Medium is the Message.

Marshall McLuhan coined the saying “the medium is the message”. McLuhanis a technological determinist who some people might not know, “but is considered by many to be the first father and leading prophet of the
electronic age”. (www.leaderu.com). He would argue that technology determines our patterns and trends in our society and culture. When he
stated that “medium is the message” what he meant was that in every
message there is a medium so therefore the medium influences how people understand the message. Medium can be defined as anything that can change or manipulate the way in which we look at something. Messages can be sent through such mediums as televisions, Internet, radio, magazines, newspapers, blogs, etc.

While watching television you are focused solely on the screen which is composed of many tiny dots that make up the images. These images on the television make our brain work really hard to comprehend what we are looking at. Our minds become focused on the “message”. We can usually control what we see since vision is continual, but when watching television or the “medium” we lose the ability to control what our brains are taking in and what we are watching or “the message”. Therefore “The medium is the message”.

As for the Internet, there are many ways also that demonstrates Marshall McLuhan’s idea. A couple famous websites on the Internet are Wikipedia, YouTube, and my favorite Perez Hilton. On Wikipedia and YouTube any body can submit or change the information on these sites, which changes the way people see things all the time, these websites are controlled by the people. This is showing just how much the medium changes and controls our society.


People in our society may not notice how much the medium really effects us. In “Understanding Radio” the presidents were listened to during debates on the radio. The people liked Nixon more than JFK and tended to agree with him. However, the story changes when the two presidents were seen on the television. Once the people saw the two presidents the people were convinced that JFK must be better for office because of his good looks and charisma. Little did they know it but the medium had influenced them and changed their thinking and the way they saw things.

McLuhan believes that there are “patterns” in life. In the McLuhan video he describes that it’s when people realize these patterns that they want to change it and a lot of them are dropouts. McLuhan references Hippies as people who realize the pattern. People don’t usually notice these patterns, but when they are drastically changed and their routine is changed people do notice. These changes usually occur from a new message from a new medium. In Mark Federman’s “What is the meaning of the medium is the message” he says ,”McLuhan tells us that a "message" is, "the change of scale or pace or pattern" that a new invention or innovation "introduces into human affairs." This describes the change in patterns caused by the message. The point is that technology is ever changing and it’s hard to control. As technology grows and changes our minds have to adapt, we have to teach and train our minds to see and comprehend messages faster.

Along with our minds adapting to technology, technology now allows us to bring in even more information then it used to. Television now allows us to Tivo and DVR shows etc. This allows people to tape shows and watch them over and over, controlling how we now see live television shows and television in general. Another example is instant replays, which McLuhan discussed in the video. Instant replays show the people maybe something that was amazing or how the player got hurt etc. Instant replays the “medium” although not ever noticeable has very much changed things in our society. They have made aspects of the sport/game change, there are now huge screen in arenas to watch instant replays, and sometimes people even bring small T.V.s to watch them up close and personal.

Thinking about Marshall McLuhan’s idea of “The medium is the message” I see how it fits in my generation and how it’s true. Facebook is very popular and a lot of advertisers and companies are now taking advantage of it to get through to people. This has changed our society and the way our culture works. Although his saying is hard to understand and people don’t often notice it, it makes complete sense.