The Medium is the Message

"The Medium is the message," is a well known quote stated in Marshall McLuhan's book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. The phrase is basically stating that different forms of media can affect a viewer in different ways. The information that the media sends to the viewer depends on how it is sent. This theory basically describes how we can perceive objects differently be it in a book or over the tv. I agree with the basic concepts of McLuhan's theory but also feel that digital media has been able to bring information into a more sensible nature.

The ideas that are expressed by McLuhan can still be seen today. People have easily been able to see the entire world through their computer instead of actually physically going there. The wonders that were once read in a book can now be produced using different programs on the computer. A person reading the news from a paper is only able to get a sense of a scene while someone who is watching the scene unfold on tv sees the entire situation. All of this different mediums send different messages and even are able to sell products differently. When a car is seen in motion and a user is able to see the entire interior they begin to have more interest then seeing a flat image in black and white. But McLuhan's thoughts on important content not getting to the viewer has sortuf faded out due to the internet.

The introduction of the internet showed people that their voices can be heard to a certain extent. People have been allowed to comment on news articles right away and blog about a situation that deeply affects them. By allowing this usabilty people have been able to read directly what they need to know and actually not be seen differently due to the medium. But the internet is also a double-edged sword. This is mostly due to the uncredibilty of most posters and the sense that most people will lie and can lie on the internet.

So do I agree with McLuhan or not? Well it's a little bit up in the air. Different mediums have been able to produce different images in people's minds. People can pick up a book and read through it saying it was an incredible novel. While someone could watch the cinema version and say that it was silly and made no sense. But this could all be due to the way we perceive what a book should provide you and what a movie should. The digital world has been able to deteriorate the theory a little bit and actually be seen as something that is there to give you all the facts. That too has issues and most people might see it as an entire network of lies and people looking to profit from false information.

The Medium is the message

"The Medium is the message," is quoted from Marshall McLuhan’s book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. My understanding of what he meant by that phrase is that as much or more of the weight of your message is carried by vehicle in which the content is delivered as the content itself. In other words, the way you say it is just as important if not more so than what you say. While it is an interesting theory that is true in many cases, I don’t necessarily agree with him completely. Especially with the variety and number of outlets for media today.

I think that the deluge of media that we are exposed to on a daily basis has simultaneously numbed us and made us more susceptible. We are exposed to so many images, sounds and words every day that it is very easy to filter them out and hardly realize the sheer quantity of it around us. As marketers know, it is extremely difficult to grab someones attention for even a few seconds. In this case I agree with McLuhan in that some mediums carry very little meaning to us. Where I disagree is that even though we filter out most of the messages we are exposed to in what McLuhan called “cool” mediums they still have an impact on us. TV violence is an example of this. I think that after watching years of physically and verbally violent movies and TV my conflict style has changed. I find myself much more defensive, expecting retribution and less willing to forgive. Sometimes I catch myself feeling that if I have been wronged, even by accident, I deserve the right to get angry, lash out and expect some kind of apology or “payment” for what has been done. I have observed this in others as well. The same applies for the beauty or the auto industry, even though we don’t always buy the specific brand they are trying to sell us, over time we still come to believe that in order to be attractive/accepted you need to look good or drive a nice car. Even though we have learned to ignore the message the impact still effects us.

Another topic that I’m interested in relation to McLuhan is observing how it unfolds in the future is if the same message has a different when distributed via different mediums. Does the validity of a New York Times story differ from the print, web, Kindle or iPhone versions?

The medium is the message

“The medium is the message” is a very well known expression coined by the Canadian educator, philosopher and scholar, Marshall McLuhan .
The phrase was introduced in his most widely known book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964 .
It means the medium in its different forms and characteristics influences the content carried through it and how this message is perceived. The medium in it’s way in carrying the message and the form of it effects the society not only by the content delivered over it .

The idea itself is quiet true which I totally agree with and especially in these days, after the huge development of the media and the new ways in engaging the viewer. The impact of these media is becoming more important than the content it self. for example you would watch a 4D, 3D, or full HD movie not for the plot ( which most of the time is pointless ) you would watch it just because of how attractive the new technology has become.

