook frenzy we live in, and the expanding idea of the significance of “self-education” done through electronic media methods, like The Khan Academy or YouTube videos. I found the idea of voluntary surveillance and voyeurism extremely interesting and again prophetic in a sense…it’s something the majority of people are now participating in. Now we “follow” people on a variety of websites, and we don’t mind being “followed,” despite how creepy it is in actuality!! It is strange how we are involved with each other on websites like Facebook, yet this involvement is also detached:  we are “connected,” but doing it alone and in the privacy of our own home. I do not participate on Facebook nearly as much as other people in my life do, and I don’t really know why. I am connected through email which now exists on the smartphone I carry with me almost at all times, but I rarely go on Facebook and feel really overwhelmed when I do.  But I also feel really left out in a sense to do these decisions…news takes place on Facebook, “Events” that I should know about are conceived,” and now there isn’t any other way for me to remember someone’s birthday. I guess what I fear is obsolescence. I don’t want to have these devices be my only portal to interaction with others, but that is the path it seems to be taking for others. “If it didn’t happen on Facebook it didn’t happen at all” is now a common saying, and to me that’s pretty pathetic. I’d rather form real-life relationships with people rather than cyber ones…I’d rather call and wish someone happy birthday rather than “liking” the fact that it’s their birthday on the internet. Call me old-school…I know I should participate more on the interweb because it is undeniably a great tool for communication, and because that is where “everything” is “happening” now…but it’s also all happening right in front of our faces.