Assignment 9: Why is the medium so important to how we consume digital media?

Marshall Mcluhan stated that “the medium is the message” in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. For example, the computer would be the message instead of the content. He said, “Firearms are in themselves neither good nor bad; it is the way they are used that determines their value.” He stated that people have paid too much attention to the content of media and not the medium in which it is delivered. He wrote, “The message, it seemed, was the “content,” as people used to ask what a painting was about. Yet they never thought to ask what a melody was about, nor what a house or a dress was about”. Instead, Mcluhan wants us to be concerned with the medium the content is distributed in and argues that it is the medium that affects more people. Personally, I found this to be very interesting and I started thinking of how the medium affects my perspective on certain things or how is it possible that some things such as violence can be acceptable on certain mediums and not others. For example, people would find it more acceptable to see a naked body in a film rather than on a  television. I believe this is because as a society we have created certain norms for what a television or a film is supposed to present.

I agree with Mcluhan to an extent. I do believe that the medium is important and we do consume media or information differently on different mediums but Mcluhan fails to give credit to the content we are presented with. I understand that the nature of the medium is what Mcluhan is focusing on but I would not say it is always more important than the message. We could share the same message on different mediums and get different results but if the message is a catastrophe such as the genocide of millions of people then the medium might not outweigh the message. However, analyzing the medium and deconstructing it and seeing how it affects a certain message is important as well. I wish Mcluhan would have paid more attention to opposing views but his argument is interesting.

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