Learning Unit 4:
The Medium is the Message
Marshall McLuhan
After Walter Lippmann, Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) is the second important name we are going to study in depth in this course.
Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian scholar, a philosopher and media theorist who, in some way, revolutionized the world of mass communication studies during the 1960s and 70s. He had a deep humanistic background and his studies are the work of an outsider, an independent mind apart from the most important methodological fashions of the time.
His famous phrase: The Medium Is the Message, became an indispensable reference to understand the effects of mass communication, which, as you should already know, is a form of mediated communication.
Our goal in this lecture is to understand what the author meant with this phrase.
McLuhan was always a controversial figure in the academic world who was not shy to use the media himself.
Here you can see the author in a cameo role in Woody Allen’s film Annie Hall:
In addition to Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964), the book we will discuss here, another important works of the author are:
- The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of the Typographic Man (1962)
- War and Peace in the Global Village (1968)
In this link, you can download the whole book. Still, we will focus on our course only in the two first chapters:
- The Medium Is the Message and
- Media Hot and Cold
Guidelines for the Reading of Understanding Media
Understanding Media is, no doubt, the most difficult text that you will have to deal with in this course.
The following questions may help you understand the key concepts to understand McLuhan’s ideas – and also to succeed in this course.
Technological Determinism
- Could you explain what technological determinism is?
- Can you give examples of how new technologies impact individual or social life?
Extensions of Man
- How can technology be considered and extension of man?
- Can you find examples of such extensions?
- And why is amputation, according to McLuhan, the counterpart of extension?
Media as Extension of Man
This is the section McLuhan dedicates to the mass media. According to the author, media are a form of technology, and such, could be considered an extension of man (of the human being).
- How can media (mass or any other kind of communication medium) be considered an extension of man?
- Give examples.
Electricity as a Medium
One of the difficulties of understanding Marshall McLuhan is that he uses the most unusual examples to explain his ideas. For instance, when talking about media as extensions of man, he does not use Radio, TV or newspapers as examples, but electricity.
- How can electricity be regarded as a medium?
The Medium is the Message
If you have been able to answer all the questions above based on your reading, you should now be able to answer the starting question:
- What is the meaning of McLuhan’s famous phrase “The Medium Is the Message”?
Hot vs. Cold Media
And finally, after you have understood how the medium becomes the message, you should be able to move on to the next chapter in the book:
- What is the difference between hot and cold media?
- Always find examples, since I will expect you to use them in the exams.