The Medium and the Message
Any reader will recognize that this book is more than just a book: it is a piece of art in and of itself. With the turn of every page, the book becomes increasingly more and more beautiful and more and more interesting in its content. The size of the book is small which provides the reader a sense of intimacy and easy handling. The reader gets a peaceful personal experience as he or she reads through each well-thought-out page. McLuhan uses metaphors and numerous examples to pursue and explain his strongly held beliefs. He is a truly original free thinker who approaches his subject matter with enthusiasm. Overall, McLuhan believes that the media is an “extension” of our human bodies and our minds.
McLuhan starts off by talking about the medium as the process. He states that, “electronic technology is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life (8).” I agree with this and am reminded of how far electronic technology has come and where our electronic technology is today: “Cyborg level ones” with our computers and cell phones permanently attached.
Although this book was published in 1967, McLuhan was able to anticipate and predict what a significant impact technology would have on our total society and culture; it is now part and parcel of our entire social interdependence.
McLuhan continually writes about how man has viewed the world and how these views were and are transformed by the adoption of new media. The wonderful aspect about McLuhan’s approach is that McLuhan does not talk about technology negatively but rather as a positive part of life: McLuhan is uplifting.
McLuhan talks about the medium as the process and how the medium itself really refers to art and how the artist works or creates. McLuhan is an advocate for the artist and for artists to offer explanations as to what is happening in and to our culture and how that culture affects us all. McLuhan believes that the artist is often not “well-adjusted” to culture which is caused by the artist not being able to accept and go along with the current trends. “A strange bond often exists among anti-social types in their power to see environments as they really are.” I agree with this completely; the artist is confronting situations and making statements regarding society, culture and its impact on individuals and vice versa. If one is involved in interpreting situations around them, it is difficult to confront it totally subjectively or objectively. It often takes someone, i.e., an artist who is removed or out of the “mainstream” to obtain sufficient distance from that which is being observed. This “distancing” allows for a different perspective and this in essence is the artistic process.
McLuhan often refers to past and present and how those two interact. He sees the past as comfortable and the present, which is new, causing problems and confusion. He perceives a huge difference between the pre-TV and the post-TV generations. He considers the post-television crowd as more earnest, “more dedicated.” McLuhan believes that “Television evolves the sense of active, exploratory, touch which involves all the senses simultaneously, rather than that of sight alone (123).” He views television as not working as a background, but rather it engaging you, in order to create a full experience. Even though people do use television as a background, that is clearly not its intent; it is meant to be watched. I love the cartoon on page 128; it has a couple watching television and the caption says, “When you consider television’s awesome power to educate, aren’t you thankful it doesn’t.” I believe this is a misconception about television, as we are definitely learning from it good or bad; although we often are not utilizing television as much as an educational learning device as we probably could. Television is a powerful educational tool.
McLuhan writes that the environment also has much to do with the actual message. “Environments are not passive wrappings, but are, rather, active processes which are invisible (69).” McLuhan believes that we build a preconceived notion from our surroundings and our surroundings effect how we feel and how we see things. Artists make counter-environments or anti-environments which help make things clearer from the artist’s perspective and therefore ultimately clearer to our culture and society.
I love McLuhan, not only for what he has provided as his message, but also because he looks at the artist as almost a “godlike” figure. He is the first theorist that we have read, thus far, that really puts the artist on a pedestal. This is evident in both his writings and also in the way he purposely presents his book as a piece of art: The font choice, the images, and how it reads. In an interview recited in the book, McLuhan says that he is “neither an artist nor a scientist”; but I suspect that he is just a “great thinker,” and what could be more “artistic” than that. McLuhan comes full circle: Let’s do the math: Thinking equals art equals medium equals message.