And part of this is really happening nowadays ,with the several forms of medium which being used to control a society way of thinking against several issues, by giving the true message but with the suitable form of medium which they can guarantee the reaction they want from this society. for example in the news field ( CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, Aljazeera … ) we find the same news delivered to the people but we face different reaction from these people ( and I am talking about people around the world ) and actually it’s because of the way and the form of the medium who carry this news to the people .

The media is part of the message

“The medium is the message” was said by Marshall McLuhan in his book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man published in 1964. The meaning behind the phrase is that the medium is the influential element, not it’s content. Basically he’s saying that it’s not what you say, but how you say it. However, I think that the medium may actually influence the interpretation and effect of the message. Viewing the Sisistine Chappel in Rome may have a significantly greater impact versus looking at it on the internet. You would probably appreciate it more if someone drove to your house to personally thank you for something instead of sending an email.

''By knowing how technology shapes our environment,'' McLuhan once told an interviewer, ''we can transcend its absolutely determining power. Far from regarding technological change as inevitable, I insist that if we understand its components we can turn it off any time we choose. Short of turning it off, there are lots of moderate controls conceivable.''⁽¹⁾ Technically that is true but how realistic is it? Why go buy a newspaper when you can instantly read it on the internet? I would bet that kids these days would much rather go see a movie than read the book on which it’s based.

While on the most part I agree with McLuhan I can’t help but think of what would happen if the world was limited to a single medium, such as computers. Would his theory still apply?

I agree with Elissa that what we do with the technology we develop is as important, and shapes history just as much as the technology itself.

1. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/02/home/mcluhan-obit.html

Art (Postmodern)

As a means to help me grasp what postmodernism is and what it means I opened up an Art History book that I kept from my undergraduate work for a visual reference. ( "Gardner's Art through the Ages", Tansey&Kleiner) In Postmodernism thought the barriers between Art and daily innovation begin to blur. The rules of the rigid modernist are thrown out and the perspective of the viewer/society is what is important. There is no more distinction between arts and crafts. Human reasoning and science take the forefront and they begin to reject popular belief. In Postmodernism there is no more absolute truth, mainly because it may be proved false tomorrow.

The self portrait of Chuck Close, painted in 1968, is a great example of postmodernism expression. The piece expresses egalitarianism, not just for everyday people within our society, but it expresses that everything in our environment has equivalent artistic value. The portrait draws inspiration from the media, a mugshot in harsh lighting that you might see in the newspaper or on the news. He is obviously wearing no make-up, no shirt, his hair is a mess and he is smoking. This is a painting of a real photo of the artist, as he is in everyday life. It rejects the rules of "self portrait painting and that of prior artistic movements. "It confronts us with the Postmodern paradox of the importance of the unimportant in a faceless culture that is full of faces." (Tansey&Kleiner)

A few other web resources listed below describe some characteristics of a "Postmodernist" and also a few more images of graffiti that I thought portrayed the ideals of Postmodernism.



http://weburbanist.com/2008/07/05/8-postmodern-appearances-of-the-mona-lisa-classic-subject-resurfaces-in-urban-street-artworks/

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1907324/7_steps_to_understanding_the_characteristics.html?cat=4

The Medium is the Message

The medium is the message is a phrase by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived.

After reading this article (http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/mcluhan.html) I understand what Marshall was trying to say when he phrased medium (media) is the message. He was deeply concerned about the future of technology and how it would effect human life. I am blown away how some of his predictions are coming true. But, I do think he took things to another level. Advancing our technology is a good thing. There are several things like the computer, cell phones, televisions, and the world wide web, that make our lives earlier. Yes, there are going to be down falls that some people might agree are bad, like time. You loss face to face time/interaction talking to some one on a cell phone. Or the computer, one can email, web cam, search the web, research, pay bills, shop and not leave the house. If Marshall was alive today, he would be concerned that people are loss contact with reality. Or trying to enforce the question of "What does the technology reverse into if it is over-extended?"

Mashall McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan wrote that "the medium is the message"; meaning that the message itself is not as important as the media by which it's conveyed. I take this as, society is impacted more by the effect of the medium than by the production of that medium. I like a lot of what McLuhan is saying. I agree that technology has a significant and profound impact on society. From the creation of primitive tools in modern human's infancy, to the industrial revolution, to current day communications technologies. These media have altered the course of human history in a fundamental way. I also latch onto McLuhan's idea about how technology is an extension of the human body. Especially in today's environment where Facebook and Twitter serve as an extension of our very thoughts, relationships, and more, this seems relevant.

