A Deeper Look Into “The Medium Is The Massage”

Marshall McLuhan’s “ The Medium Is The Message” speaks about how electronic technology has affected our lives and reshaped our culture. When talking about electronic technology, McLuhan calls this the medium. He says “ The medium, or process, of our time- electric technology- is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life” (p.8). By this, I think McLuhan is focusing on how electronic technology has changed our lives since the oral and scribal phase and transitioned us into the modern and postmodern world. After learning about these eras and how they each differ, I can see how the media has caused this change of social patterns in our lives.

McLuhan starts the book by talking about the mediums affects and consequences on the individual, our family, our education, work life, government, ECT. He says “everything is changing-you, your family, your neighborhood, your education, your job, your government, your relation to “ the others.” And they’re changing dramatically” (p.8)

This part of the book stuck with me the most because I believe that what he is arguing is still true today. For example, when speaking about you, he talks about our lack of privacy as individuals. He says, “The older, traditional ideas of private, isolated thoughts and actions-the patterns of mechanistic technologies-are very seriously threatened by new methods of instantaneous electric information retrieval….” (p.12) Prior to the postmodern era, the individual had a large amount of privacy because the Internet did not exist. Today, we are constantly being watched online and when using electronic media. Whether you are searching the web or having a phone conversation, the government has access to our every move. Our old traditional ideas of privacy have diminished.

Another example that McLuhan brings up in his book is “your family”. When speaking about family McLuhan brings up the argument that our character and who we are used to be shaped by our mothers and fathers but that is no longer true. What I think he means by this, is that today children have access to a large amount of information through the media. Instead of being influenced solely by your mother and father, children are now influenced by what they see on television and what they read online. Electronic media has a strong influence on our actions and behaviors because we tend to follow what we read or hear.

This idea of people teaching themselves through electronic technology is further touched upon when McLuhan speaks about work and education. When talking about work, he speaks about how in the past people had to specialize and know certain skill sets in order to get a job. With electronic media, specifically the Internet, people can now teach themselves anything in a matter of seconds. For example, I am someone who loves YouTube. Anytime I want to learn how to do a new hairstyle or makeup look, I simply watch a YouTube tutorial and teach myself things that professionals know. In terms of education, children are no longer learning through the classroom but also by the medium or electric information outside of the classroom.

After reflecting on this section of the book, it was crazy to see how much I could relate to what McLuhan was saying when he said “ all media work over us completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered” (p. 26) Living in the digital age and reading this book has opened up my eyes and made me realize how largely i am affected by the media. There isn’t a day where i am not learning new things on the internet or searching for new information.