The Medium is the Message. BBC Radio 4.

Дата публикации: May 07, 2015 6:38:14 AM

Is the form that you receive a message as significant as the message itself? Marshall McLuhan argued that throughout history what has been communicated has been less important than the particular medium through which people communicate. The technology that transfers the message changes us and changes society, the individual, the family, work, leisure and more.

Narrated by Gillian Anderson. Scripted by Nigel Warburton.

From the BBC Radio 4 series about life's big questions - A History of Ideas.

This project is from the BBC in partnership with The Open University, the animations were created by Cognitive.

Script

"The Medium is the Message", declared Marshall McLuhan. He even wrote a book with that name except that when approves came back from the typesetter, as "The Medium is the Massage", he liked the mistake in the title so much he kept it. This is confused people of a sentence though he minded intended the visual part on massage and mass age.

But what is "The Medium is the Message" really mean? It's a deliberately paradoxical statement. When you get a message, it's the message that's the message, isn't it? The content rather than it's form. McLuhan's genius was to focus on the medium itself. He argued that through out history, what has been communicated, has been less important than the particular medium through which people communicate.

The technology that transfers the message changes us and changes society, the individual, the family, work, leisure and them all. Take the shift from oral cultures to print-based ones, for example, McLuhan thought the printed word encourage an emphasis on the visual where as in earlier oral cultures, when speech was everything, the dominate sense organ had been the ear.

The electronic media of his day: the telegraph, radio, television and the telephone were he thought unifying people and encouraging participation due perhaps of the expense of greater conformity. What was a merging, was some kind of global village. It's almost as if, he was writing about the Internet.

2.

"The Medium is the Message", declared Marshall McLuhan. He even wrote a book with that name except the one, the proofs came back from the typesetter, as "The Medium is the Massage", he liked the mistake in the title so much he kept it. This has confused people ever since though he might have intended the visual pun on massage and mass age.

But what is "The Medium is the Message" really mean? It's a deliberately paradoxical statement. When you get a message, it's the message that's the message, isn't it? The content rather than it's form. McLuhan's genius was to focus on the medium itself. He argued that throughout history, what has been communicated, has been less important than the particular medium through which people communicate.

The technology that transfers the message changes us and changes society, the individual, the family, work, leisure and all. Take the shift from oral cultures to print-based ones, for example, McLuhan thought the printed word encourage an emphasis on the visual where as in earlier oral cultures, when speech was everything, the dominate sense organ had been the ear.

The electronic media of his day: the telegraph, radio, television and the telephone were he thought unifying people and encouraging participation though perhaps at the expense of greater conformity. What was a merging, was some kind of global village. It's almost as if, he was writing about the Internet.