Where it seems McLuhan goes with his ideas, though, is a tad far for me. I think that what we do with the technology we develop is as important, and shapes history just as much as the technology itself. He said that the same cultural impact of the medium would be had regardless of the message. Although I completely get where he's going with the idea, and it's certainly compelling, I don't really buy it. For example, the printing press fundamentally changed our culture and society. It made the major religious, political, and cultural revolutions that have been spawned by the advent of mass communications possible. And while I see that our ability to mass communicate is intrinsically linked to the printing press, what we chose to do with it and its resulting impact on society is certainly relevant.

Hello Post-Modernism, My Old Friend

It's odd to be discussing Post-Modernism again; just seeing the word again made me flash back 20 years or so when you read it all over the place and at the same time made me realize how long it's been since I've seen it. Somewhere in the 90s Post-Modernism sort of dissipated into the general ooze; it became one of those words like "Pop Art" or "Rap Music" that referred to something very important and specific at one time and then became obsolete as the thing it described became so ubiquitous that it wasn't even worth commenting on anymore. Post-Modernism, at least from where I sat, was the subversion of meaning, the notion that symbols, and by extension, ideologies, really could mean anything you wanted them to, or nothing at all--in other words, punk rock. Ideology,of course, was the root and branch of Modernism, the whole idea of Progress. We've lost that now, and we may be better for it, given the damage ideologies did to the world when people took them seriously, but in any case, they're gone. In their place we have the whole cultural notion of "irony"(really sarcasm), the replacement of consensual reality with the ones you make yourself, sampling, Asian-Fusion, New Urbanism, and of course, the Internet. The Internet didn't make Post-Modernism, but the world Post-Modernism created was the perfect soil for it to grow. Now we're so used to appropriating meanings for our own devices that it's hard to remember, or if you can't remember, understand, that there was a time when if you wore a leather jacket and had tattoos, you could only be a biker and if you wore a trucker hat, it meant you drove a truck.

As for old Marshall McLuhan...I never was sure I quite understood that whole "medium is the message" business(something, by the way, that people used to get EXTREMELY EXCITED about). I always took it to be a prediction that content wouldn't matter in the future so much as the way it's presented. I'm not sure that ever happened, exactly--people still value messages for what they actually say. But it certainly is easier than ever to get distracted.

A Digital Divide

Digital media is an extremely important aspect in our lives. Last Tuesday, many of us predicted how the future of digital media will affect our lives for better or for worse. that whole conversation caused me to start thinking about the people who will not have the same experiences we will have with digital media. I believe that the idea of a digital divide is a very important aspect of the present and future of digital technology. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, let me explain. A couple of years ago I was introduced to this idea of a digital divide, which refers to the divide between those who have access to digital information technology and those who do not. This lack of technology leads to the lack of information and knowledge for many. The digital divide is a problem within the U.S. as well as globally. There are different components that contribute to the divide, among them are social/economic status, income, education and race. Millions of people in other countries as well as in our own do not have the same information access that comes with digital technology. As we all know, that information opens many doors. According to an article on wikipedia "countries with a wide availability of internet access can advance the economics of that country on a local and global scale. In today's society, jobs and education are directly related to the internet".
Honestly, I would like your opinion on this. Do you think that this idea of a digital divide is a serious problem or is it something that used to be an issue but is not relevant anymore?
I'm including the digital divide article on wiki that I quoted in case you want to read more about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide

The Medium is the Message

"The Medium is the Message" is the very contextual phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan in the 1960s. McLuhan explains that the meaning of a word, phrase, action, or idea is directly related to the context in which it is used or surrounded by. This means that reading a phrase in a book, and then encountering the same phrase in a movie will create two different experiences because of the inseparable nature of the medium (movie, book, etc.) and its context. This context is generally construed in different ways, conveying sometimes drastically different messages.

Even within a medium itself, movies for example, there are generally sub-layers, or genres, that can even further push this idea. For example, hearing the phrase "oh my God" in a romantic comedy versus a horror movie is creates a drastically different reaction. Yes the same words are being spoken, but even within the same medium, the genre in itself can create a massive change in the overall message of, in this example, words spoken. This idea holds true for many aspects of film. Even a film described as "thrilling" in a review can be interpreted as two completely different things in the aforementioned example.

