The Medium is the Message

summary:

McLuhan keeps repeating and demonstrating throughout the article that “the medium is the message,” but what does that phrase actually mean.  What he’s trying to say is that the medium used to deliver a message may actually be stronger than the message it’s self.  Well now that we’ve got the main point what does it actually mean?  Basically McLuhan is trying to say that the way a person chooses to deliver a message may be more important than the message.  Or in even simpler terms he’s saying that the way we receive information could be more important than the information being received.

 connections to course outcome:

This article relates in a few ways to the course outcomes we hope to achieve in Digital Writing.  One outcome is the ability to network which means we have to be able to search for and pick out information that we are presented.  Another outcome is appropriation which is achieved when one knows how to remix content in order to develop new content.  These two outcomes relate to McLuhan because they deal with the way something is presented and being able to decipher the message being presented.

connections to other readings:

After a couple Google searches I came across an interesting article about Twitter. The article gives ten examples of Twitters that are perfect examples of McLuhan’s main message which is the medium is the message.  In order to understand this article you first need to understand that Twitter actually has two definitions.  The first definition of Twitter is that it is an application, or website, which is used to post tweets.  The second definition is that a Twitter is a collection of posts by one person.  For example Russell Brand’s Twitter is @rustyrocket.  The article’s main point is that Twitter, being used as an application, is a medium but is also a message when referring to a collection of a person’s post.  So in this case the medium is exact same thing as the message.  Even though the article was short it really brought up a good point.

works cited:

Syllabus 

McLuhan

Twitter, the Medium is the Message

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