Is media the message?

I remember when I played Super Mario for the first time. I spent 3–4 hours sitting in front of the TV without any moves. I was immersed deeply into it as if I were inside the game. Games have always been one of the favorite, joyful medium that people have enjoyed. As the technology developed, the excitement the game conveys have increased as well.

As Marshall McLuhan states in The Gadget Lover, “we have become aware of technology as an extension of our physical body” game industry have grown, creating an atmosphere which allowing people to deeply involve. In 2000, Sony playstation was dominating the overall game market, however there were significant decrease in users who were playing computer games. In 2006, Nintendo came up with a new game called “Wii”, a game not only young people can enjoy but also elders as well. With the advanced technology, people were able use their bodies to be a part of the game simulation, creating involvement in depth.

Kittler states “we knew nothing about our senses until media provided models”. Games play a vital role for helping children with autism and also many other medical ways as well. Nowadays, lots of tech companies invest thousands of dollars to use the game platform, as a tool for educating children. However, we can also find the side effect this medium brings. We can often find an article illustrating a crime, a person who was excessively engaged into games led to a murder, because of a confusion between the real world and the virtual world. With the examples stated above, in marshall’s view, medium has the power not only shape the society but also creating a new social issue.

On the other hand, William argues “whether the theory and the practice can be changed will depend not on the fixed properties of the medium nor on the necessary character of its institutions, but on a continually renewable social action and struggle”. In William’s perspective, technological computer games might be an effect of social needs who wants to engage more into entertainment. If the game does not exists, there could be other medium which satisfies the people and the social needs.

I worked in an advertising agency, where medium plays a crucial role of creating revenue. For me, Marshall McLuhan’s view toward the medium was more convincing. After all, while working in the company, it was interesting to see how technology creates a new media, a new platform to engage people to the system and also creating beneficial value to the society.

Marshall McLuhan, “The Medium is the Message,” “Media, Hot and Cold,” and “The Gadget Lover,” Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964).

Friedrich Kittler, Optical Media, (Malden, MA: Polity, 2010), “Theoretical Suppositions,” 29–46. Optional introduction (of use for discussion leaders and understanding Kittler’s background): John Durham Peters, “Kittler’s Light Shows.”

Raymond Williams, “The Technology and the Society” and “Effects of the Technology and its Uses,” Television (London: Fontana/Routledge, 1974).