Marshall McLuhan's phrase was coined in the almost fifty years ago, but its message still carries on today. As technology updates, so does the full meaning of "the medium is the message". New mediums are being created often, and it leaves the artist with more choices, in which to decide how their message will be determined. Design seems to be challenging itself with this phrase more often in recent years. With more and more businesses wanting web sites, offices, products, business cards, and more all at once, designers must constantly deal with consistency in a businesses' message. The challenge is to make all angles communicate the desired message as effective as possible.

At the speed of thought

Digital media has allowed the creation of a global community, one that is diverse and shares a common language. One that makes us part of a whole, but allows us to experience it on our terms. It's presence has shaped a new zeitgeist worldwide. While the technology is still relatively new, it's underlying philosophy existed long before it became part of the mainstream consciousness. The postmodernist movement has gone from theory to practice using digital media as it's vehicle.

The idea of a social networking experience with universal access predates the online world we're a part of today by decades. Digital media serves as an egalitarian and immediate mode of communication. Fulfilling the postmodernist objective of bringing all humanity closer together. While postmodernism is an inclusive mindset, it rejects a one size fits all model. Again, digital media is aligned with postmodernist thought. Digital media allows a self-directed experience that can be fully customized, and tailored to a person's preferences.

In 2006, Time magazine proclaimed it's person of the year to be "You". "We're looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it's just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy." (1) The playing field has been leveled, not only can everyone be someone, they can do so as themselves. It's a concept that reflects the postmodern ideal of prosperity through creativity and diversity.

Digital media has made it possible for new ideas to come from unexpected and an increasingly diverse range of experiences. “where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain.”(2) The consequent divergent thinking sparks more new ideas. Ideas that often feed back to the field of digital media they sprang from. This symbiotic relationship benefits both the medium's capabilities and those who seek to enrich them. Technology has made this process possible, postmodernism helped set this process into motion.

1. Time's Person of the Year: You (2006).

Retrieved August 29, 2009, from Time website:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html

2. Postmodernism, From Wikipedia

Retrieved August 29, 2009, from Wikipedia website:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

The Medium is the Message

One of the dominant ideas of the postmodernism is that the content of a work of art is inseparable from its medium. When we read a book, or watch a movie, or look at a website, a large part of the cognitive interpretation of the “meaning” of that work is done by the simple act of identifying it with that particular medium. To look at it from a different angle, when we are the creator of a work of art or design, our understanding of the medium we are using effects how and what we create; it is a hallmark of Postmodernism that the artist's work circularly examines the nature of the work itself. This is, in part, what Marshal McLuhan meant by the words above. By identifying a book as a book, for example, we unconsciously accept certain conditions. We accept that there are words arranged in sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. We accept that there is a plot or a purpose in these words, which we are trying to get at by reading it (or which we are trying to disseminate by creating it). We accept that there are certain conventions with certain types of books; we don’t expect the same thing from a mystery novel as we do from a cookbook. Before we have even opened the cover or begun writing, we already have done a great deal the interpretation by referring to the patterns and frameworks that are defined in our culture.

This, of course, still applies today, but the rate at which those patterns and frameworks are changing seems to be accelerating. The medium of the website is a good example: only a few years ago, people’s expectation of what a website should be was undeveloped and vague. As opportunities and needs presented themselves, the medium of the internet took shape to fill those needs. Today the concept of a website is much more solid, and there are certain things we now always expect from our online experiences. There are subclasses of the online experience just as there are subclasses of books or movies: e-commerce, social networking, blogs, wikis, etc. These formats are imprinted on because they have proven useful, and as long as they remain useful, they will not completely disappear. But rapid changes in technology allows for greater innovation and experimentation than other media. Whereas the book hasn't changed much in centuries, we can expect the websites of the near future to be drastically different, even if they retain some of the information patterns they have now.

Welcome to the Blog

Welcome students to the blog. When you are done writing your posting, please be sure to click the "Publish Post" button or it will not appear on the blog.

This week's assignments are to either:

• Read the wikipedia entry on Postmodernism and answer the thought questions in the syllabus.

OR

• Research who said, "The Medium is the message." and discuss what it means, do you agree with it or not? Does it apply today...

-Phil