Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message

Marshall McLuhan

This week’s reading consisted of Marshall McLuhan’s idea that “The Medium is the Message” in which is the first chapter of McLuhan’s book, “Understanding Media”. I will be looking at specific aspects of this chapter and interpreting what I find the most intriguing about his statement. Personally, it was a very complicated text, however I found some aspects of it to be very intriguing and I wished to find some actual definition of his statement.

“We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.”

McLuhan, M. (2001 [1964])

The medium more important
than media content

In the first chapter, McLuhan describes how the medium is more important than actual media content. He makes several relevant points to make this point stand out. Actual media content can not tell us how the media works or how we are affected or how we respond and or act due to the media. McLuhan believed that, ‘the reconstructing of human work and association was shaped by the technique of fragmentation that is the essence of machine technology’. McLuhan here suggests that the use of new technology has shaped society and by doing so has also affected society. This could also touch on the idea that due to the changes in modes of communication in which shape human life, (i.e. from the uses of print (Print Age), right up to the Electronic Age and then to the invention of social networking websites (Facebook)).  Due to the addition of new technology, it has helped shape society and human life.

Artful Communication

Another way in which McLuhan looks beyond the idea that media is something that connects and also has to do with the relaying of information is the fact that the media can be seen as an amplifier. This is an extension, (according to McLuhan) of some human faculty. He refers to these types of mediums as “Technological Extensions” in which amplify our senses and allow us to find deeper meaning. A number of examples are, the camera being the sense of sight; the phone a sense of hearing etc. Technological extensions allow us to enhance our senses. (In other words ‘amplify’ our senses.) McLuhan also formed four laws of extensions in which describe the different types. I was able to recognise different types by following his four laws.

Technology as extension to ourselves

From the idea of Technological Extensions, we can refer to Harraway (1991: 150) idea that human beings are cyborgs. A cyborg is hybrid of machines and organisms. This idea was very complicated to get my head around, but through tuition and the breaking down of ideas, it became clear that the simplest of things in actual fact suggest that we, as human beings, could be cyborgs. For example, a hearing aid to help someone with a hearing impediment is seen as a machine, therefore does that not make that person a cyborg? At first, I was not convinced by this idea, however looking into the subject in a little more depth helped my understanding.

I stand by my first point that McLuhan’s writing was somewhat unclear; however being able to write about it was the harder part. With the process of studying deeper meanings of what McLuhan was trying to say about the idea that ‘the Medium is the Message’. I personally agree with most of his points that he was making, however I do think that there was some irrelevancy about the topic.