Among this week's readings is a work by seminal communications expert Marshall McLuhan, "The Medium is the Message." McLuhan asserts that the medium by which content is delivered is just as important, maybe even more so actually, than the content itself. Thus the medium can be a message in and of itself regardless of the content. Hmm, very interesting.
As evidence of this mutually dependent relationship McLuhan cites technologies as ubiquitious as electric light, and figures as varied as Alexis De Tocqueville and Napoleon Bonaparte. Said Napoleon, "Three hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets." No disrespect to McLuhan but I believe his analysis is a little flawed. Let's examine for a second McLuhan's own evidence with the Napoleon quote. Napoleon had it right. A hostile press can do far more damage than a thousand bayonets. And why might that be? Because of the content. Inflammatory rhetoric has a reach that extends far beyond any battlefield and has the added advantage of being self renewing. Information is infinite and has no mass. Unlike weapons, rhetoric doesn't require proximity to be effective. Additionally, rhetoric, i.e. content, has the power to mobilize mass mobs of opposition - opposition that is of course well armed. Hence it's not the medium - the newspaper - that mobilizes but the content of said newspaper. Articles detailing the latest exploits of Ke$sha or Justin Bieber don't inspire civil unrest, (not necessarily anyway) but exposes on social injustice do. Just ask the leaders of Egypt. Oh wait, we can't.
The events unfolding right now in Egypt are yet another example of the power of the message. When the government there literally shut down the internet it begged the question, why? Were Egyptian teens spending too much time playing Cityville? Was Mubarak peeved because ElBaradei had more Facebook friends? I doubt it. However could a growing resistance movement be mobilized, organized and united by a an uninterrupted flow of information? Yes. Could the flames of discontent be fed by fresh reports of abuses and injustices? You bet. By shutting down the internet the government was attempting to stifle the flow of information because it is information that inspires uprisings.
That's not to say that the medium bears no significance in the equation. Indeed it is both the medium and the message working in tandem that challenges the status quo. My argument is simply that the message may be slightly superior to the medium because without which the medium loses it's value. Again, this is supported by McLuhan's own examples. What good would a working light bulb be if we couldn't make use of it's light to consume content? We don't read the light bulb we use the light bulb to read the paper - or the blog as it were. The relationship between content and medium is mutually dependent but not necessarily one of equals.
Tameka, gutsy move to disagree with McLuhan. I like it! I’m not sure I agree with you when you say, "my argument is simply that the message may be slightly superior to the medium because without which the medium loses it's value." Is McLuhan’s argument that one is superior to the other or that we must understand the power dynamic between the two.
ReplyDelete"For the 'message' of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduce into human affairs." - Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Message
I like the newspaper example, though I disagree. Absolutely, in a situation where libel is involved, it is the content that is indeed doing some type of harm, however you have to look at the medium (the newspaper) and understand how it has shaped the way in which we interpret the words in that paper. Without the medium itself we wouldn't have the opportunity to even define libel or know how to begin feeling about it.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with Yvonne though, gutsy going against McLuhan and do you make a good argument.
Yah, McLuhan writes in a kooky psychoanalytic language... not untypical for his generation.
ReplyDeleteI believe what he really means to say is that technology is an extension of self that changes human experience and society. He wants people to understand this because once a technology becomes ubiquitous it becomes second nature and people have a hard time seeing outside it.
You could say that the theories and language of Freud and Jung were a technology that created a new lens in which to see ourselves and each other, and McLuhan is using this lens.... luckily we have better lenses now :p
The medium and the message are both important, but it is what we do with the medium that matters. The same goes for any medium, but if the medium never existed than there would be no message.
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