The Medium is the Message

Marshall McLuhan was, amongst his many endeavors, a professor of English literature whose work is widely considered to be a foundation for the study of media theory. In fact, his achievements won him the honor of being titled the "patron saint" of Wired magazine. In his book The Medium is the Massage, McLuhan aims to "consider the psychic and social consequences of the designs or patterns that amplify or accelerate existing processes". In simpler terms, McLuhan believes that the medium in which a message is conveyed through directly affects and influences how the message is perceived.

Marshall McLuhan by Monsteroftheid

Furthermore, McLuhan states that "It is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action. The content or uses of such media are as diverse as they are ineffectual in shaping the form of human association." He goes on to state  that cubism seizes on instant total awareness,  and therefor encapsulates the idea that the medium is the message.

McLuhan continually assures the reader that the message was once about "content", saying that people used to ask what a painting was about, but that in this electric age we should focus more upon the medium than the message, or content. I agree with McLuhan in that the medium definitely has a strong effect on the message that is trying to be conveyed, but I don't agree that the medium should take preeminence to the content. Perhaps being an artist who follows a more traditionalist view of painting has quite an effect on my opinion, but personally, I wouldn't be "doing" art if all I was focused upon was the medium in which I wanted to convey my ideas. I wouldn't want to cast away my ideas for the purposes McLuhan was trying to have us be attentive to, if he indeed wanted people to solely focus upon mediums instead of content. In fact, I would throw away my painters brush if I thought viewers of my art were only interested in seeing it due to the fact that its on a canvas and that I used oil paints, rather than the content of the painting.

I understood McLuhan's points about the fact that the medium affects the message, but I reject his idea that this concept is what we should be focusing on. It seemed as though he wants people to focus more on media theories and derivations and mediums rather than focusing upon the actual substances of subject matter. I don't think that we as a society would achieve anything if we focused upon the fact that a painting is on a canvas rather than what is actually portrayed IN the painting. And so while I understand McLuhan's assertions that mediums do have an inherent influence upon messages, I don't believe that they should require more attention than what is actually being conveyed by the message.

On a side note, I found this video of McLuhan discussing his term "the global village" highly relevant to what the world is experiencing today, with resources and online communities like Twitter and Facebook.



Furthermore, I thought it would be interesting to illustrate McLuhan's idea that the medium is the message by showing various "renditions" of the Mona Lisa, and seeing if the viewer really finds the medium more influential than the actual picture... so here goes the "experiement":

The Mona Lisa in chocolate

Mona Lisa jigsaw puzzle

Mona Lisa as toast

Mona Lisa as styrofoam bust

The true Mona Lisa, oil on poplar panel

Is the medium the message?