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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Applicable Today.....Yes!,
By
This review is from: The Medium is the Message (Hardcover)
Marshall McLuhan argued that the content of a medium was irrelevant to the effect of the medium to culture.
McLuhan argued that the application of a technology was less relevant then the inherent effect of the technology itself. It is important to understand what McLuhan considered technology in order to understand how broad of a concept that McLuhan considered his statement on technology to be. McLuhan stated "any technology that ... creates extensions of the human body and senses" (McLuhan 1995, 239). It can be seen from this statement that McLuhan had a very broad definition of technology. Using the word any in a statement that is used as a definition of limitation on an idea or concept is somewhat like using an endless string of ors in a Boolean logic search. A definition of the type that McLuhan puts forth is not limiting but rather endlessly inclusive. Taking the argument from McLuhan one step further it would be fare to say that we cannot always discern the message since it is nearly fully obscured by the medium. The medium itself is emotionless but a lack of emotion or even self-direction does not mean that there is no harm. "Who's going to put new media artists out of business? The process itself. All that cutting edge business cuts both ways - it's a knife that's all blade, no handle" (Brand, 1993). Brand goes even further saying (Brand, 1993) "Has technology swallowed art, and so is art gone now? Or are we so inside technology that from here it's all art? Or is that confusing art with artifice?" The art, or the message, has been completely swallowed by the technology, or the medium. What the content was meant to be is no longer relevant, only the method of communication. I would assert that most members of our culture and society would argue that no method of communication or much less any invention or technology is inherently good or bad. Most members of society or culture would argue that the use to which something is put to determines to good or ill of any idea, item or technology. McLuhan vehemently disagrees with this view. It is apparent from what McLuhan has shown us that we make far too many suppositions in our daily life and planning. Currently we plan the message and then find the correct medium to communicate this idea or concept the furthest and most effectively. Perhaps what is needed is not a content to technology approach rather symbiotic approach. We need to address the fact that the content needs a medium but that medium does not need the content. We need to find ways to make the content such an integral part of any technology of communication that it is useless and more importantly not effective without a separate and clear message. Can technology be addressed in such a way that it plays an equal rather then a superior role to the message? The answer to this question has to be yes but the method of accomplishing this has not been define thus far by anyone that I am aware of and certainly not by I.
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